Stop gaslighting yourselves, secrecy with devices is abnormal

BahRamEwe · 15/09/2026 20:56

I haven’t RTFT but my husband and I know one another’s PIN numbers. We leave our phones unattended around each other all the time, for example if I’m out in the garden or taking a shower.

There’s nothing to hide so we don’t need to be protective over our phones, that being said if I got out of the shower and my DH was looking in my phone I’d go mad! It is an invasion of privacy.

I wouldn’t want him reading my WhatsApps with my girlfriends and I wouldn’t do that to him.

So I sit somewhere in between, I think it’s secretive and weird to not know your other half’s PIN number, but I think it’s equally weird/controlling to do check ins or look through their phone.

I suppose the “trust someone until they give you a reason not to” should be applied. I’d be looking at behaviour around devices more than anything….

Won’t leave a phone unattended, phone always placed face down, always on silent, panicking if it can’t be found or has been misplaced… All red flags.

AllHoityToity · 15/09/2026 14:09

What bollocks.

Tryingtokeepgoing · 15/09/2026 14:02

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 05:23

Oh, and the polling was 50/50 until nearly the end, should have made it a 3 day poll.

Never mind, everything I said is absolutely true. Take care of yourselves, and don't be abused by sneaky gaslighters. xo

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To be more accurate, all you can say is that everything you have said is true about your relationship, as its clear from most of the replies that it is not true about most peoples relationships. And I do feel for you if your relationship has lead you to feel so insecure. I'd urge you to take a look at that issue and address it, and not project your insecurity onto others :)

Thechickenhasmypillow · 15/09/2026 13:57

BugJuice · 14/09/2026 03:47

Pre personal devices, I never read anyone else’s mail nor listened in to their phone calls. Because privacy has always been important.

Exactly.
I still take phone calls to another room.
I'd never open anyone else's post and I'd be furious if anyone else opened mine.
My phone holds my banking, investments, medical details and my purchases.

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 15/09/2026 08:44

Ncforthis2267 · 15/09/2026 08:03

This whole thread stinks of AI. Is this the start of the AI bots taking over? Going to bore us to death with nonsensical bullcrap?

I don't think so. AI tends to be quite measured and articulate.

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 15/09/2026 08:43

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 02:41

Good luck to the OPs who are having to deal with abusive hubands and also having to deal with gaslighting abuse from people pretending being secretive and sly is normal.

It's so awful to see you feeling as though you must excuse perfectly normal behaviour in your initial posts - before you can even receive a single kind word, a bit of comfort or some advice. It's so abusive that women shout other women down and pretend that being sly and secretive is normal.

I'm so sorry. Do what you need to protect yourself from his abuse. And of course it's bizarre and telling if he's hiding things from you and demanding to be allowed to be sly and secretive.

Normal, decent people in standard relationships do NOT behave like this. They are simply not bothered by access to devices. As I said - we have complete access to each other's devices, just like nearly everyone past the age of 21, and we very rarely use that access, but of course we can. Because that's normal when you are living together and sharing your life.

You must learn to totally ignore them, don't feed the fantasy that it's normal to be sly. Don't even response to their interrogation, just as you would ignore anybody who tells you to accept abuse and tries to victim blame you.

There are always loud voices on this site from abusive, sly and secretive people who need for their own ulterior motives to attempt to normalise their behaviour and shout down normal expectations.

There are also women who themselves have been gaslit for so long they actually have managed to convince themselves secrecy is normal in a relationship.

It's not. This is a very new and very sinister expectation.

But it's ok, there is no need to accept that gaslighting nonsense.

This post is for you, not for them. Liars, sly people and cheats will do anything to try to convince you that it's normal to be sly.

Instead, do as I do, have an absolutely normal, standard, trusting relationship. And totally ignore the gaslighters :) 😎

Always remember, people who are sly and secretive are very definitely hiding something. They're the abnormal ones. Not you.

