AIBU to feel irritated? OH kids reading his phone...

[Crowdblundering]

OH works away, other side of country then sometimes away for months (think military).

Our main method of communication is texting as often not able to speak on phone as driving/work schedules don't match (and OH has a habit of phoning but not having a lot to say!).

Also on his phone he has several very private photos of me.

He's on a course this week and in the town his DDs live in so taking them out to dinner (which is lovely). He phoned me then I received a missed call afterwards so I called back and DSD (she's 12) answered and said she had accidentally called me as playing with her dads phone in the car.

I have asked him before not to do this (and in the past the girls have read texts from me which have contained swearing/sexual innuendo) when I haven't realised he's with them and expected him to be reading his own texts.

They have their own phones that we gave them and paid for (my idea so they always have credit and can contact him/us - trying not to drip feed!) and DS's and tablets - so there is really no need for them to have his phone - and if they are making calls and reading his texts - what else are they scrolling through .

AIBU to feel miffed about this again? Or tell him to delete the photos and warn me if his children have his phone? I would be mortified and more importantly so would they.

You know what, this thread is actually very similar to a discussion I've had with my two teenagers.
They were basically telling me that if one was sending photos of themselves naked and the person receiving them (usually a bf/gf) was breaching their trust and sending said photos to other/put them in the inetrenet etc...
Then it was the fault of the PERSON WHO SENT THE PHOTOGRAPHS in the first place.
Yep victim blaming at full speed. She/he should never have done that. Why on earth would you anyway etc etc.

Exactely what I am hearing on this thread.

You should never trust your DP and send him revealing photos like this even when he is away for months and months.
If the dsc see the photos, it's not his fault but the OP. After all he has clearly said he didn't want to do anything about it.

Nice victim blaming and removing responsibility from the perpetrator.

Really, I mean really? It's his phone therefore it's his responsibility to ensure that no one bar himself will see said photos (or texts)
If he is able to protect his phone when he is away from his colleagues, the he should be able to protect his phone from his dcs.

Plus he has a duty to protect HIS dcs from coming across unsuitable material (photo or text) and atm he isn't fulfilling this duty.
That is HIS responsibility too, not the OP, who is the stepmum, who isn't the owner of the phone AND who isn't usually there when it happens.

So why on earth make it all about the OP and her responsibility not to send said texts or photos???

Having said that OP, I would actually take all the photos off his phone. I would refuse to send him any other and I would refuse to send him explicit texts too.
Because he can't be trusted with them.
And I would tell him that.
Maybe p, that will give the kick in the backside he needs to step up and take his responsibility Serioulsy. Both towards you and towards his own dcs.

It would be very wrong to pick up a friend or colleagues phone or post and go through it yes that would be wrong but that's not what happened here so not comparable. This dad gave his dc his phone.

Marilyn

Yes yes yes?!

wannabe

Polaroid?

Didn't mean the ? Sorry!

Thesmurfs Given what the OPs dh does for a living, and the fact the OP knows what he does, some circumspection is called for, especially for security purposes. It isn't victim blaming, it is just common sense.

But the OP Is partly responsible. It's not victim blaming to suggest that if you send explicit pictures of yourself to someone whose phone is not secure then you bear some of the responsibility if those pictures fall into the wrong hands. It's a different situation if you send those pictures in the belief that they are secure and they are then accessed by someone who shouldn't see them, as you didn't know.

But in the OP's case, she knows that the DSC look at the phone where the pictures are and yet she continues to send pictures to that phone.

It's no different to leaving your porn stash on the bedside cabinet even though you know that the children come into your bedroom in the morning.

They were basically telling me that if one was sending photos of themselves naked and the person receiving them (usually a bf/gf) was breaching their trust and sending said photos to other/put them in the inetrenet etc...
Then it was the fault of the PERSON WHO SENT THE PHOTOGRAPHS in the first place.
Yep victim blaming at full speed. She/he should never have done that. Why on earth would you anyway etc etc.

Not to hijack the thread or go off on a tangent too much but I wanted to pick up on this post as teenagers sexting is a whole different thing to overage adults doing it.

