Life 360 app - partner defensive about downloading?

[IamCuriousGeorge]

My sister recently told me about the life 360 app, where we can use a personal code to see where each other are, so tracking eachother. It appears to work pretty well and she is now on time out of the house when I pick her up for work .. because she can see how far away I am 😂

I mentioned the app to DP and asked if he would download it so I could see where he is - for context; he works quite far from home, and he often rings me when he’s on his way home to start dinner (because we like to eat as a family before kids go to bed) and sometimes I end up missing his call, then he misses mine, then he’s got no signal ect ect. So I suggested he should download the app, then I can see how far off home he is.
he also works very late some evenings and I’m a bit of a worry wort being home alone so I feel like I get a bit of comfort out of being able to see where he is essentially. I explained all this to DP and he immediately was defensive about downloading the app. At first he said he didn’t want to faff around downloading it, I said I could do it for him, he then said he didn’t want other people tracking him, I explained it’s a code that’s only shared from me too him so only I can see.

I mean, I know he can say no but it was the defensiveness that caught me off guard.

and as a huge plot twist (sorry) I recently found a ring in the house in the kitchen, and thought it might have been left by one of my friends; but I asked my friends, I asked my family and everyone I could think of and no one recognises it. I even put it down to possibly DD toddler maybe pinching it from nursery, I asked nurse us and they didn’t recognise it either but I assumed it must be someone’s that we know and kept it in the cupboard until figured out. We’ve never found out.

the defensiveness about me knowing where he is made the ring situation poo back into my head and now I just feel like I’ve lost a bit of trust.

he asked how I would feel if he wanted to know where I am all the time. But personally I don’t care, that’s fine - I’m either at home, at the shops or at work - I have nothing to hide. I feel like he does.

I feel caught between a rock and a hard place as I get that I can’t demand to ‘track’ him all the time but equally.. why not when he’s only ever supposedly working, working late or at home?

I sort of wish I’d never asked, it was initially just a question and I didn’t think I’d mind if he said no. But his demeanour has made me mind 😩

PS, I never would have put an AirTag on him anyway; as much as I wanted him to download an app so I can see where he is when I want to.. I wanted it to be agreeable between us not not going behind his back.

That.

I find the obsession with knowing where people are every second of the day, really creepy. The normalising of trackers and in home cameras really disturbs me. There seems to be no such thing as privacy any more. What will we accept next? Government surveillance? I have no issue with anonymous CCTV in public areas, but tracking known individuals and having cameras watching and recording conversations in your own home? I find that absolutely awful.

If any partner asked me to download the app, and didn't accept my refusal, it would probably sound the death knell to the relationship.

I’m not going to lie, read that back, can you see the stalker vibe in it?

It’s a no from me. I’d never let anyone track me even though I’m nowhere special. I also wouldn’t want to track my partner

I'm the most loyal faithful person out there. I've never been up to no good, but I would not want my Dp to track me and I wouldn't dream of asking him. It's too intrusive.

I actually have the app for my daughter and he has it for his son, but we wouldn't have it together

We used to have Life360 on our and our DCs phones and it was very useful for knowing what time people would be back.

We never insisted that they keep it on all the time though.

I haven't used it for a couple of years now as they have all left home but doesn't it still have the option to turn tracking on and off? We always turned it off apart from when we wanted to be tracked. I think that helped with the battery usage too.

My life is spent in the house, at college/work, driving between the 2 and a weekly trip to Aldi (maybe Sainsbury's if I'm feeling posh) so nothing interesting going on there. No way would I agree to a tracking ap on my phone. It's intrusive even if you want it for the right reasons.
And the suggestion of putting an AirTag on him (which I know you have said you wouldn't do) I don't even know where to start with that one.

I hate this surveillance stuff it’s incredibly creepy and weird. I’m with your DP. If you don’t trust him, that’s a separate issue.

Except it doesn't help you be a calmer person. Addressing your irrational worries would do that, this just helps you self soothe by invading the privacy of those around you in a way that is less annoying to them. It's really manipulative.

Me and my partner have each others location on, we have since we first started seeing each other for reason you describe. It does give me comfort that I could find where he is if he had an accident or something as well. So it's not weird imo, but it's not for everyone so don't take that alone as a clue towards cheating. The ring is a puzzle though!

@CallItLoneliness it's not manipulative. Stop looking for problems where there aren't any, they're both consenting to it 🙄

We use Life360 in our family and there are no trust or control issues. We’ve been married for nearly 20 years! We like technology and don’t have a problem with being ‘tracked’.

If your DH had responded that he would prefer not to use an app like that then I would think fair enough. But the excuses about I can’t be bothered or whatever sound a bit more suspicious to me. Along with the ring which could indicate something. Mind you we had a random sock turn up in the washing once that I never found an owner for. It didn’t make me distrust DH. Ultimately only you know the state of your relationship and whether it’s possible he has cheated.

