Why Smart Committed Couples Have an "Open Phone" Policy

Your smartphone can, in the most insidious way, royally screw with your relational tranquility.

It shouldn't be news to you that smartphones and social media have A LOT to do with breakups, heartbreak, divorce, domestic discord, and infidelity in the current year. From uncontesteddivorceny.net

According to a study conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), more than 80% of divorce attorneys have reported a significant increase in the use of social media as evidence in divorce cases, particularly among Facebook users. The study also found that social media use was cited as a reason for divorce in one-third of all cases surveyed, especially among married couples.

James J. Sexton, a $600/hour New York divorce attorney wrote in his excellent book...

Facebook is the single greatest breeding ground ever for infidelity. Nothing that has come before—not swingers’ clubs and key parties, not chat rooms, not workplace temptations, not Ashley Madison, Tinder, or Grindr; no, not even porn—comes within a thousand miles.

If I had a dollar for every divorce caused by infidelity that started on Facebook, I would have … well, just about the same amount of money I have. Bless you, Mark Zuckerberg.

And I know what you're thinking...

I'm a disciplined, committed husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend. I wouldn't cheat on my partner because I love them and have the best of faithful intentions. I'm satisfied with my partner and the commitment I made to them is ultimately what keeps me loyal.

But this is naive, old-fashioned thinking and may very well NOT be enough.

In decades, centuries, and millennia past infidelity was more of a clear choice. Stereotypically, the executive in the corner office decided to invite the flirtatious intern or secretary out for "just one drink" after work, she decided to accept, they decided on a time to meet (repeatedly), and then they decided to book a hotel room for their horizontal liaison. Cheating entailed a series of choices clearly leading up to the betrayal of their partner. Or two colleagues with obvious sexual tension between them decided to go on a business trip together. This is well-portrayed in the recent mini-series Love & Death; where two married people who met via their church conspire together for weeks before they do the dirty deed in an out-of-town motel room.

Cheating was once something akin to defrauding the company you worked for, a highly volitional act.

But technology has changed the cheating game

Infidelity is now more like getting fat or staying poor as a result of picking up unhealthy snacks or buying lottery tickets. Two examples...

Your chatty and somewhat attractive neighbor sends you a Facebook friend request after a weekend BBQ, and you accept just to be neighborly. A little while later she posts a photo of her looking surprisingly good in a bikini on that vacation she mentioned planning at the BBQ. You shoot her a harmless message; "Looks like you picked up a great suntan!" She responds flirtatiously; your messaging escalates into dirty talk. You start to wonder what you might get away with next weekend while your wife is out of town visiting her mother.

OR

Instagram's discovery feed will show you scantily clad women. If your gaze and scroll linger on them a millisecond longer than the food pictures your cousin shares, Meta's apps will show you more. You'll click to view more without even thinking about it. You'll ogle a bevy of photos on their profile. You'll feel a little guilty about it, and that microdose of guilt will make it harder for you to resist the temptation to indulge in some more harmless viewing. Their algorithm will figure out what you are most powerless to look away from. You'll follow a few models' profiles that turn you on. You'll tell yours "I'm allowed to look at the menu, just don't order anything," and you'll follow a few more profiles. It won't take long before you want to see something more than bikini pictures, and - again without even really thinking about it - you'll click on the OnlyFans profile linked in her bio. Even though it's shameful, you'll pay for more explicit content just this once. And now you're hooked, paying to view more, and eventually paying for her attention and interaction amounting to a "digital girlfriend" experience.

Your smartphone makes cheating a matter of sliding not deciding. The masters of the universe in Silicon Valley employ floors of social engineers to architect a seductive digital experience that compels you to make just barely conscious micro-decisions to click, swipe, message, and make micro-transactions against your best interests and intentions.

The solution: An "Open Phone" policy with your partner

This means that you can check each other's smartphones, devices, laptops, and social media accounts as much as you would like - without the implication that the other is doing anything wrong.

This policy really simplifies things in the self-control department when it comes to temptation; will you visit porn sites or message an ex-boyfriend knowingyou'll get caught (resulting in a big fight, drama, or break-up) the next time your partner goes through your phone? That would give you a significantly heightened degree of self-control, wouldn't it?

We succumb to temptation because we swear to ourselves that we won't break the "11th Commandment" - getting caught. But when we make getting caught a certainty with the Open Phone policy, we outsource our moral will and self-control (which reside in the pre-frontal cortex - the most evolved and human part of the brain) to a much older part of the brain, the amygdala (fear and self-preservation).

It's also clarifying. Instead of playing the justification game with ourselves when Facebook suggests we friend request that attractive, flirty coworker of ours, we can simply ask ourselves "Would my partner approve of this?" When YouTube suggests we waste our time watching music videos full of tits and ass, ask "Would my partner be hurt knowing I chose to watch this?" And you'll make the right decision; saving yourself time and digital decision fatigue, along with the potential stress and brain damage of a digital betrayal trauma episode with your partner.

The #1 reason to have an "Open Phone" policy

Your partner is, in all likelihood, going to check your phone anyway. When you go to the bathroom in the morning while they are lying in bed and your phone, on the nightstand, dings with a notification. When you forget your phone on the couch after a movie night. When you're driving and you ask them to check your text messages. Or when you leave your social media account open on the home computer or tablet you share. Eventually, your partner is going to get a little curious about your digital life and they'll check. And you'll probably do the same. Since this will almost certainly happen, why not show each other the respect of just making it policy?

