Not hard to understand, no, but many find it to be creepy and invasive.

Some of the arguments for mutual tracking relate to safety, not cheating.

Jesus fuck, what did people do with their spouses and kids before phones? Trust them?

Sounds unlikely.

This is how it works with us too.

I'm kind of neurotic and get worried that something may have happened to her while she's traveling, which she does a lot. If she's supposed to arrive somewhere and hasn't I start pacing and biting my nails thinking of all the bad things that could have happened.

We shared each other's location and the peace of mind has helped a lot.

We don't keep secrets from each other. Some folks in this thread see location sharing as a threat, I assume because they are uncomfortable or have existing trust issues with their relationship that are yet to be resolved?

If this was demanded of me, I would end the relationship immediately. That's absolutely not worth it.

If you just see this and, like 20 others, blindly say "you should trust your partner" then you haven't thought about it at all. If you trust your partner completely, then you trust them to use your location information responsibly, right? So trust does not have any bearing on whether to use it or not.

The issue for me is that we should try to avoid normalising behaviour which enables coercive control in relationships, even if it is practical. That means that even if you trust your partner not to spy on your every move and use the information against you, you shouldn't enable it because it makes it harder for everyone who can't trust their partner to that extent to justify not using it.

On a more practical level, controlling behaviour doesn't always manifest straight away. What's safe now may not be safe in two years, and if it does start ramping up later, it may be much, much harder to back out of agreements made today which end up impacting your safety.

It's only vile when you project insecurities or bad intent...

We both know each other's passwords for everything. We use a shared database for it. We both know each other's phone, unlock codes and often through laziness will just use each other's phones for shit. We shared the same bank accounts, we don't have separate money. We share the same vehicles....etc

What's mine is hers, what's hers is mine. Except literally.

We also both have each other's location. What do we use this for? Essentially nothing except when one of us is traveling, or someone is feeling neurotic/worried. The peace of mind knowing that your significant other didn't just die in a car crash part way to their destination and are still making progress is significant.

We don't hide things from each other, we've explicitly built a relationship of openness and trust, brought on by us actually_not_ trusting each other for a long time. We are completely transparent, and you know what this has helped build? Trust. Know what it has torn down? Insecurities. It's been great.

Would recommend.

She does.

Call me old fashioned, but I put it in the same bucket as a prenup

I don't agree. Prenups are passive, they don't do anything until not needed. all the while this is a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust.

all the while this is a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust.

How? My situation is similar to the person you’re replying to and I’m curious how two consenting adults sharing their location with each other is “a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust”.

Maybe if one party is unwilling or has no say/control in location sharing but specifically in the scenario at hand I don’t see it.

Therapy would be better for you than a panopticon.

What if your partner wants to run away from you? Do you not trust that they would have a good reason?

I don't want to share my location nor have anyone else's shared with me.

Friends and partners can text "I'll be there in 5"

My friend shares her location with her mother. Her mother then nags her with like "Are you seeing someone new? You're spending a lot of time in north brooklyn now." Like, who needs that, or even the temptation of that?

A tech solution is not going to fix a social/mental problem like fear of cheating.

because you are not sharing your location with each other. you are sharing your location with a greedy company that also lets your significant other, and then the highest bidder access this information. they are doing whatever they please with it to make (even more) money.
see, I was so into google's timeline feature years ago. but soon after I realized privacy is a thing I was disgusted of it and turned it off. if you run nextcloud and that addon I don't remember, or reitti, at home and use that, and you keep is somewhat safe*, then it's fine, and I could imagine using that, even just for myself.

I should have explained that. for some reason I tend to assume that lemmy users are privacy conscious, but that's probably not true.

* don't expose the services because your data will get stolen and you'll get hacked by automated systems. run a VPN on the server, only expose the port of that. then you can access the services through a VPN. wireguard is relatively simple, and it's secure.

It's only vile when you project insecurities or bad intent...

We both know each other's passwords for everything. We use a shared database for it. We both know each other's phone, unlock codes and often through laziness will just use each other's phones for shit. We shared the same bank accounts, we don't have separate money. We share the same vehicles....etc

What's mine is hers, what's hers is mine. Except literally.

We also both have each other's location. What do we use this for? Essentially nothing except when one of us is traveling, or someone is feeling neurotic/worried. The peace of mind knowing that your significant other didn't just die in a car crash part way to their destination and are still making progress is significant.

We don't hide things from each other, we've explicitly built a relationship of openness and trust, brought on by us actually_not_ trusting each other for a long time. We are completely transparent, and you know what this has helped build? Trust. Know what it has torn down? Insecurities. It's been great.

Would recommend.

Yep. This is one of those hard lines for me. And I feel like it's a red flag for anyone who demands it from a partner.

I trust my partner and they trust me. I actively encourage them to do things without me, because I want them to be an independent person. I want them to have friends that I don't hang out with.

For one, it wrecks your battery life.

Secondly, everyone I know my age keeps GPS off unless using a mapping program.

Finally regarding app privacy, people do care about that which is why grapheneos and other privacy focused OS's exist.

The fact that you don't care about privacy and want the government and corporations to have every sext you've ever received or sent doesn't mean that others don't care as well.

The main reason my wife and I don't have location sharing set up isn't because of trust or lack thereof between each other, but because I don't trust proprietary/commercial location-sharing services.

I've been meaning to set up a self-hosted system (mainly because it seems like Home Assistant could do some neat automations with that info), but haven't gotten around to it yet.