"Tracking" the wife - does anyone do this?

[LoveSoReal]

I was tracked and I knew I was being tracked. It wasn't a very good feeling at all. It was through iPhone's Find my iPhone feature. On top of that we had dash cams on my car, in addition to the cars already integrated feature of Locate my car app. He knew where I went, down to how fast I was driving. Also our home had motion sensored security cameras where he would get alerted on the spot. The cameras were both outside AND inside.

 

I know everything was put in with security in mind. We had a nice house and nice things, my ex-husband trusted no one. But with that said, we were together for almost 10 years and I had nothing to hide but it still made me very very uncomfortable. The unsettling feeling of being watched 24/7. He would know exactly what time I left, exactly what time I came home, exactly what the neighbor and I talked about when we crossed paths outside.

 

Eventhough we are no longer together, the feeling of being watched still lingers. If you love someone, don't do it. It creates such feelings of resentment, mistrust, and paranoia.

 

Edited to add: And no, I was not privy to the same access he had. It was pretty much one way.

[Batya33]

And there are those who would say "if she has nothing to hide, why would she mind???"

 

Just remember, those who live behind bars are in prison. With no trial.

 

It's not about hiding. It's about entitlement to private space whatever your single/marital/other status.

[Fudgie]

I guess if they both are truly okay with it, then whatever. Some couples do things like that...including knowing each others' passwords to everything too. Me, I couldn't deal with that, no.

[itsallgrand]

I know my cousin and his son track each other. His son is 18. His son is the one who wanted it - for convience of finding his dad and meeting up. The funny thing about it is my cousin is a very private person. But he is super close with his son and I guess it works for them. So I can see the point of how it may be about convience, and maybe they like seeing people's reactions and playing it up in a joking way.

 

Personally though, no way in hell I'd allow it. I already are willing to give up many conviences for privacy - but it's becoming increasingly more difficult as more and more of the world becomes surveilled. It's public, commercial, and private life now.

[Seymore]

I know my cousin and his son track each other. His son is 18. His son is the one who wanted it - for convience of finding his dad and meeting up. The funny thing about it is my cousin is a very private person. But he is super close with his son and I guess it works for them. So I can see the point of how it may be about convience, and maybe they like seeing people's reactions and playing it up in a joking way.

 

Personally though, no way in hell I'd allow it. I already are willing to give up many conviences for privacy - but it's becoming increasingly more difficult as more and more of the world becomes surveilled. It's public, commercial, and private life now.

 

I think it's a great tool to have when you have young kids - especially in this day and age with all the nutsos around. I would want to know where my kids are. Adults, not so much.

[ParisPaulette]

I was tracked and I knew I was being tracked. It wasn't a very good feeling at all. It was through iPhone's Find my iPhone feature. On top of that we had dash cams on my car, in addition to the cars already integrated feature of Locate my car app. He knew where I went, down to how fast I was driving. Also our home had motion sensored security cameras where he would get alerted on the spot. The cameras were both outside AND inside.

 

This is the kind of one-way tracking that is a serious problem and there is zero reason for it. I'm sorry you went through that, glad to hear you're out of it. That's frightening.

 

I didn't even track my kids that closely when they were little and I was a paranoid mom. Still am, but since the youngest now stands 6 feet tall and is built like a linebacker who's going int to the Marines I have told him I just have to trust he will make the right choices and be able to hold his own in a bad situations. He's also martial arts trained, but yes again he has tracking software on his phone simply because of where we live. And he has all my info as well, because yeah flash floods, animals in the road, bad roads that haven't improved since they were wagon trails 100 years ago.

 

The real truth on tracking hardware is it can be used to locate someone, but quite possibly not really in time should anything really bad go down. I recently did a post on this on a similar thread where the guy was a cop worried about his wife and if he should track her whereabouts. In that case I totally get why he would feel like that. You can't work in certain professions and not sometimes have that fear of "what if this happens to me or someone I love?" come over you after seeing or hearing a bad thing that happened to someone else. It's why a cousin who is a firefighter always has to check the wiring when he comes to my house. I think he's overly paranoid, but he's seen too many electrical fires not to be, so I let him check. All truth, it's kind of nice to have someone like that on hand.

