Lachlan Brown
My ex-girlfriend was amazing.
Or at least I thought she was for a while.
She actually turned out to be a nightmare.
And if I’d known where to look I would have noticed some big warning signs.
One of the biggest warning signs was that she always hid her phone when I was around her.
Here’s why that matters if it’s happening in your relationship, too.
10 reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship
1) Because it makes no sense
Why hide your phone if you’re not doing anything wrong?
It just doesn’t make sense.
If you do it then even the most trusting partner is going to start wondering if you’re cheating.
This can include the classic tactic of always putting your phone face down when you walk away or go do something else away from your phone.
“It’s okay if it happens a few times because a lot of people do this unconsciously sometimes.
However, if your partner has done it a lot of times, then he’s definitely hiding something from you.
Maybe he’s expecting a text message that he doesn’t want you to see or he’s afraid that someone (read ‘the other woman’) might call him and that you might see it.”
Don’t hide your phone from your partner if you have nothing to hide.
It creates this weird cycle of mistrust that can be super hard to get rid of.
2) It erodes your bond with your partner
I actually agree that your partner doesn’t necessarily have the right to look through your phone without your permission.
If he or she wants to do so, they can politely request it, not just grab your smartphone and start scrolling.
But intentionally shielding your phone from their sight and becoming its zealous guardian is both weird and counterproductive.
I know from my own experiences of this that feeling your partner hovering in on their phone at every second and responding to its chimes like a trained monkey makes you feel like shit.
I constantly had the impression of being less valuable than my girlfriend’s phone and that was a really bizarre feeling.
When she hid it from me I felt even more like trash.
It erodes your bond with your partner and introduces a keyed-up tension into the relationship that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
Even if you fully trust each other, your partner is going to feel a little sad that you’re so focused on “me time” with just you and your phone.
Just don’t do it.
3) You’re shutting off a big part of yourself to your partner
Hiding your phone doesn’t always mean you’re cheating, looking at porn, or doing anything unusual at all.
Sometimes it can almost become an instinct.
You just want to protect that private part of yourself and your life.
Our phones have become like a permanent accessory to us these days, so even the one closest to us can feel like an intrusion when they walk too close to our phone or ask what we’re laughing at or so engrossed in.
But hiding your phone in a relationship is a mistake.
Writing about why she doesn’t want her boyfriend to see her phone, Jennifer Lee says:
“You wouldn’t believe the things I Google, and some of the things I look up are things that I’m not ready to tell him about. He’d probably be very curious to know why I Googled “why does sex hurt sometimes” but I don’t want him to know about that — at least not right now.”
The thing is not hiding your phone and inviting your partner to look at your phone are two different things.
It’s fine to prefer he’d not look through your whole phone, but you don’t need to actively hide it. If he wants to look he can ask.
4) You’ll miss out on fun phone times
When you hide your phone from your significant other you’re basically putting a “Keep Out!” sign all over yourself and your phone.
When you share and are easygoing about what you’re up to on your phone, then it’s an invitation to spend quality time together on your phone.
You can share jokes, show your partner videos, or let them see an amusing or interesting message a friend or colleague sent you.
When you’re chilling on the couch on both your phones but holding them away from each other and lost in your own little world, it’s like you’re not even in the same room – much less on the same planet.
By sharing your phone and making it part of an experience you’re in together, you’d be surprised how much it can open the vista of your relationship and make things lighter and more intimate.
Making your phone out of bounds sections off a whole part of your world from the person you care about the most.
And that’s just sad, my friend.
5) It’s paranoid
Hiding your phone from your partner is paranoid.
You aren’t Agent Mulder in the X Files, you’re just a guy or girl with a romantic partner.
I don’t know what work you do, and maybe you do have top-secret classified info all over your phone.
Maybe you have finally exposed the Deep State once and for all, or you have proof that aliens are running the show that has to get to the President before 6 a.m. tomorrow morning.
However:
Firstly, you probably shouldn’t be storing that shit on your phone;
And secondly, even if you do have things that aren’t for public consumption on your phone what is it about the material that makes you not want your partner to see?
Thinking about that can yield all sorts of useful insights about your relationship and its potential problems.
6) It’s highly insecure
You know what a secure adult person doesn’t do? Hide their phone from their partner.
It’s kind of immature.
And one of the top reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship is that it’s a really insecure thing to do.
