Relationship Is it caution or is it over the top?

[EveHarrington]

I think you're giving in to his paranoia.

 

[Friday]

It's super duper common over here in the US.

Most phones are equipped with GPS trackers, and there are at least half a dozen wildly popular apps that use that information. From family apps that are on 24/7 (started out as a way to keep an eye on where the kids are, but parents found it useful to know where they are, themselves, and then it kind of spread like wildfire)... to events (meeting up with friends? Log into the app and everyone knows where everyone else is... Whether it's girls night out or a skiing holiday).

Now, I live in a very high tech city, so we tend to be a few years ahead of the rest of the country, but even just a couple years ago when I was still traveling a lot I was running into people being irritated that I didn't have a phone (stalker issue, he clones my phones, it's a pain in the ass) to link into their "where are you" network for events. And on nationwide parenting forums the general answer has changed from "That's crazy! I would never do that with my kids/husband/wife!" To "OMFG! We loooooove these apps! It makes everything so much simpler! You never have to worry about where someone is, you can see they're just stuck in traffic, or at the store! You have to watch out that kids aren't just leaving their phone at the library, though! Kids are smart!"

Shrug.

What's normal? Just depends on where you are.

What's useful? Depends on your own life.

 

[Sweetpea76]

My vet has a tracker on my phone.I don't mind if it helps him feel better. It's not a control thing, it is a combat vet hypervig thing. He's still expecting insurgent attacks.

It is, however, a privilege not a right. I can and will turn it off if he's an ass. It also runs both ways. I can track him too. That's the deal.

 

[Never_falter2]

Thanks for your input, guys :)

@Sweetpea76: don't you hate hypervigilance. If he was a person a just wanted to spit his face. Get lost hypervigilance. Nobody likes you around here.

 

[Sideways]

It may be that this gps thing is quite common, but if it's escalating to carrying other things like torches, "...just in case."

These are safety behaviours, and they're actually pretty normal and healthy. Wearing a seatbelt? Keeps me safer, doesn't cause me any impairment or distress & all cars have em - so great, seatbelt it is.

The danger with safety behaviours is if they snowball out of control. What may have started with casually tossing a gps and torch in your handbag, "just in case", quickly becoming "must not leave the house without the gps and torch and, and, and...", or worse still, "It's safer to just not leave the house at all."

Have you talked to him about how he uses the gps? Does he check as a matter of course where you are every hour, or just when you're late home or something? Is it going to cause distress to him (or you) if, for any reason, either of you were to go out without the gps tracker?

In my mind, it's not so much the presence of the gps tracker that's a problem (we do odd things to accommodate our ptsd sometimes, and that's ok), but rather, how it's being used and whether it's helping (or exacerbating) his (and even your own) anxiety.

Keep in mind that you'll adjust to these safety behaviours as well, and it could easily become the case that whereas you were ok before, you become panicked about having to leave the house without the gps (& torch, and...) as well. That's not healthy, that's regression.

 

[Sweetpea76]

@Never_falter, I'm so used to the hypervigilance now it doesn't bother me. It's just part of who he is. Hypervigilance saved his life in Iraq, so that stuff is engrained in there pretty deep.

I have drawn very firm boundaries with him on it. Like he wants me to get get my CCW, and I'm just not into that at this point in time. He can have the tracker on my phone, but if he ever EVER is a jerk about it, it is getting turned off. If he can track me, I can track him... not that I do, but it's just the principal of the thing. I'm going WHERE I'm going and he doesn't have a say in that. I'm going WHEN I'm going and he doesn't have a say in that. However, him doing perimeter checks and making bug out bags aren't something that I even notice anymore.