Let me help you.

Expressing a different opinion is not gaslighting.

Respecting a partner's right to privacy does not make them sly or secretive.

Checking a partner's phone is not an effective way of protecting someone from abuse.

Relationships work much better when there is genuine trust.

You can conduct your own relationship in whatever way works for you and your partner. That doesn't mean that your approach would be suitable or desirable for others.

Ncforthis2267 · 15/09/2026 08:03

This whole thread stinks of AI. Is this the start of the AI bots taking over? Going to bore us to death with nonsensical bullcrap?

WyrdHag · 15/09/2026 07:59

If I hadn't had a personal device I'd have struggled to get out of my abusive marriage.

It was actually a paper letter from Royal Mail confirming redirection of my post that instigated me telling my XH I was leaving (it was addressed to The Occupier and he opened it while I was out - thankfully his reaction, whilst bad, was not as awful as I'd feared).

There are plenty of reasons beyond cheating why someone would want to be private around a personal device.

You clearly have an axe to grind.

tigger1001 · 15/09/2026 07:53

As others have said - privacy and secrecy are two different things.

it is not normal or healthy to expect access to someone else's phone/laptop - just like it was never normal behaviour to demand to read letters or to listen in to phone calls.

plenty of very legitimate reasons as to why it's not acceptable to access someone else's phone.

massive red flags in anyone who insists that they do get passcodes/unfettered access. If someone asked, and the person agrees that's different. But no one should ever insist.

Respecting boundaries is a massive thing. Privacy is a massive boundary for me - with good reason. Sadly experienced first hand someone who ignored that, and was abusive. Never again. My phone is mine. And mine alone.

BitOutOfPractice · 15/09/2026 07:51

I tell you what’s more annoying than phone secrecy. Bossy bold italics that’s what.

Boomer55 · 15/09/2026 07:49

My late husband and I knew each others passwords etc. We never snooped on each other, because we trusted each other.

Same with my current partner. We know each other’s passwords, but wouldn’t snoop. Because we trust each other.

If I really thought my partner was secretive and sly, I’d be gone anyway, as it’s pointless living like that. 🙄

Wanting privacy is different to being secretive.

Thepeopleversuswork · 15/09/2026 07:49

Why are you so invested in other couples approaches to privacy though? You come across like a real zealot and it has no impact on your life whatsoever.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 15/09/2026 07:40

PollyBell · 15/09/2026 05:56

Please explain how this is gaslighting?

Show quote history

It isn't, and OP appears utterly incapable of grasping that Privacy is not "Secrecy", using your phone's in-built security is not "gaslighting", and neither are people who expect others to respect basic privacy "secretive and sly".

Whole lot of baseless projection going on, and nonsensical claims that simply don't bear scrutiny. i.e. OP is utterly full of it.

GreyCarpet · 15/09/2026 07:15

Good luck to the OPs who are having to deal with abusive hubands and also having to deal with gaslighting abuse from people pretending being secretive and sly is normal.

Being abusive and wanting privacy are separate issues though.

My partner and I know each other's pass codes but would never access each others phones without the other's consent. Eg we give each other our phones to pay for a round at the bar, to choose music to play, to search for something online if the other person's phone is in the house and we're in the garden

Does that mean we should just accesss each other's phones whenever we fancy? No and I would have a huge problem with it if I found him just looking through my phone as he probably would with me.

There is a huge difference between wanting privacy and being 'secretive and sly'.

IDrinkTeaAllTheTime · 15/09/2026 06:33

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 02:41

Good luck to the OPs who are having to deal with abusive hubands and also having to deal with gaslighting abuse from people pretending being secretive and sly is normal.

It's so awful to see you feeling as though you must excuse perfectly normal behaviour in your initial posts - before you can even receive a single kind word, a bit of comfort or some advice. It's so abusive that women shout other women down and pretend that being sly and secretive is normal.