If you’re confident in yourself and the love you have with your partner there should be no need to be hiding your phone or shielding it from their gaze.
It’s just kind of weird and insecure for someone to do that, and if you are then stop for a moment and try to reflect on what instinct inside yourself is making you feel like you should hide your phone from your partner.
7) It’s stressful
Another of the top reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship is that it’s just plain stressful.
Having to shy away from your romantic partner and keep your digital device away from them takes energy and focus.
And plus:
If they notice you acting weird about your phone there’s all the more chance that your partner will try to get into it and snoop around without your permission.
In fact, 38 percent of men and 24 percent of women between 18 to 35 have fessed up and said they have looked through their partner’s phone without permission.
“If she’s not allowed to check your phone in the name of ‘maintaining space’ and ‘privacy,’ she might eventually just check your phone while you’re busy with other chores or activity. It’s not a healthy relationship and can lead to a lot of misunderstandings and arguments.”
8) It shows a lack of trust
Whether you mean it to or not, hiding your phone shows a lack of trust.
It’s also not transparent at all.
In my opinion, love isn’t all flowers and sunshine: there’s a strong reciprocal trust element as well.
In the similar way that shareholders demand transparency from a company they are investing in, your significant other has a right for you to not hide large areas of your life from him or her.
Without trust, love withers and dies.
Keep trust alive by being a bit more easygoing about your phone.
9) Your partner will do the same to you
Another of the most convincing reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship is that if you do it then your partner will do the same to you.
When you display a lack of trust and are overprotective of your phone your partner will likely react by doing the same.
He or she will undergo a subconscious – or even conscious – thought process along the lines of:
Well if they’re hiding their phone why shouldn’t I?
It’s a vicious cycle that leads to a couple out at dinner lost in their silent silos of texting with no love left.
Don’t be them.
10) If you have something to hide you’re with the wrong person
At the end of this article, you may still feel like you’re not convinced.
Your phone is your private property and you don’t really want anyone – including your other half – snooping around it.
Fair enough.
But I really believe that this means they’re not the right person for you.
If you feel like you need to hide any part of yourself or your life – including your phone – from the person you love, then there are definitely unresolved issues in your relationship or at least it hasn’t progressed beyond the very initial stages.
Like Bobby Box writes in his article:
“Every person, including those in a relationship, is entitled to privacy, but Adam believes that when he gives access to his phone, his partner won’t abuse this privilege by snooping. Lilith, 26, agrees.
‘If you’re in a committed relationship, knowing each other’s passwords isn’t crazy,’ she says. ‘But if you’re snooping or hiding something from your S.O., you’ve got issues.’”
I couldn’t agree more.
Finding out the hard way…
Like I was telling you, I found out the hard way about the reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship.
I found out from that angel who turned out to be a devil…
Her reassuring smile was all fake and once it turned out she’d already been seeing another friend of ours behind my back it was too late to do anything about it.
Because I should have noticed.
She’d always whip her phone out of view whenever I was with her…
Or smile awkwardly and tuck it behind her when I sat down next to her on the couch…
That damn pink phone was like her best friend.
Sometimes I felt she was dating her phone, not me.
When it turned out that she’d been using the phone to cheat all those sneaky memories flooded back and I could only think one thing:
Of course.
Her smiles had been fake, but her phone had been real. And the way she’d responded to those pings and boops and zoops whenever it chimed off was like watching a Pavlovian experiment.
I mean, it was instantaneous.
She wanted those dopamine hits and incoming messages from Dickbrain more than she wanted to watch a show with me or sit and chat.
And if you’re in a situation like that my only advice is to seek the nearest exit because it’s pure bullshit that’s not worth your time.
Are you getting my message?
As you read the above reasons you should never hide your phone in a relationship how do you feel?
Are you in agreement, hesitant, pissed off, or neutral?
Does reading my story ring off any alarm bells or make you say “Thank God I’m not stuck in a relationship like that?”
Either way, you should know the truth:
If you’re hiding your phone in a relationship it’s never a good thing.
It shows a lack of trust and deep fracture lines in a relationship that is bound to break out and get worse over time.
Plus it almost always leads to a worsening deterioration of the love you have between you and a flareup of the worst tensions and problems you haven’t dealt with.
Never hide your phone in a relationship.
If you’re doing that then you’re better off just breaking up.
Did you like my article? Like me on Facebook to see more articles like this in your feed.