Only from a man

its suggested to women quite a lot on here with very little challenge

Men don’t belong to someone
a marriage is not ownership

I totally understand why your dh doesn't want to be tracked. He shouldn't have said the cba to download excuse because that has muddied things.

If you are of an anxious nature then location tracking may create more problems than it solves. How would you feel if he wasn't where you thought he was ? Or taking a route that you wouldn't? How would you feel if he accidentally put his phone on airplane mode so his location was inaccurate or he started leaving his phone in the car or at work so that you can't track him?
Location on phones can be faked. How much trust would you have in the technology? Would a tracker lead you to checking more and noting things like how many minutes he spends at places ?

If you truly want it for emergencies then can I suggest you get one of the apps that texts the other person that you checked their location ? I don't know what they are called but I've read discussion on them and they are considered helpful when parents want the option to track a teen and they don't want to be tracked but might compromise if they get notifications each time they are checked on. You will still be accountable to your husband on why you felt the need to check but hopefully it will mean that you don't check very often if at all.

I don't want to be constantly tracked by anyone. Nor do I want to constantly track my family or DP, despite having anxiety about their safety. I have shared my location with my DP and he with me when we are doing bike rides. This was mainly during lockdown when we couldn't see each other, and it was a way of connecting with each other and we could talk about where we'd been etc.

I found it actually made my anxiety worse (out of lockdown) when he did it as if he'd stopped moving for any reason I'd then start worrying it was because he'd had a crash etc - when usually it was helping someone else, flat tyre, having a break.

Tracking wasn't a thing when my older kids were younger, so I don't really see why I need it for my youngest (it's part of the family link thing on his phone) so I don't really look at it. If he wants to take a detour on his way home then that's up to him.

How am I manipulating them if they have both agreed to use it?

Ds certainly finds it handy if he’s on a day off and sees that I am in Tesco and and asks me to get him snacks!

I’m not invading their privacy. If they didn’t want to be tracked, they could stop sharing their location with me, it’s one easy button.

No one has a problem with it.

my reply goes for you as well @gkhg . Giving someone a choice between being made responsible for your anxiety and/or called all the time, and being tracked isn't really a choice. That's why it's manipulative.

Alongside this, normalisation of constant location tracking in households (something that simply wasn't available even 15 years ago, and wasn't widely available 10 years ago) actually makes it harder for people who have very good reasons not to want to be tracked (abusive partner for example) to refuse consent when "everyone does it". It also makes it harder for law enforcement to discriminate between consensual tracking and nonconsensual tracking. See for example this advice from the Australian government https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide/location-sharing.

If the conversation is between two people who have equal social and financial power in the relationship, and goes something like "hey, it would be convenient to know where you are, should we share location?" "yeah, actually I can see the value in it/no actually that sounds weird" "ok, sure" then it isn't manipulative. Nearly anything else is--and again, as a reminder I am an academic who studies this stuff.

Well everyone in my family is very happy and we all get on fabulously and find my friends is a total non issue to us.

I’ve just looked on it now and seen that dh is 10 mins away, coming back from a work trip, so I am about to put the kettle on and make him some lunch and he will be chuffed to come though the door to find a hot cup of tea and a bacon sandwich waiting for him after a long drive.

Some people use it for control. Some of us use it to get a bacon sarnie on and to check of a loved one has arrived somewhere safely.

@CallItLoneliness I'm not even reading your reply, you can't talk for all relationships and definitely not mine. Some people are just not bothered, some are

I'm just here to join the chorus of i have nothing to hide but think tracking your partner is strange.

IMO it's something you would only use in an emergency.

I'd say the ring could easily have been brought in on a shoe or someone could have found it in the street, picked it up and forgot about it then it fell out their pocket or a million other ways it could have gotten into the house that aren't cheating.

normalisation of constant location tracking in households (something that simply wasn't available even 15 years ago, and wasn't widely available 10 years ago) actually makes it harder for people who have very good reasons not to want to be tracked (abusive partner for example) to refuse consent when "everyone does it".

I absolutely agree, and have made similar points on past threads about this. Same with cameras INSIDE the house. I was really shocked at how many MNers think that's absolutely fine, and leave them switched on all the time (not 'just' when they go out). It gives abusers the green light, and the abused no way to protest 'because it's normal...loads of people have them'

Even as a visitor I'd be appalled to find that I'd been videoed while visiting a friend. One MNer even said that her husband watches from his phone at work occasionally when her friends are round. And she thought this was fine. I was horrified.

You're acting creepy. Tracking someone? Bloody hell.