I'm so sorry. Do what you need to protect yourself from his abuse. And of course it's bizarre and telling if he's hiding things from you and demanding to be allowed to be sly and secretive.

Normal, decent people in standard relationships do NOT behave like this. They are simply not bothered by access to devices. As I said - we have complete access to each other's devices, just like nearly everyone past the age of 21, and we very rarely use that access, but of course we can. Because that's normal when you are living together and sharing your life.

You must learn to totally ignore them, don't feed the fantasy that it's normal to be sly. Don't even response to their interrogation, just as you would ignore anybody who tells you to accept abuse and tries to victim blame you.

There are always loud voices on this site from abusive, sly and secretive people who need for their own ulterior motives to attempt to normalise their behaviour and shout down normal expectations.

There are also women who themselves have been gaslit for so long they actually have managed to convince themselves secrecy is normal in a relationship.

It's not. This is a very new and very sinister expectation.

But it's ok, there is no need to accept that gaslighting nonsense.

This post is for you, not for them. Liars, sly people and cheats will do anything to try to convince you that it's normal to be sly.

Instead, do as I do, have an absolutely normal, standard, trusting relationship. And totally ignore the gaslighters :) 😎

Always remember, people who are sly and secretive are very definitely hiding something. They're the abnormal ones. Not you.

You honestly sound like one of those nutters out there trying to get people to join their cult.

PollyBell · 15/09/2026 05:56

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 02:41

Good luck to the OPs who are having to deal with abusive hubands and also having to deal with gaslighting abuse from people pretending being secretive and sly is normal.

It's so awful to see you feeling as though you must excuse perfectly normal behaviour in your initial posts - before you can even receive a single kind word, a bit of comfort or some advice. It's so abusive that women shout other women down and pretend that being sly and secretive is normal.

I'm so sorry. Do what you need to protect yourself from his abuse. And of course it's bizarre and telling if he's hiding things from you and demanding to be allowed to be sly and secretive.

Normal, decent people in standard relationships do NOT behave like this. They are simply not bothered by access to devices. As I said - we have complete access to each other's devices, just like nearly everyone past the age of 21, and we very rarely use that access, but of course we can. Because that's normal when you are living together and sharing your life.

You must learn to totally ignore them, don't feed the fantasy that it's normal to be sly. Don't even response to their interrogation, just as you would ignore anybody who tells you to accept abuse and tries to victim blame you.

There are always loud voices on this site from abusive, sly and secretive people who need for their own ulterior motives to attempt to normalise their behaviour and shout down normal expectations.

There are also women who themselves have been gaslit for so long they actually have managed to convince themselves secrecy is normal in a relationship.

It's not. This is a very new and very sinister expectation.

But it's ok, there is no need to accept that gaslighting nonsense.

This post is for you, not for them. Liars, sly people and cheats will do anything to try to convince you that it's normal to be sly.

Instead, do as I do, have an absolutely normal, standard, trusting relationship. And totally ignore the gaslighters :) 😎

Always remember, people who are sly and secretive are very definitely hiding something. They're the abnormal ones. Not you.

Please explain how this is gaslighting?

Original poster

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 05:23

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 14/09/2026 03:33

About 25 years ago, the internet started creating a whole new set of problems for relationships, when it suddenly became possible for people to be secretive and sneaky in ways they simply could not have been before.

For the vast majority of human history it's been totally standard to be obvious about communicating with others.

Until very recently, to communicate you either phoned on a landline and had to run the gauntlet of whoever might answer the phone, you wrote them a letter which could quite easily be seen arriving on the doormat, you knocked on their front door, or you went somewhere and met them, which meant you had to physically go out of your way to keep it secret.

But somehow over the last 15 or 20 years some have been massively gaslighted into believing that secrecy is somehow a normal and healthy part of a relationship.

It's not.

There are a core few women on this site who will instantly jump in and tell you being secretive with devices is just privacy.

It's not. It's a very new issue and it's not remotely normal.

