Is it reasonable to expect phone transparency after an emotional affair?

[WonderingWhyThisTime]

Husband had an emotional affair with a work colleague for ~9 months. He is adamant that it was emotional only and I have seen all the (many, many) messages between them and there is no hint that it was more than emotional. She (mostly) initiated it.

It fell apart spectacularly when he told her he wanted to stay married to me, she decided she'd had enough and got (properly) involved with another man who left his wife for her. She has a history of being obsessed with people / projects, then getting bored, dumping them and never returning. There is no danger of the relationship with my DH continuing as they fell out so acrimoniously (think sueing each other). DH changed employer as soon as the relationship fell apart.

Over the course of 1-1.5 years while this was happening, DH was telling his mother lots of inappropriate details about our marriage and family life, including by messaging on his phone. I've read the messages. She spent this time urging him to leave me (he didn't, but he also didn't draw any real boundaries with his DM about talking to him about it). After me getting quite upset about this, he tells me he no longer tells them details about our relationship and I believe him.

DH and I are still together and working through the issues involved. Is it reasonable for me to expect that he would give me access to his phone in the interests of transparency and honesty?

Yes, basically. He destroyed your ability to trust that he would draw healthy boundaries between himself and other women / his mother. If he really wants your relationship to work he should not hide anything, and should understand WHY you want to take a look. If he's getting defensive with his tech, then something's probably up.

I don't know, to be honest. I can understand why you want it but I think that your marriage is only going to work if you are prepared to go forward, knowing that he has had an emotional affair and knowing that he's confided in his DM about you.

You can demand to constantly check his phone, or you can decide that you trust him enough to believe he won't do this again.

If you don't trust him enough not to have to keep checking his phone, then what are you doing with him? If you think he'll do it again then just go now. Or stay knowing the risk.

But keeping tabs on him is no way to rescue a marriage.

Have you asked him too? I personally don’t agree with giving access to each others mobiles.

No. It’s not reasonable to demand to check his phone and dissect everything he messages to everyone including his own mother. That is actually intrusive and controlling. Your DH has gone against his mother to be with you, he has turned down a woman who initiated a friendship with ulterior motives. He has stayed loyal to you so I do not understand why you feel he has broken your trust and deserves to be under your microscope.

Yes, absolutely. He broke your trust, he can rebuild it. If that means giving you access to his phone, so be it. It isn’t controlling at all. You don’t trust him for good reason. If he’s not prepared to earn back what he broke? That tells you everything you need to know.

When the person who has the affair (emotional or not) wants to reconcile, the injured party sets the parameters of what is required to be able to trust the offending party again. Unsurprisingly, it’s often phone access. The injured party has every right to say that this is a non-negotiable requirement, and the offending party must decide if they will comply, if they want to rebuild—or walk away from the relationship because they refuse to meet the injured party’s minimum requirements.

Within reason. What OP wants is not reasonable.

I think no, personally.
Someone checking your phone like they’re marking your behaviour homework is pretty toxic.
Trust him or don’t and if you don’t, just call it and leave I reckon.

It is perfectly reasonable. Since he betrayed her trust by sending so many inappropriate messages on his phone, it is entirely reasonable that op will want to keep an eye on what he’s sending now. He might not like it but frankly, tough shit. Did he ask ops opinion before sending said inappropriate messages to this woman? I would wager not. He is under no obligation to be transparent in anything, but, if he wants to rebuild with her, he will.

We are just going to have to disagree that he betrayed her trust. I personally do not think that a man asking his mum for relationship advice is inappropriate. It’s not like he could predict his mum urging him to leave her. As it is he stood up to his mum and was loyal to OP- the exact opposite of betrayal.

I personally do not think that a married man turning down a woman who initiated inappropriate messages and pursued him is betraying her trust. He turned her down and cut contact. Yes it took months for him to figure out she was being serious, but he did the right thing in the end.

Honestly, he’s been trustworthy. It’s amazing to think everyone can get through married life never being pursued by a single person or never getting bad advice from your mum. These things happen.

