Looked on my partners phone... am I justified in being upset?

[RosieAnne123]

Firstly, I am not proud of myself at all for looking on my partners phone. I know it is a horrible thing to do and a complete breach of trust and privacy.

There has been a longstanding issue throughout mine and my partners relationship. My partner is friends with their ex "friend with benefits", naturally this has made me feel a bit weird and insecure at times as they stopped seeing eachother literally a month before we started dating, so I always felt their "relationship" was very fresh, and I felt worried. This is my problem and I know that.

I struggle with insecurity and paranoia because of a previous boyfriend cheating on me, and this is something I am in therapy for because it really really affected me.

My partner knows how important trust and honesty is to me. Because of my insecurities my partner has told "white lies" before about things pr tried to hide things because of not wanting to deal with my anxious reaction.

Whether this is right or wrong, I feel uncomfortable about my partner meeting up with his ex 1-1 right now. I want to get to a place I'm okay with it, but right now I am not. I am more than happy for my partner to see her in group settings.

I looked on my partners phone because I saw that she had text him. I know I shouldnt have but I did. The text was asking to meet up next weekend. I scrolled up in the conversation and I saw that they had met up just the 2 of them a few weeks ago. My partner said he was seeing her but as a group of friends. Never said just the 2 of them. I feel betrayed and lied to.

I'm not a jealous person but if a man I was dating said ''I'm arranging to go out with x, on her own, just the two of us'', I'd infer from that that he didn't value me, that he wasn't afraid of losing me through disrespecting me. Ykwim? I've been out with men who don't want to risk losing you and they don't do this!

He doesn't really respect you, does he.

I think you should end it.

@sammylady37

*Also I personally don’t get this ‘private phone space’ thing? Perhaps it’s my age, but DH uses my phone and I use his. I don’t deliberately go looking through his messages or photos etc, but if I want to/ have too, perhaps to forward a message from our son onto me, I can and do. I can’t imagine us both having passwords and keeping the phones private, we are in a relationship together, what is there to keep private from each other?*

Because not everyone wants/needs to share every thing with their partner. They are still independent beings.

And also because people use their phones to communicate with their family and friends, and those people deserve privacy.

And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if we had a woman posting that her husband wanted to know the passcode to her phone because she didn’t/shouldn’t need to keep anything private from him, imagine the responses here. Yet when a woman is making the demands, it’s ok, she deserves to know. Add in a man who not only wanted access to her phone, but one who wanted to dictate when/how/if she could see her friends, and wanted regular text updates while she was with said friend because he was ‘insecure’ and the MN bingo card of ‘red flag’, ‘communist parade’, ‘ducks in a row’ would be filled pretty quickly. But somehow, women get a pass on this behaviour here.

Agreed.

Yup.

@Lilybet1980

He’s lying and hiding things from you because you’re controlling. Either you trust him not to sleep with her or you don’t.

How about this bloke wants the best of both worlds?

He knows his partner is uncomfortable and instead of resolving this or finding a compromise, he lies and does as he pleases.

He’s not being held in the relationship at gunpoint ffs! He’s playing OP as he’s aware she’ll tolerate more out of fear of being told she’s controlling after her bad relationship experience - and here you are, backing that up!

None of us would truly be comfortable in a good relationship with partners going out 1:1 with an ex fuck. It’s questionable behaviour and especially if it’s messing with your partner’s head.

Anyone who’d not come out of a fucked up relationship would be telling this man to piss off for being a CF!

And Reading he’s now laying the blame at OPs door tells you everything about this blessed gift to women and his approach!

OP - I hope you tell him to do one and find someone nice. Life is too short for men who like to play games like this.

@sammylady37

I would never meet up one on one with a man I had previously been having sex with

Really? Never?
How about this scenario, which is from my life. I have a male friend, with whom I’ve been friends for almost 25 years. We’ve had sex twice in those 25 years, two nights that were a few years apart. He’s now married with children. I know his wife, and she’s now one of my friends. I meet him on his own sometimes, sometimes I meet him with her and sometimes it’s in a big group. What’s wrong with that?

I have friend like this too. But I don’t lie about meeting him to anyone.

If I had a partner who was uncomfortable with it, I’d not meet him alone - and take my partner along for drinks etc. If I thought partner was being controlling, I’d end the relationship over lying about meeting a genuine friend.

To be honest, OP man’s FWB sounds more recent and not like she’s happily married with kids now - which would change the landscape of acceptable somewhat.

I wouldn’t feel the need to revisit a recent ex FWB while in a relationship for drinks or otherwise. That would be a piss take and I’d expect to be dumped.

You said twice earlier you'd like to leave him. Given what's happened since and the way he's talked to you, I hope you think that even more now.

Would you like us to help you leave? It sounds like the practicalities of leaving seem overwhelming to you.

Whose house is it you're living in?

This kind of man thinks he deserves to do what he wants . He makes you feel as if YOU are the problem if you as much as dare raise any situation when he may be at fault . He will never take the blame or any part of it. He has lied to you on occasions before and he has lied to you about this woman . Is this really how you want the rest of your life to be like ?

You won't change him, but you can change your opinion on what is acceptable to you.

@sammylady37

*Also I personally don’t get this ‘private phone space’ thing? Perhaps it’s my age, but DH uses my phone and I use his. I don’t deliberately go looking through his messages or photos etc, but if I want to/ have too, perhaps to forward a message from our son onto me, I can and do. I can’t imagine us both having passwords and keeping the phones private, we are in a relationship together, what is there to keep private from each other?*

Because not everyone wants/needs to share every thing with their partner. They are still independent beings.

And also because people use their phones to communicate with their family and friends, and those people deserve privacy.

