AITAH: I wouldn’t let my bf go thru my phone
My bf is mad at me bc I wouldn’t let him go thru my phone. Now, yeah. That sounds bad- but here’s the deal: my bf (46/m) was mad at me(31/f) for going out with some friends the other night. I was home at 10pm, had a phone call with my brother while I was in my car, and then went inside. Once I get inside, my bf asks if I was with my ex (whom I can be amicable with bc we share a child, but really who I would prefer to not be around bc he has a history of being on the unstable, emotionally unregulated side). I let him know that I was in fact not with my ex and that it’s wild he would think that when he knows how I feel about him. He goes “let me go thru your phone.” And I (7 beers deep female) reply, “no.” That’s simply it. I just say no. It’s not because I have anything from the duration of our relationship that is bad or showing a lack of loyalty, it’s because it felt aggressive, unnecessary, and I honestly just felt spicy (drunk) enough to be like “I don’t have to if I don’t want to. This is my phone and my house and I’m a committed and VERY loving gf.” And so I stood my ground on it.
Also- I haven’t cleaned out my phone in SEVEN years. And I know how this game goes. You get an inch, you run a mile. Because curiosity loves to kill the cat (sense of security). Also- the reason I had not cleaned out my phone in 7 years is not because I like to go back and reminisce on old conversations with abusive douch€bags. It’s simply because I’ve worked 60-80 hours a week and honestly, the last thing I think about after a week like that is finding time to clean out the old sht in my phone when I could be finally petting my dog on the couch with a bag of pistachios watching a tv show or enjoying the fire. Anyways, I know that he would go thru everything from prior to us, and then he’d be jealous or insecure (or both) and it all came down to one thing: you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. My thoughts immediately went to “this guy, that I want to love forever and MARRY, is going to go through my past (which he already does not like or approve of. *Understandably- it was a different time in my life and I had to work very hard to become the much better person I am today.) and will never love me again or be able to look at me the same. Hindsight is 20/20 and I now realize that I should not have had any “inappropriate” old messages or photos from my past on my phone still, because my relationship should have an open door policy on phones, and I have since cleaned it up. So, I guess my question is: AITA for not letting my bf go thru my phone because potentially losing his trust for a while was better than potentially losing our relationship forever?