Thank you for all your impassioned responses!
As for the results… I realize that I likely skewed them a bit, by making a case for why Samuel should not have opened his phone to his partner, before asking if you would open yours.
Nonetheless, it was great to get your input!
If you missed the earlier thread, it’s here: https://karenbrodycoaching.com/would-you-let-your-partner-go-through-your-phone/
63 percent of you said you would not open your phones, because of the privacy aspect. Many agreed it would not build trust.
The other 38 percent of you said you believed it was the right thing to do, or that you had nothing to hide, so opening your phone was not a problem. Again, I don’t think it’s a matter of whether you have anything to hide, but a matter of privacy.
Some of you said you had been through affairs and ever since have opened your phones to your partners.
This makes sense for a time, until trust can be restored.
A small percentage of you felt violated by passcodes covertly grabbed and used. I don’t blame you. I’d see that as a huge red flag.
Around 20 percent of you had given your partners your passcodes, already, with an unspoken agreement: to be used in an emergency, only. Nice!
This whole experiment got me thinking about another kind of privacy, that of our thoughts and feelings.
Sometimes partners feel that they belong to one another, and not in the ‘your heart is my heart way,’ more in the ‘you are my property way.’ And so, they feel entitled to know what their partner is thinking or feeling, whenever they demand to know.
The idea is: “if you are thinking or feeling something and not telling me“, you must be hiding something and therefore cannot be trusted.
Of course, this is not good for a few reasons: One, sharing every thought and feeling is boring! It kills the mystery of love.
Two, many thoughts and feelings are best withheld and processed, because they’re toxic in their rawest forms.
Three, we need to respect that our partners are their own eco-system, and what they share with us is a gift, rather than an obligation.