And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if we had a woman posting that her husband wanted to know the passcode to her phone because she didn’t/shouldn’t need to keep anything private from him, imagine the responses here. Yet when a woman is making the demands, it’s ok, she deserves to know. Add in a man who not only wanted access to her phone, but one who wanted to dictate when/how/if she could see her friends, and wanted regular text updates while she was with said friend because he was ‘insecure’ and the MN bingo card of ‘red flag’, ‘communist parade’, ‘ducks in a row’ would be filled pretty quickly. But somehow, women get a pass on this behaviour here.

I dont agree with this, if it was a man looking through his girlfriends phone because she had been meeting up with a friend with benefits I would say that's fine to. It's also not dictating seeing his friends, they're not really friends. Friends dont have sex.

It is bad that she looked through his phone, but I go on my partners phone occasionally not to look through things but if I ever need to use it and same thing he is able to use mine. There shouldnt have been anything for her to find, I can guarantee if she had looked through that phone and found nothing she wouldn't have done it again.

@sammylady37

*sammylady37

Also I personally don’t get this ‘private phone space’ thing? Perhaps it’s my age, but DH uses my phone and I use his. I don’t deliberately go looking through his messages or photos etc, but if I want to/ have too, perhaps to forward a message from our son onto me, I can and do.
I can’t imagine us both having passwords and keeping the phones private, we are in a relationship together, what is there to keep private from each other?

Because not everyone wants/needs to share every thing with their partner. They are still independent beings.

And also because people use their phones to communicate with their family and friends, and those people deserve privacy.

And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if we had a woman posting that her husband wanted to know the passcode to her phone because she didn’t/shouldn’t need to keep anything private from him, imagine the responses here. Yet when a woman is making the demands, it’s ok, she deserves to know. Add in a man who not only wanted access to her phone, but one who wanted to dictate when/how/if she could see her friends, and wanted regular text updates while she was with said friend because he was ‘insecure’ and the MN bingo card of ‘red flag’, ‘communist parade’, ‘ducks in a row’ would be filled pretty quickly. But somehow, women get a pass on this behaviour here.*

I still don’t get it, I’m sorry, but perhaps it’s just me. I’ve never ‘demanded’ to see my husbands phone and I’ve never demanded the password...it’s just how it is in our relationship and since we’ve been together from when we were 15, I guess that’s just what comes naturally to us.

I do see a lot of problems in relationships caused by phone secrecy, so I’m glad my husband and I have such a relaxed way of sharing our devices.

I think that the world would be a far nicer world if phones were occasionally use and partners didn’t have that additional worry in their relationships. Just reading MN these issues nearly always start with phone secrecy. But I guess I may well be showing my age and it is probably a generational gap. DH and I didn’t have a mobile phone until our 20s and even then the most you could do with it was call people and play Snake.

So l don’t get it and probably never will, but I’ll accept that we all have different views on this.

It’s not generational. We’re in our 60s. Our phones are private. It would be a real issue in our relationship if one of us decided to go through the other’s phone, just like opening the other’s mail. If the bloke did this to me I’d be seriously considering our relationship.

@VinylDetective

I think you may have misinterpreted.

DH and I do not ‘check’ each other’s phones and we have never asked each other for passwords. We do not recreationally go through the other’s phone on the sly.

We do take each other’s phone out if we cannot find our own. We do use each other’s if our own is out of battery. DH will often pass me his phone to reply to messages as he hates texting. If my phone is faster, DH will use it to Google things. My husband has the same password as me incase he forgets it - his suggestion and probably likely.

I’ve always thought that was pretty ‘normal’.
I didn’t realise I had to password protect my phone and not let my hubby use it for the sake of ‘privacy’ I don’t need or want.

I assumed it was a generational thing. Clearly it’s just an individual preference thing?

Sorry, I meant to make this relevant to op.

Op, we each want and expect different things from our relationships clearly. The trick is finding someone who wants the same as you. Your current partner wants a single person lifestyle in a relationship and you want a bit of commitment. This match cannot work as I agree, you can’t change or force people to be who you want them to be.

@Newmum2018aug

It's also not dictating seeing his friends, they're not really friends. Friends dont have sex

It’s absolutely dictating how he can see his friends. They are friends and have been for many years. Op says so in her second post:

I do genuinely feel that he just wants a friendship with her because they were friends for many years before they then started sleeping together

And as for “friends don’t have sex”? Of course they do. It happens regularly enough, particularly in the 20s/30s age groups, though in others too obviously. Some of the sex will be drunken one-nighters, some of it will be more regular arrangements, without the commitment/exclusivity of a relationship. There’s even a name for it -friends with benefits- so clearly it is something that happens.

As an aside, the terminology used by some posters here to describe the friends is vile. An “ex-shag”. An “ex-fuck”. “Ms Plan B”. Reducing her to the fact that he’s had sex with her in the past. Conveniently over-looking the fact that she’s a friend of ‘many years’, as per the op herself. But because some perceive her as a threat, she’s spoken about in horrible terms as if she has done something wrong.

There are two people who have done something wrong in this scenario, the op for invading his privacy and trying to control who he sees, and the b/f for lying, yet this woman comes in for abuse and belittling. Hardly within the spirit of the site.

Like many women here I don’t have a problem with friends of the opposite sex, I do however have a problem with 1 to 1s that are on the sly and never mentioned regardless of whether there was any previous involvement or not. It’s not that they need ‘permission’ it’s more the fact that in general conversation it usually crops up if you’ve had a 1 to 1,meet up and by not mentioning it when in a long term monogamous relationship it creates suspicion . If I met up with Dave/Jim/Bob on my own and it was purely a friends thing- it would crop up in conversation and if I didn’t mention it at all then I wouldn’t be surprised if my husband was suspicious regardless of whether he trusted me or not.