Giving my PA a little more trust... or no

If going through his phone makes you feel safer about the situation and there is no argument, it sounds like he is trying.

 

I agree with nugget. It probably makes him feel more accountable.

 

I think it’s whatever makes you feel safe at the moment and helps build trust. For me I don’t want to see anything and it would make me be almost obsessive checking. He has someone that is an accountability partner that gets reports on the monitoring app he put on his phone. I have passwords and can access at anytime. If anything were to show up or if he relapses, they talk and then they would disclose to me. So far this has worked for us.

 

This is a tough question. There are 2 perspectives to look at here: (1) from his recovery and (2) from your healing perspective.

(1) allowing you to check his phone might just be his way to either show that you can trust him and/or hold himself accountable by allowing his device to go through a constant spot-check. But it could be a double-edged sword. By showing that you don't trust him, it might create more anxiety, especially if a mistake does happen, but even if it doesn't, it could create anxiety and stress, which might make it harder to recover. I'm not sure, as I'm projecting what it would do for me. I enjoy a certain amount of personal space and loathe intrusion into that space. Whenever my wife intrudes, it gets me frustrated and irritated. It's not about having something to hide, it's just I want to be alone/have a place that's just me or need some time for myself, etc. So it would depend on him, I guess on this one.

By placing your confidence in him by not checking his phone constantly but appreciating that you could if you wanted to, could do more good than fear. Your saying that your interested in a real relationship and that you believe that he could do it without constant supervision and handholding. That's a pretty powerful statement. On the other hand, without the accountability, he might relapse and it'll start the trust cycle again.

(2) Do you trust him at all? is constant spot-checking his phone the only way that you'll ever trust him? or is this a sort initial stage where you are rebuilding your trust? do you get anxious if you don't know what he's doing on his phone, or are you basically okay and you trust him-ish, but you want to see anyone 'for his benefit', whatever that means?

If you'll only ever be able to trust him by the creation of a fear to misstep through constant supervision, then your relationship needs to be rethought. If this is just something for now, then I would say find something that is a happy medium between you healing and less anxiety, trusting him with his recovery while holding him accountable. I'm not sure what that is, as I don't know either of you, I'm sure you can figure that part out.

 

If he never has any hesitation handing over his phone, you should be fine. Good at hiding things still comes with hesitation in my experience.

Edit:
From another thread....looks like there was something on the phone. Sorry to read that.

 

I think @ JKnight. Make some very interesting points.

If the long-term goal is to have him be PMO free? than what would be the guideline of acceptable behavior on your part? In other words do you spend the rest of your life going through his phone?
Perhaps like I have done many times ordered my wife on Amazon a present. Of course she is welcome to go through my phone anytime she likes but had she seen by purchased for her it would no longer been special. I do not use my phone for any activity like PMO. But I do see where you're coming from.

I have concerns about where both behaviors will end? It's true he may become better at hiding and manipulating, so does that mean you become better at finding and looking?
When does a relationship reached the pinnacle point of beginning a path of I'm hiding try and find me? The stresses of that alone are difficult, and yes as time goes on trust should be possible. However I have my concerns on spouse accountability. I like when I see people being held accountable by friends or family members that are not involved in an intimate relationship with that individual. Because in a intimate relationship we're trying to bond trust, caring, and reliability. It doesn't seem possible that this is not ended at some point. But what if it ends and that leaves the door open for him to begin again because he thinks are no longer holding him accountable? And this is where having such a design of already checking up on him to try and make sure it's working becomes very difficult on both people.

.I am not saying what you are doing is wrong, in fact it's a very common behavior as we are concerned about our individuals we are intimate with. And then if trust is challenged we want to know for sure. I know in my past that there was a point that we had to work on trusting each other in my home. That was over 20 years ago and even though I have difficult moments with PMO, I have managed to repair an awful lot of the damage I caused. But it had to be on my terms and at my level of fixing things that. I would feel guilty knowing now that my significant other had to be stressed constantly to see if they could find something I wasn't doing correctly in our relationship. If I was already working to repair it this may have made it more difficult or could have triggered something to persuade myself to become more secretive something I don't need.

I would err on caution, this could create a long-term problem and put trust as an obstacle to overcome a majority of your relationship time. I pray you find the right solution, but it would be better peak and do this on his own with other accountability partners as opposed to putting the pressure on you to do so, but that's simply my opinion.