These people are very much in the minority, but they are mouthy and quick to jump on any OP discussing their discovery of abuse by their husband/partner through messages/emails.

You must learn to totally ignore them, don't feed the fantasy that it's normal to be sly. Don't even response to their interrogation, just as you would ignore anybody who tells you to accept abuse and tries to victim blame you.

You don't have to just meekly accept this bizarre gaslighting as standard.

We have complete access to each other's devices, just like nearly everyone past the age of 21, and we very rarely use that access, but of course we can. Because that's normal when you are living together and sharing your life.

If someone is saying that you are somehow just as bad as your cheating, abusive partner because you checked their phone, they are lying to you. If they are claiming looking at someone's device is abuse they are lying to you.

They themselves are secretive and sly, or they have been very badly gaslit.

And no need at all to mention coercive control, that's a completely different issue and you are definitely not worried about that at all. You're just trying to deflect.

We're talking about normal relationships, where deliberately hiding access to devices is sly, it's secrecy and it's a big problem. It's not normal.

If your response to someone exposing their partner for cheating or abusing them through messages is to immediately ask how they managed to access those messages, then congratulations, you have basically outed yourself as either a cheater or an abuser - or you need to reassess the level of gaslighting you have internalised.

Make ignoring these ridiculous questions the norm and absolutely ignore these attempts to derail and cover up abusive behaviour. Get back to normalising reality.

It's normal, standard and fine to look at your husband/wife/partner's devices.

Only cheaters, liars and those who've been gaslit could possibly believe otherwise.

And no, you don't think I'm coercive or abusive. And if you claim you do, you're projecting.

Oh, and the polling was 50/50 until nearly the end, should have made it a 3 day poll.

Never mind, everything I said is absolutely true. Take care of yourselves, and don't be abused by sneaky gaslighters. xo

OP posts:

Original poster

somewhereovertherainbow26 · 15/09/2026 02:41

Good luck to the OPs who are having to deal with abusive hubands and also having to deal with gaslighting abuse from people pretending being secretive and sly is normal.

It's so awful to see you feeling as though you must excuse perfectly normal behaviour in your initial posts - before you can even receive a single kind word, a bit of comfort or some advice. It's so abusive that women shout other women down and pretend that being sly and secretive is normal.

I'm so sorry. Do what you need to protect yourself from his abuse. And of course it's bizarre and telling if he's hiding things from you and demanding to be allowed to be sly and secretive.

Normal, decent people in standard relationships do NOT behave like this. They are simply not bothered by access to devices. As I said - we have complete access to each other's devices, just like nearly everyone past the age of 21, and we very rarely use that access, but of course we can. Because that's normal when you are living together and sharing your life.

You must learn to totally ignore them, don't feed the fantasy that it's normal to be sly. Don't even response to their interrogation, just as you would ignore anybody who tells you to accept abuse and tries to victim blame you.

There are always loud voices on this site from abusive, sly and secretive people who need for their own ulterior motives to attempt to normalise their behaviour and shout down normal expectations.

There are also women who themselves have been gaslit for so long they actually have managed to convince themselves secrecy is normal in a relationship.

It's not. This is a very new and very sinister expectation.

But it's ok, there is no need to accept that gaslighting nonsense.

This post is for you, not for them. Liars, sly people and cheats will do anything to try to convince you that it's normal to be sly.

Instead, do as I do, have an absolutely normal, standard, trusting relationship. And totally ignore the gaslighters :) 😎

Always remember, people who are sly and secretive are very definitely hiding something. They're the abnormal ones. Not you.

OP posts:

Boomer55 · 14/09/2026 16:14

MightyGoldBear · 14/09/2026 10:14

I'm all for "snooping" if it means a woman doesn't waste the next 10 years of her life with a man that doesn't share her same values and morals. If all the signs are there and someone needs proof I'd not be villifying them in the name of privacy. I find it odd that privacy on your phone should trump all the other things we share in life children finances families etc but phone oh no that's top secret.