The excuses

This is something you or your partner may be resistant to because of, first of all, pride. Secondly, guilt. And thirdly, privacy concerns.

I'll address all three if you're not yet convinced that this is a smart risk-mitigation move...

Pride

Your partner checking your phone to make sure you aren't straying (edging toward straying or viewing inappropriate things) pricks your pride. "With all that I do for my partner, they should know I would never cheat!" You tell yourself. Or you consider yourself so stalwartly upright that you would never succumb to the temptation beckoning from your smartphone. Or you're saying, "I've already proven to my partner that I'm trustworthy, that's why they're with me. I shouldn't have to prove it over again by handing over my smartphone whenever they want." But this all is naive thinking stuck in centuries past when cheating was deciding and not sliding. You're not a saint and, sorry, you're not smarter than these algorithms which have been finely tuned to lure your attention.

Guilt

You are already doing things on your smartphone that you know your partner would NOT be happy with. You've visited porn sites. Your social media feeds are full of thirst trap accounts you ogle regularly. Or you've been messaging, flirting, or sexting with ex-lovers, colleagues, friends, or strangers. You've got secrets to keep behind that lock screen.

This is a place where the truth will set you free. Sitting your partner down and admitting to what you've been up to may be a hard conversation, it may have consequences, but it's ultimately the best foundation for rebuilding trust. Rebuilding trust is doubly hard if it's something they had to find out for themselves (which they inevitably will!) If your partner really can't handle the truth or the fact that you're a fallible human just doing your best to be loyal, you have to ask yourself why you didn't make honesty a more important value earlier in your relationship. But what I would do is go through your phone, delete everything you're ashamed of, and uninstall all those apps that drew you to temptation (maybe install a porn blocker), then have the "Open Phone" conversation. If they ask, admit that you've succumbed to temptation some but you've removed the sources of it. While they may be very curious about what you were doing wrong on your phone, them seeing what you were seeing is probably not going to help you move forward together. They may not be happy with that, but they'll ultimately be thankful that you admitted to your wrongdoing.

Privacy

This is an important value; privacy keeps us free and safe. It's crucial to draw a privacy line when it comes to your friends, neighbors, coworkers, boss, the government, corporations, and of course your online presence. But, when it comes to your intimate life partner privacy is kind of out the window...

• This person has seen every inch of you naked.
• They have access to your bank account and medical records.
• They know all about your most embarrassing problems.
• They know where your dirty socks and underwear are.
• And they are privy to the deepest depths of your unconscious when you mutter in your sleep.

It's more than a bit suspicious if the one place you draw the privacy line with them is around your phone and probably due to guilt.

And I'll challenge how seriously you take privacy; owning a normal smartphone with some of the popular common apps installed on it indicates that you are actually pretty cavalier about privacy. Do you use Facebook, Gmail, or Google Maps? As you should be well aware, virtually all the popular apps and digital services entail pretty egregious violations of your privacy. If you have a Graphene Smartphone and use none of the surveillance capitalism apps, I might buy the "privacy" excuse. But if you have a normal smartphone with a few of those popular apps on it, you're not the private person you think you are. If you really took privacy seriously, you wouldn't have the apps most likely to get you in trouble in your relationship. Why endanger your most important relationship when you're letting Meta, Google, and the Chinese FUCKING Communist Party (via TikTok) know everything they want about you?

If you're bound by corporate contracts to keep some work-related communications confidential, just let your partner know that they should stay away from your work stuff when checking your phone. Again, if you trust them with everything else in your life, you can trust them with this. And shouldn't your confidential work material be behind an extra-password-protected folder anyway?

A few other things about the open phone policy...

This is for committed couples

This is for married people or those in long-term monogamous relationships. It's totally reasonable to draw a privacy line around your digital life with people you're casually dating.

The conversation

Sooner rather than later, in the first year of a relationship, you should have a somewhat serious talk about what constitutes cheating to you along with porn, unprotected sex, STDs, and potentially having kids in the future - this is a good time to bring up an Open Phone policy. You can preempt a lot of their concerns (especially that silly privacy one) by just sending them this article.

Show your partner some grace

They are only human and perhaps they've succumbed to temptation in their digital life, which you'll uncover. Forgive them if they are committed to you and changing their ways. You may also discover that...

• Their politics don't align as closely with yours as you thought or they sometimes make politically incorrect jokes.
• They have messaging chats with a friend where they vent about your failings.
• They have a digital journal with stream-of-consciousness rants that aren't always complimentary of you.

Give them some grace, this person trusts you enough to give you privileged access to their digital life, and you should trust your choice of them. It's a good idea to do the checking in the presence of your partner, so they can explain anything that needs to be explained.

Sexual self-control saves you from self-sabotage

As I wrote about in The Personal Development Sphere is AFRAID of this Topic, sexual self-control is a skill and an art that yields a life of carnal joy, meaning, and deep edifying love. Your good intentions to be a loyal partner do less than you think to fortify your self-control in a world doing its damnedest to lead you astray. An Open Phone policy is an unstylish, yet effective lifehack for the sexual self-control you and your partner need. We're stuck with these smartphones so why not be smart about the way we use them?