Stop gaslighting yourselves, secrecy with devices is abnormal

[somewhereovertherainbow26]

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.

I value trust in a relationship so if either party doesn't trust the other one then the relationship is over. No snooping required.

I don't know why snooping is considered such a great thing. If you snoop and don't find anything, that only proves that you didn't find anything, not that there wasn't anything to find. On the other hand, if you snoop, you might find (for example) personal messages to friends which the friends would not want you to see. That's a breach of their privacy.

People should learn to use safe folder. That way you can keep stuff on your phone that no one else can access, while letting the snoopers snoop until their hearts content.

What if you don’t want total transparency?

I have decent instincts and if I thought he was cheating I would find out and leave. You don’t need unfettered access to someone’s phone to figure out something is wrong and chances are if they are up to something it will be off the books and on a separate phone.

Also I bristle at the idea that because you’re married and cohabiting you need to live in each other’s heads all the time and have total access to our entire ecosystem of people and all their private information. I am not him and he’s not me. I like to keep some things to myself and protect my friends’ privacy.

It's the difference between a person blabbing their friends secrets to their partner or not.
Me personally if someone tells me something in confidence I would never blab.

That’s absolutely fine, your boundaries are your boundaries. I do help you tell your friends about your policy though, so that they know that any of their messages to you can also be read by your partner. Then they can decide whether they feel comfortable messaging you or not.

Wow @somewhereovertherainbow26 it must have taken ages to compose that load of utter drivel. What a pile of nonsense really! Privacy is paramount in a relationship, and it's very odd to want to go through your partner's devices. DH and I are separate people with different personalities, and we have our own hobbies and friends as well as having a couple of joint hobbies and doing some things together. We are not one entity. We are not joined at the hip! The thought of going through all his devices, and him going through mine is utterly batshit.

NEWSFLASH! People still had affairs before the internet and mobile phones. I know many people who had affairs when I was younger, in my teens, 20s, and 30s. Extended family, neighbours, work colleagues, friends and acquaintances etc. Having no internet and no mobile phone didn't stop them.

Yes of course the internet makes it easier for people to reach out to many more people and chat to people online without their partner knowing, but in most cases, this will be randoms online who aren't who they say they are anyway. You're deluded if you think taking away the internet and mobile phones/ laptops etc, would stop people having affairs. Especially as many affairs happen in the workplace. And guess what, it's not against the law to have a second mobile phone!!! It would be very easy for someone to get a second mobile phone and communicate with their affair partner that way.

Clearly you are massively projecting with this bizarre chunk of word salad, but I do wonder why......... 🤔 (I am guessing, and am probably right... Your husband has had an affair....? Or is it you who has had one?!!!!) Whatever, it is NOT normal for couples to constantly go through their partner's mobile phone and laptops etc...

Do you read each others diaries too? And private and personal mail?

What a toxic relationship that sounds! You're basically fucked as a couple if you feel the need to poke around in your partner's phone and look through all the messages and phone calls he/she has been making, and snoop through their computer/laptop.

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

Privacy is not "secrecy".

If you are not "actively checking", then what on earth is the actual point in insisting upon an "open tech policy" as a prerequisite for entering into a relationship?

No matter how you dress that up or attempt to excuse it, it's demanding your partner forego the right to basic privacy to placate your insecurity, and it absolutely screams "I'm a controlling, paranoid headfuck. You should run a mile".

Drugs

You sound mad as a lorry.

Out of date sunny delight?

Nonsense. Mobile phones come with a lock system to ensure privacy.

'If they are claiming looking at someone's device is abuse they are lying to you.'

No. What about a spouse who's partner insists they unlock their phone so they can 'check' for anything they may find suspicious? I would call that abusive and controlling.

I have been in an abusive relationship where he read my e-mails and messages and interrogated me on them. DH has my passwords in case I die but he is never expected to use them without permission. I would find it a huge violation.

Before phones I could still talk in confidence with a friend or family member, doctor or other professional. This is privacy. Paper mail is expected to be private too. It needs to extend to private communications on devices as well. Plus let's remember that some of my messages may contain other people's private information, not mine. Just because I'm open with DH about everything in my life doesn't mean he needs to know my sister has an STI (for example).

Exactly. Those that the use the word secrecy not privacy in the context of their ‘right’ to snoop are often incredibly insecure. In my experience in any normal relationship borrowing a phone to check the weather or a train time is perfectly normal. If a partner is reticent to lend their phone in those circumstances then of course you’re right to be suspicious. But having unfettered access is not normal, so anyone in a relationship where their partner insist you hand over your password or add your biometrics to their phone to enable fingerprint or Face ID needs to run for the hills, IMO. Now, what the insecure will say at that point is that those who subscribe to that point of view are being naive, but I think that’s just because they have such low standards when it comes to relationships that they create their own problems. Which takes us back to the OP ;)

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.

Then neither of us would enter in a relationship with a person who didn't share the same values as us. The same way we don't enter a open relationship or one that heavily features bdsm. Not our bag.

Agree with this. Privacy and secrecy are two very different things. DH and I have each other on Life 360 (we're both happy with that), and also know the passwords to each other's phones (and can therefore access e-mails and messages). However, I have never once checked his phone, and to the best of my knowledge, he's never checked mine either.

BDSM? we've really gone from 0-60 there...

BDSM isn't "my bag" either, nor my partners. Neither of us wants an open relationship and we share the same values or we wouldn't be together.

I'm just comfortable with the idea that I don't need to see absolutely everything he is doing online (and vice versa) to trust him. I don't need to read all his emails or Facebook posts or have access to all his financial information.

Trust for me means that you have faith in someone but you accept you can't have perfect control over their behaviour or emotions. You live with it as opposed to striving for 100% control, and the trade off is you are trusted in return.

I trust my partner beyond reasonable doubt but I don't want to police his every move, every emotion, every doubt. No one should live in a world where they have no inner life beyond their life with their partner, it's unbelievably stifling.

Why do you need to look though? What are you looking for? Because reading random text messages between your partner and his friends is cringe at the very least. You are a separate individual.

I also think there's an element of a partner saying what the OP wants to hear, the same as the MN'ers who insist they have an "agreement" with their partner that watching porn is a mutual dealbreaker. In reality, the translation there is "I demanded he doesn't watch porn, and he inwardly rolled his eyes and "agreed" for the sake of keeping the peace".

If you have an "open tech" policy, but never actually demand or access the other person's tech, then how on earth can you even claim it's a "policy"? It isn't "worth the paper it's written on".

Why do you need proof? You can leave a relationship at any time, there’s no law saying you have to have proof of someone cheating to end it. How much time are people wasting gathering proof they don’t need?

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…

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.

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.

'You must' 'Do this' 'Do that' 🙄

You're not the boss of me.