Clearly we all enjoy different boundaries and different relationships. I would only enter a relationship with a open tech policy. I value transparency. That doesn't mean anyone is checking and going through things it means we value transparency and the relationship more than secrecy. I wouldn't enter a relationship with anyone who didn't share these values. My husband is more than happy with this neither of us care or have anything to hide. We share everything. That's great for us and equally fine for other people to want different in their relationships.

Are you also ok with men snooping on women?

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 14/09/2026 16:12

Yawn.

If you want to monitor your partner and deny them their privacy, then it's for your partner to decide whether they are willing to tolerate this. Please don't try to tell the rest of us that we're wrong if we feel differently.

Personally, I would not tolerate it. Not because I have anything to hide - I haven't! - but because I am entitled to my privacy and I'm really not interested in being in a relationship with someone who doesn't trust me.

If my DH insisted on checking my phone, he would find nothing untoward. However, the insistence on checking would speak volumes about the state of our relationship.

As it happens, I do know the pass code for DH's phone from occasions when he has asked me to do something on it. I would never check his phone though, and I would only access it if he specifically asked me to do so for some reason.

I don't think DH knows my pass code but I wouldn't mind if he did, because I trust that he wouldn't abuse it to invade my privacy in any case.

I think anyone who insists that couples are entitled to check each other's phones must be either incredibly controlling or incredibly insecure in the relationship. Perhaps both. If you don't fundamentally trust your partner, then you don't really have a partnership worth preserving imo.

AmberTigerEyes · 14/09/2026 15:58

BugJuice · 14/09/2026 08:05

Obviously no one was ever able to conduct an affair prior to the launch of mobile telephones 😁

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Or use messenger birds to send secret intelligence…

TellingBone · 14/09/2026 14:45

'You must' 'Do this' 'Do that' 🙄

You're not the boss of me.

MightyGoldBear · 14/09/2026 14:01

BugJuice · 14/09/2026 13:39

Have you told your friends that there’s a chance your partner might be reading their messages to you? I think that would just be common courtesy.

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Yes they aren't bothered because they do the same.

We are talking using eachothers phone to check the weather or Google something. Not nightly going through every message call or app used. If a message pops up or one of us is driving can't reply then we will reply for the other. It really all is pretty harmless.

BugJuice · 14/09/2026 13:39

MightyGoldBear · 14/09/2026 12:13

This is a nuanced topic. There does exist an alternative to abuse or controlling/insecure behaviour. Where both partners of their own free will just choose to have open tech. That will shouldn't threaten anyone else choosing differently in their own relationships.

Have you told your friends that there’s a chance your partner might be reading their messages to you? I think that would just be common courtesy.

Thepeopleversuswork · 14/09/2026 13:13

FudgeFudy · 14/09/2026 13:03

Does anybody else remember the scene in Trainspotting where there's a group of women in a club all chatting about their partners/shagging, and then their male partners also in a group talking about their partners/snagging? When one of the women asks the men what they're talking about they all reply 'football'. When one of the men asks the women what they're talking about they all say 'shopping'.

OK it's fiction, but it does illustrate that the concept of communicating with your friends in a manner that you wouldn't necessarily want to share with your partner isn't exactly a new one. Doubtless there are some people who will say that they would never ever say anything that they wouldn't be perfectly happy with their partner hearing. To which my first response is 'pull the other one', and my second is that if it is true it's a bit tragic really.

Totally agree (and yes I do remember that scene!)

I can’t think of anything worse than my other half seeing some of the drivel that I chat with my friends about on WhatsApp.

It’s nothing bad, certainly nothing pejorative to him but it’s a private discussion that doesn’t concern him. Its also not my place to allow him access to my friends’ private thoughts and anxieties.

It makes me wonder if some of the people who ruthlessly guard their husband’s tech have any friends…