3 things your PHONE reveals about your MARRIAGE

2. Any form of SECRECY related to our phones reveals a serious lack of honesty, transparency and trust in the marriage.

I recently received a message through my Facebook page from a wife struggling with a very common issue in modern marriages. To paraphrase her message, she said, “My husband always has his cell phone with him. Sometimes, he even sleeps with it in his pocket. He never wants me looking at it. I’m afraid he’s communicating with other women or hiding something else, but I don’t want to snoop or make things awkward by demanding to look at his phone. He gets so defensive when I mention it. I’m heartbroken, but I feel stuck, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to make the situation better. Am I being overly sensitive or is he the one who is out of bounds?“

When a spouse is defensive or secretive about his/her phone, it’s usually a symptom of some kind of unhealthy behavior. It’s not aways infidelity, though inappropriate interactions with the opposite sex are certainly common among people who keep passwords from their spouse. When you don’t give your spouse full access to your phone, you’re essentially saying, “I’m not giving you full access to myself. There are secrets I don’t want to tell you, behaviors I don’t want to reveal to you or activities I don’t want to share with you.”

You might pridefully believe that you have the right to keep secrets from your spouse, but any form of deception or secrecy in a marriage is toxic. The healthiest couples value transparency over personal privacy. When a spouse operates in secrecy, it creates distrust and disunity in the marriage. So, if you’ve truly got nothing to hide from your spouse, give him/her the security and comfort of knowing that they have full access to your phone (and everything else). Don’t make him/her have to ask. Be proactive about promoting transparency in your marriage. If you’re hiding something, get it out in the open. A painful truth is always better than a hidden lie. Your marriage is more important than your phone.

#3 is more FUN but it also has some serious implications…