It is unreasonable to want to monitor your partner like they are the FSB and you are MI6

I've not actually asked to see his phone. When I talked to him about the messages with his mother, I mentioned a number of ways that it would be possible for him to show a desire for transparency going forwards. One of those was giving me access to my phone. He has not followed up on that idea, but I haven't raised it again.

At one point in the past, he had a close relationship with a female friend and he would routinely give me his phone to check I was happy with the content and tone of his messages and that there was nothing inappropriate or that I was uncomfortable with. That was his idea, not mine. I guess I'd hoped he would make a similar suggestion for this situation, but he's not done.

It’s a reasonable but not sensible request, and it won’t add any sustainability to your relationship.

you need to trust him without feeling like you only trust him because you can look at his phone. It’s that fundamental. See a couples therapist to find a path forward together.

from experience, having access to a phone only breeds obsessive behaviour, and it certainly never improved our relationship, only made me more frustrated and neurotic when behaviour and phone evidence didn’t match up. If they want to have an affair / cheat, they’ll find a way, phone or not!

I would be asking for phone visibility id be asking for him to leave

how on earth are you ever going to trust him again? He’ll likely get a cheap payg phone and another phone to message off and hide it - my friends husband did that - oldest trick in the book

don’t allow him to do this to you - you deserve better

he had a close relationship with a female friend and he would routinely give me his phone to check I was happy with the content and tone of his messages

the relationship is toxic on both sides. He’s obviously out of order for having an emotional affair but you’re out of order wanting to read all his messages (because you don’t trust him!) from when he was talking to a female friend and also the messages with his mum.

I don't think it's reasonable to check someone's phone. You ever forgive and trust again or leave. I don't think many relationships work when it gets to the phone checking stage. I do sympathise, sorry if my message comes across a little blunt.

I never asked to read the messages from his female friend. He wanted me to, in order to make sure it didn't get to a point where it became inappropriate or started affecting our relationship.

The problem with this is that any messages he doesn't want you to see can just be deleted.

I'm personally of the opinion that the person cheated on gets to set the conditions of going forward (within reason of course). Transparency with communications could be one of them.

This exactly.

I think this is where I'd fall on it. If a partner has had an emotional affair and part of the reconciliation is transparency then I can understand why that would extend to work mates/new friends of the opposite sex. I'm not sure if should automatically extend to friends and family. He didn't have the emotional affair with them and is unlikely to, so it feels like access to those conversations is overkill and only intended to keep him inline and to make sure they say nothing negative about you.

For a lot of people they see venting to friends about minor gripes about their partner as normal, it seems unconnected to the emotional affair and rather just a way to find fault with the partner

Despite my last message 😂😂 on the flip side i absolutely agree this is toxic, from him too.

That feels like a loophole that means when things do cross the line he gets to throw the ops authorization back in her face in a "you signed off all the messages" way

I guess you could remind him of that episode where he offered you access over that female friend and let him explain why he's not offering that now.

She pursued him but he did respond and gave her the friendship, time and attention that he wasn't giving me, whilst moaning to her about me and our marriage, and deliberately concealing his involvement from me.

I personally don't think it's generally helpful to ask your parents for relationship advice if you're married - but he is aware that MIL hates my guts, and if someone is repeatedly telling you "if you won't leave her for your sake, leave her for ours" when she knows you have never told your wife there is anything of a problem, let alone tried to work on it with her, you need to tell them to shove off and mind their own business. The reason she wanted him to leave him was because I made a (fairly minor) parenting decision which was different from the one she would have made.

Yabu because it’s his private phone. This is why you should never have continued with this relationship. You’ll never be able to trust him again .

He’s untrustworthy. All these woman apparently chasing him and him turn in them down. Really? 🙄

You don’t trust him. Understandably.

It’s the end of your relationship.

His mother urging him to leave you - Christ. She cannot be welcome in your home again anyway.

This is mental torture. If you end it, you’re free of it.

Your mil told him to leave you for his parents’ sake? What foul people. Get them out of your life.