AIBU to not want my DH to know where I am and what I'm doing at all times?

[Izzosaura]

This is inspired by the recent thread about people who are on tracking apps with their partners. My DH has no interest in us being on a tracking app and nor do I so this isn't a practical question so much as a theoretical one.

During the tracking discussion, I found myself having really strong negative feelings about being tracked but found it difficult to justify these rationally. As a few people put it, why worry if you have nothing hide? So I went away and analysed why I was so hostile, and I realised that apart from my wider worries about tracking (the danger of it not being truly voluntary due to pressure to agree to it; the potential for coercive control; a dislike of a world where people don't have to make the conscious choice to commuicate but just expect others to know their movements and fulfil their needs)... there actually ARE things that I want to hide from DH.

These are the exapmples I can think of from the last few months:

• I'm working to lose weight at the moment and have had considerable success, but a few weeks ago I had an appointment cancellation that unexpectedly gave me a spare half hour for lunch at work and gave in to a craving to go to a local chippy. I was embarrassed about breaking my diet and wouldn't have wanted my DH to know I'd been there. He would have been fine with it and wouldn't have seen it as his business to judge but he'd likely have made a joke about it and I wanted to avoid that.
• Last week I was meant to be out on a work visit about an hour away but it got rescheduled so I ended up spending the morning working from home unexpectedly. I didn't tell DH as knew that he'd then have expected me to do some tidying round the house - something he always does when working from home. But I had deadlines to meet and didn't want to do anything other than sit on my laptop. I therefore didn't mention the change in my schedule to him.
• About 3 months ago I was meant to be meeting up with a friend for a country walk and my DH agreed to look after our daughter whilst I did this. My friend met me but needed to leave earlier than we'd planned so we did a shortened version of the walk. Rather than rushing home, I enjoyed an hour to myself going round some nearby shops. I didn't tell my DH because although he'd have been cool with it, I felt guilty.

If my DH and I tracked one another, these omissions / white lies on my part would have been busted. I suppose I like to continue to be free to do this sort of thing once in a while. I'm also fine with the idea of him doing things he doesn't tell me about that are of a similar nature.

Some would perhaps say that this is the sort of dishonesty that breaks relationships and is a sign that our marriage is doomed... so am I being unreasonable to think that this sort of thing is fine or not?

YABU - These things shouldn't be hidden from your DH and you should be totally honest with him about where you are at all times.

YANBU - It's fine not to share these sorts of things with your DH; it's ok for married people to keep some things from one another.

I've never even considered a tracking app, but I can't think of a time I've lied about where I've been and what I've been doing to DH. And I've definitely done the sort of things in your examples - DH doesn't care beyond some envy if I've managed to snare some free time.

So yes I think you feeling the need to lie in your examples isn't great.

I feel similarly to you OP, about having tracking on at all times. I do, however, find the feature of my running app, which allows me to broadcast a journey with select contacts, useful.

I'll use this if I am walking home late at night solo, or running somewhere quite remote. DH then gets a notification that I am sharing my run (or walk) with him and he can see my progress in real time.

All the examples about car parks, meeting etc can be easily dealt with by sharing location and eta on maps as a one off dropping a pin and sending it. No need for tracking

Having these apps on your phone isn’t like watching someone 24/7 on CCTV. It’s an app you have to open it to see anything and it’s a dot on a map. When my son sprained his ankle at football training he could see that DH was in the office nearby so knew that he was probably on a call or in a meeting and would respond to his message asking for a lift when he could. The alternative would have been calling me to drop everything and drive over an hour from the other side of the city to get him.

DD is on a provisional license and can’t use her phone while driving. I can see if she’s parked at the shops somewhere and can grab some milk for me or if she’s on the motorway and I should go myself.

It was also very handy when teen DS left his phone on the train and we could see exactly which station it had been handed in to.

Very boring, mundane uses that just make family life easier. None of us is sitting around watching every address the others go to and googling to see if it’s a chippy!

Friends and I use tracking apps sometimes, but its very much an 'as and when' thing - to know when someone will arrive here, so I can have the dogs shifted out of the way, kettle on etc rather than do these things in a rush, which is hard from a wheelchair (and several of my friends are also wheelchair using or otherwise mobility impaired and dog owners).

Its not something we'd have turned on all the time. DP and I don't bother, if I wanna know where he is I'll ring him and vice versa.

I don't like the idea of being monitored, I wouldn't ever have a tracking app on my phone nor would I want to know where my dh is at every given moment of the day

I wouldn't feel guilty like you though op, own your decisions - there's nothing wrong with any of them

Our whole familg is on life 360. We all have the freedom to donas we please so no one cares if they are tracked. And the kids actually saw it as a safety feature so we would always know where they are

We have them as they’re often useful especially when we were both commuting and needed to make sure we were able to get back for pick up or timing dinner. Most of the time I don’t look at it.

