Using location-tracking apps in a relationship - AIBU?

[MichelGarnier]

A female friend told me she has one of those apps on her phone. Her DH is a driver and often works nights so she says she has it so if anything happens to him she would know where he was. But she also uses it at other times, e.g. she watched him stop off somewhere coming home once and asked him when he got back where he'd been and then when he said "nowhere" she was like well I watched you go here. I think her DH might have it for her too but I don't know if he uses it or not.

AIBU to think if it was him coming out with these kinds of comments we would all say it's controlling and weird? I was a bit when she told me.

I honestly can't stand all of it.

People thinking I have to be available all the time, the whole social media bollocks. This is just the cherry on top. I find the entire concept of tracking other people abhorrent.

I used the app today. I tracked DH to see if he had left work so I would
know when to put the dinner in the oven. Not abhorrent, but practical.

^ I used it to track dh on Halloween, so the kids were ready to go trick or treating when he got back. Face painting takes a while on two kids. We wanted to get out as early as possible. How stalkerish.

If you'd said to people even ten years ago, "do you want an app on a device in your pocket that means your every move is traceable", 99% would run screaming for the hills.

Yet now it's considered completely normal to be able to see where your partner is at any given time. To see which route they took home, to see what time they left home, to see if they went somewhere else on their way home from Tesco.

Creepy.

If they worked from the horizontal as well as the vertical, now that would be cool.

Yet now it's considered completely normal to be able to see where your partner is at any given time.
Thats modern technology for you. The same modern technology which allows for

• mass distribution/use of all sorts of porn and other stuff which wouldn't have been available to your average guy at home previously, with consequential effects on relationships,
• widespread use of social media in developing inappropriate relationships with ease and secrecy,
• etc.

Modern technology has allowed a cheaters playground to develop, all easily able to be kept secret from a dp. Frankly, an app which has to be allowed and accepted by both parties in order to function is nothing in comparison to all the other stuff, if you insist on looking at it in a negative way. Yet i don't see ppl going on about how other social media use is stalking. Despite the fact that most of them do include a location finding function in some way. In fact, i would be less likely to trust those where the app alone has constant access to location, as its the company making use of this information rather than your family. And why do they need this?
(and saying its so they can volunteer info about your location is irrelevant, as you are quite capable of looking this up yourself if you want it )

Spot on FritzDonovan