 

So it's a balancing act all around I suppose. But unhealthy tracking that's all one sided is vastly different from "this is how you can find me should I disappear or not arrive when I was supposed to do so, because I just hit a deer/elk/pothole the size of Texas."

[Wiseman2]

This sounds like a prison, not a home.

He knew where I went, down to how fast I was driving. Also our home had motion sensored security cameras where he would get alerted on the spot. The cameras were both outside AND inside. But with that said, we were together for almost 10 years and I had nothing to hide but it still made me very very uncomfortable. The unsettling feeling of being watched 24/7. He would know exactly what time I left, exactly what time I came home, exactly what the neighbor and I talked about when we crossed paths outside.

[Snny]

I think it's a great tool to have when you have young kids - especially in this day and age with all the nutsos around. I would want to know where my kids are. Adults, not so much.

Maybe I'm old school, but kids don't need a cell phone. I used to be a high school teacher and it caused a LOT of problems in school. Kid didn't like a teacher or got pissed off because he/she got detention- they called their helicopter parent right in the middle of class. Come to class tired as heck because they were up until 3 am talking to their girlfriends on their phones. Don't feel like do class work because they're busy playing Candy Crush/Clash of Clans/sending texts to their boyfriends. Then there were the kids who try to be cool blasting their music off their phones in the middle of class.

 

Kids are brats with phones. They really don't need those gadgets. Parents need to step up and *actually* supervise their kids. Be in charge of your kid. I did fine without a phone. I did after school sports and was a daughter of a 9/11 firefighter. I didn't get my own phone until I was out of high school.

[Hermes]

Agree Snny.

 

But every kid I see, even very young five and six year-olds have mobile phones.

[Seymore]

Maybe I'm old school, but kids don't need a cell phone.

 

I absolutely agree and feel the same way, but by the time I have kids (I hope), that won't be the world, unfortunately. That's not the world now. Hell, schools are making things like Chromebooks mandatory. The "grid" is unavoidable nowadays.

 

But regarding kids and cell phones - they don't need them, they don't take care of them...maybe by the time I have a kid, I can be the mean parent and get them a prepaid dumbphone if they're still around

[youareworthy]

In general I agree about kids and cell phones. The first child I ever got a phone for was my second daughter. I bought her one when she was 11 because my ex (her father) and his new wife wouldn't let her call me on their landline when she was visiting their home for the weekend. She was clinically depressed and would cry herself to sleep at night, and it made her feel a lot better if she could talk to me for a few minutes before bedtime. When her creepy dad (and even creepier stepmom) began hiding the landline phones so she couldn't call me, and I found out she had been crying late into the night on those weekends, I got her a cell phone immediately.

 

If the judge who handled our custody case ever found out that my ex was preventing our kids from calling me, he would have been livid.

[Unreasonable]

I wouldn't do this while i still had any hope for the relationship. Maybe I'd do it while gathering proof of infidelity for a divorce to save money for hiring a PI. But my state is no-fault so infidelity would not factor in.

 

These "apps" are not very accurate. I have a tracking app for my kids (they know about it, it's for their safety), they just aren't very accurate.

 

They can give false hits of being where you're not, setting off suspicions that shouldn't be there. I've seen it first-hand.

[annie24]

I wouldn't do this while i still had any hope for the relationship. Maybe I'd do it while gathering proof of infidelity for a divorce to save money for hiring a PI. But my state is no-fault so infidelity would not factor in.

 

These "apps" are not very accurate. I have a tracking app for my kids (they know about it, it's for their safety), they just aren't very accurate.

 

They can give false hits of being where you're not, setting off suspicions that shouldn't be there. I've seen it first-hand.

That's true - Sometimes my Lyft or Uber apps have me a good block or 2 away from where I actually am.