I think there has to be complete trust. If I thought for one second that my husband would be using it for controlling reasons then I’d feel less comfortable but neither of us misuse or overuse it

The thing with tracking is if someone loses their device then sure you may think you are seeing where a person is but they could not be anywhere near their phone

A child could leave their phone somewhere and go off and have an accident or whatever and the parents would not know because the phone says they are somewhere else

Dh and I don't have each other's location if he had an Apple phone we probably would.

My two adult dd and I have each other's locations and it's quite handy. If they are running late I can see where they are. But tbh I rarely look at it only if I need to know.

I don't even have a smartphone. Absolutely no interest. But I am wondering what happens in these households if dinner is not on the table when the important man gets in from work.

I find it a bit weird. I wouldn't care if we did have it, and I wouldn't use it anyway. It just seems OTT and unnecessary, we all managed fine before we had this technology 🤷🏼‍♀️

Absolutely not. We occasionally share locations temporarily so I can check how close his train is to the station so I can set off to collect, but it’s like a once a year job. We have What Three Words if I get lost in the woods or have an accident. I haven’t been yet, touch wood.

They probably just want to balance eating early for the kids with having everyone present for dinner.

Why does this have to be made out to be some kind of antagonistic situation?

I dislike the normalisation of tracking. I am skewed by the fact that I work with women who are experiencing coercive control/ stalking etc.

I don't think most people use it for negative reasons but I do think that the more normal it becomes the more young women feel that they need a reason not to use it. I think the argument about having nothing to hide means they think they can't say no.

Personally I don't want anyone knowing where I am at all times and I don't use it with my DD because I don't want her thinking it's normal either.

I allowed my phone to be tracked by my DH's phone when I was out a lot with our DD last year so if something happened he would know where we were. He never used it through as I doubt he even knows how to use it.
In another note about you lying about little things, it sounds like you are partly doing this as you try to be perfect. And that's not going to end well as nobody is perfect.

We got life 360 when our daughter went to secondary school and started walking to and from school.

But my partner also now works a job with no set hours, and his journey time home could be hours difference, not minutes!

For us is an essential life tool, not some weird opportunity to track the minute details of each others lives

Personally I don't want anyone knowing where I am at all times and I don't use it with my DD because I don't want her thinking it's normal either.

it is normal though, and mostly quite innocuous. Of course you don’t have to use it, and it’s quite possible to educate te young people on how to use a t safely, just like we now do with all technologies.

“Only allow people who you know well and trust to track you, always feel free to say no to being tracked, and if someone is pressuring you to be tracked, using it to demand to know what you’ve been doing and who you’ve been with, or accusing you or demeaning you based on where you’ve been, those are major control issues and not acceptable in any relationship.”

There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve done - I’d do the same. DH initially set up the tracking thing on our phones - I turned it off, and pointed out that it wasn’t on his. He’s not controlling, just hadn’t thought to put it on his. He’d put it on DS’s and then on mine. No thank you.

I have nothing to hide - and we have a ring doorbell in any case - but if I want to go for a walk I don’t want anyone tracking my exact steps. It’s the surveillance aspect I don’t t like.

I deliberately leave my phone at home a lot so I can't be contacted. DH gets annoyed with it but it's so nice not being able to receive texts and just be

I share location details on Google map with my DH, teenage DD and my parents. We don't check unless there is a need and certainly wouldn't Google whether it was a chippy etc that would be weird.
It's useful to know where my parents are as they are on holiday most of the year in different timezones. It's reassuring with my daughter to know she's arrived safe at some residential camp or wherever as she often forgets to tell me. For my DH i rarely check but if i do it'd be to check if he's on his way when I'm waiting for him for something (such as to come and pick up kids for some activity, or to be home so i can leave to go somewhere etc).
He doesn't check as he usually asks me to text when i leave work for him to get dinner ready (yes he could do it when i get home but he knows i can hangry and we are at this stage in our life where we are constantly juggling kids activities etc so saving 10mins can be useful).
My parents check to see if we're home so they can call us.
It really isn't a stalking mechanism. Is it necessary? No. Is it useful? In our experience yes and had no issue in the 10+ years we've been doing that.

We both cook and my husband works from home so invariably it’s him doing the cooking. Is that ok?🤔

My phone can still be seen by others in aeroplane mode. I have just checked.

But, and it is quite a big but, selecting aeroplane mode on my phone doesn’t turn off wifi, which would explain why.

We managed fine with a lot of things before technology. I used to catch the bus to school as a 7 year old without anything or a landline at home. If you needed the phone when out you had to find a phone box and 50p. There were no mobiles, Ubers, food deliveries, internet, sat nav, online shopping,internet…..

Doesn’t mean because I managed before I can’t use and enjoy tech to make my life easier now.

The only people who have wanted to know where I was at any given time have been controlling and abusive.

DP knows where he lives and as he couldn't be attracted back by the smell of a linen bin or my going out and shaking a bag of Haribo, there's no point in my getting involved in which bus he's going to be catching home from work.