In the case of teenagers sexting each other, it is technically correct that the person sending the pictures is the one in the wrong, as creating or sharing explicit images of a child is illegal, even if the person doing it is the child themself. So in regards to teenagers if they take an explicit photo or video of themselves and share it with a boy/girlfriend then the one who takes the picture is technically the one committing the initial crime (although anyone then forwarding it further is also committing the same crime)

Obviously, this doesn't apply in the OP's case, but in a case of teenagers sharing pics of themselves, it is not just about victim blaming but about the letter of the law regarding distribution of explicit underage images (Although there is now a caveat in the law that was put in in 2016 to allow for it to be recorded as a crime but that it isn't in the public interest to take any formal action)

Correspondence now is mostly electronic, so my phone / iPad correspondence is as private as any letters the postie delivers.

If the OP knows the DC open his letters, is she still wrong to write about private matters ?
If her OH's mates open his letters, that's illegal under the Postal Services Act 2000

Ive only skimmed through the OPs posts on the first 200 posts and haven't seen this asked.

Is his phone an Android? I know people have suggested photo locking apps, but on android you get apps that lock any app you choose. You need to enter a pin or password to access the app that's locked. I think on iPhone you can only lock the photos?

I turn mine in when going out and have my texts, banking, and other personal apps locked, a screen is brought up when someone taps texts etc and the locked screen looks like a crash report, so the person trying to access will just think the app is fucked and give up, but if you enter a word in a specific part of the screen the app opens as normal.

It's a right pain in the arse though if you're texting a lot, as you have to go through the whole faff every time you read or send a text. Easier to just delete the inappropriate stuff.

Dd (11) has her own phone, her own tablet amongst other gadgets but sometimes will use my phone, sometimes because she hasn't brought hers out with her, sometimes because her mobile data connection is slow and mines better, sometimes because specific apps I have can't install on her older devices, and sometimes because she's ran out of data. (She has 2gb a month which is not a lot if they use YouTube). Dh would also let his dss use his too for similar reasons. The few occasions the phone rings or I get a text when she's playing she shouts for me and if I'm busy I might ask her to answer and say I'll ring back, or just tell her to block the call.

If dh started telling me to stop letting my child to use my phone because he's sent me some flirty texts I'd tell him to fuck off to be honest. If he doesn't want DC on his own phone, that's totally fine and I can understand that but he doesn't get to tell me what I do with my phone and it's not comparable to me letting DC read his personal diary, it would more like dh writing private things in a book of mine when he knows dd sometimes draws in it.

I agree about the content being private, but just that the solution isn't to tell the person who's phone it is who they can and can't let play on it.

The dp should be deleting them,musing an app lock or whatever for him to make sure private stuff can't be viewed by children. He's not doing that and thats the problem in my opinion.

Op knows he's not doing this but rather him do one of the many options to make he content not acessible she wants the DC not to be allowed on his phone so I think people were suggesting that as he isn't deleting the content or locking it away then maybe she should stop sending the stuff if she knows he can't be trusted to keep it private, not that it's her fault.

Would dcs share photos/flirty chat with their friends?

"Would dcs share photos/flirty chat with their friends?" I wouldn't imagine so, they'd probably be too mortified.

No one in my family would dream of reading anything on someone's else's phone, and that goes for the children too. I get that you might give it to a young child to distract them if they were grumpy or upset but older ones should be taught to respect privacy. If they are reading texts then that's on a par with reading private emails or a diary, or opening someone's post.
I would be irritated too.

Well turns out OH agrees with me and has apologised saying he shouldn't have given it to her after we had discussed it previously (and have stuff going on ATM we do not want the kids to know about).

He agees he cannot have it both ways - either the girls have his phone (every now and then we only normally have them EIW and in the hols) or we have a private channel of communication.

I'm please he has seen sense OP. You were never being unreasonable

I get that you might give it to a young child to distract them if they were grumpy or upset but older ones should be taught to respect privacy. what an odd comment. Surely part and parcel of teaching them to respect privacy would mean saying 'here you can use my phone to play 'insert game' just now, please don't read my messages'.

Good to hear OP!

Reality16 - that seems to be pretty much what pp was saying. An older child should know or be taught not to open messages on a phone that doesn't belong to them.

Reality16 - that seems to be pretty much what pp was saying. An older child should know or be taught not to open messages on a phone that doesn't belong to them.. Oh, that's not how i read it. I read it was ok to give to a younger child but not an older one. Never mind, it doesn't really matter anyway :)