Hi all,
I have a trick question. My partner lost a previous partner and could not locate them. Now, they’re wanting life 360 so they can keep up with my location in case something happens. That is reasonable. My partner has a lot of anxiety and not knowing where I am when I don’t reply triggers this.
The catch is, I also have trauma relating to being tracked with life360 and it being used to cheat on me in the past, so I am reluctant to use it.
We both have trauma. I like my privacy and she needs constant reassurance to avoid spiraling at times. I try to keep in touch and let her know when I leave/arrive, but sometimes I forget. So I feel like the request is reasonable. Still, I feel like it is an invasion of privacy and negates some of my autonomy.
What is the proper thing to do in this situation?
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Why not both have it?
What’s your partner doing to address their anxiety aside from wanting to track your location?
Therapy… Seriously, you both need it
Some trauma’s just don’t play well with others. Maybe this is an instance where you both need someone else.
I need the tea.
What happened to your partner’s ex partner?
How did someone use life 360 to cheat on you?
She needs to deal with her anxiety, whether alone or with a professional, and not use it to guilt you into being tracked 24/7. On the flip side, you should be more diligent about checking in when you arrive places.
Her anxiety will not subside if you install a tracking app. It’ll be okay for a little bit, but then it’ll eventually come out over another topic she’ll spiral about. She has to actually deal with it.
Could you make a compromise? Like only use if you’ve not responded after an hour to a text or something? At least on android you can check amount of time spent on an app. If she’s using it outside of the agreed specifications, then there’d be a conversation to be had.
Neither of you should be in relationships. Bringing in untreated trauma into relationships is an absurd thing to do.
If she needs constant reassurance about where you are, then getting this app will be like throwing petrol onto a fire.
It’ll just enable her to become even more obsessive, which will almost certainly backfire massively onto you, which isn’t fair at all. It’s like what seeking reassurance or compliments does to someone with Body Dysmorphia – it doesn’t fix the issue, it’s just a symptom of the issue itself.
The app will not help her trauma in any way. No app can fix trauma. It’ll just encourage obsessive or paranoid overuse / over-reliance on it. You both have phones. She doesn’t need an app to know where you are at all times.
She needs therapy. In the long run using tracking apps is only going to feed her anxiety, not ease it.
Catering to her anxiety is enabling and will make things worse, not better.
You don’t live together and she already expects you to check in or she freaks. That’s not healthy.
So what’s next? You turn on life 360 and she grills you about every place you go?
I’ll turn on location tracking if I’m on a road trip or trail riding my horse or hiking alone. But that has a clear start/stop with a purpose of making me findable in situations where I’m at greater risk. And it’s my idea for my safety not something I do to assuage a partner.
She needs to seek therapy for her anxiety. Being able to see your location is in no way actually helpful in an emergency. Unless she is a search and rescue expert certified in CPR and trauma care, seeing your location is just feeding her anxiety. When we feel that kind of compulsion, the answer is not to give in; that reinforces the belief that the fear is reasonable and the threat is real. That’s simply not the case. Being tracked by your romantic partner is not the default state of being, it’s a symptom of a larger problem.
This won’t help and will make things worse. She’ll just monitor you more and more closely and worry about what your location means, why isn’t the dot moving, why is it 3 feet from where he says it is, etc etc. The problem is her anxiety, not a lack of information.
How did you lose her previous partner? How long have you been together?
She’s coping with her anxiety by giving into it. If she was in therapy before, it sounds like she didn’t gain much insight or coping skills from it.
You shouldn’t need to be surveillance at all times to make your significant other happy or calm. That’s unhealthy and controlling.
Does she needs texts when you get to work, when you leave and when you get home?
Geotags can glitch, I had one that made it look like the item it was attached to ended up in the sea (near it’s actually location, but enough to scare a concerned person)
Downloading a location tracking app is not going to help anything. It’s just the first step into unhinged behaviour.
Do not give in.
Here is how I see it… It sounds like you’re caught between two very real needs, one for security and one for autonomy, and neither feels entirely safe to compromise on, which makes this really tough. Maybe consider setting clear boundaries around when and oh, well, just think about what might work for both of you without losing your sense of control? Would that help ease the tension… or maybe not?