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.

Or use messenger birds to send secret intelligence…

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.

Are you also ok with men snooping on women?

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.

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

Please explain how this is gaslighting?

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

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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