I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for just under a year and, overall, he’s lovely. Kind, funny, has a good job, owns his own place. I genuinely thought I’d found one of the good ones.Then something happened last weekend that has completely thrown me.
We were out for dinner about 45 minutes from where we live when his phone rang. He glanced at it, sighed and said, “It’s Mum.”
He answered and the first thing she said was, “Why are you in Oxford? I thought you were just going into town.”
I laughed because I assumed she’d seen a photo on social media or something. But after he hung up I asked how she knew where we were. He looked at me as if it was completely normal and said, “Oh, she can see my location.” I asked if he’d shared it with her because we were meeting up afterwards “No,” he said. “She’s always had it. Apparently she set it up years ago “for safety” when he first moved away from home, and neither of them has ever turned it off.
I said that was unusual for a 31 year old man. He shrugged and said, “It makes her happy.”
The next morning we decided to drive to the coast on a whim. About halfway there his phone buzzed. His mum had texted: “Didn’t realise you liked Brighton. Weather’s nicer where you are than here.” An hour later another message: “You’re parked a long way from the seafront.” Then “Are you staying overnight? I hope you’ve booked somewhere decent.”
When we got back to the hotel, he admitted she checks his location “a few times a day”. He laughed and said she gets worried if he stays in one place for too long because she wonders if he’s been in an accident.
He confessed she also has alerts set up so she gets notified when he arrives at work and when he gets home. Apparently she texted him once asking why he’d left work at 2pm.
He’d gone to the dentist. Then I found out she’s rung him before because she saw he was at a retail park and wanted him to pop into M&S for her.
A couple of days ago I was at his flat when the doorbell rang. His mum had popped round completely unannounced. When he asked why she’d come over she said “Well, your location said you were home and you hadn’t replied to my text.” She genuinely couldn’t understand why that might be crossing a line.
My boyfriend insists it’s harmless, says she’s just anxious, and thinks I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. He says, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, why does it matter if she knows where I am?” I’ve tried explaining that it’s not about hiding anything and that it’s about having some privacy and boundaries as an adult.
Then yesterday, he casually asked if I’d be willing to share my location with him permanently because “it would make things easier.” When I asked why, he admitted his mum had suggested it so she’d know where both of us were if we were together.
AIBU to think this is completely bizarre, or is this more common than I realise?