Is it normal for my partner to check my location?

Checking your location is common. Whether it is a problem depends on two things: whether you could stop it without a cost, and what happens when your location does not match what they expected. Couples who share location to know when to put the dinner on are doing one thing. A partner who checks several times a day and wants an explanation for a detour is doing another.

When location sharing is ordinary

You both agreed to it. You could each switch it off and the other would shrug. It gets used for logistics: are you on the train yet, do you want picking up. Nobody checks it for reassurance, and nobody is questioned about where the dot was at 3pm.

When it has become monitoring

The signs are about consequence, not technology.

• You have been asked to account for where you were, and the asking felt like an interview.
• You have started planning your day around what the map will show, or texting ahead so there is nothing to explain.
• You have thought about turning it off and decided not to, because of what would follow.
• Your partner frames it as care, safety or trust, and treats any objection as evidence you have something to hide.
• There are other checks too: your messages, your spending, your friends.

The mechanism is this. A person who can be watched and questioned at any time begins to watch themselves. The checking does not need to happen often once it has taught you to anticipate it. That is why people who live with it describe a kind of constant low alertness, and why it counts in the eyes of UK law. Monitoring someone's movements is one of the behaviours named in the statutory guidance on controlling or coercive behaviour in England and Wales, and the Scottish offence covers it too.

If you are the one checking

It is worth asking why you look. Some people check because something has happened before. Some check because the not-knowing is unbearable, and the checking is really about their own anxiety. If you check several times a day, ask about gaps, or would be angry if sharing were turned off, the checking is doing something to your partner whatever you intend. The Respect Phoneline (0808 8024 040, weekdays, free) talks to people about exactly this.

What this might mean for you

If you recognised the consequences more than the convenience, look at the rest of the picture before deciding anything. Location checking rarely travels alone. The free module Your phone, your money, your data shows you how to see what your phone is sharing and how to change it in a way that does not announce itself. If the wider pattern is what worries you, When the problem is control is the next read, and the assessment starts with safety.

If you are afraid of how your partner would react to losing sight of you, do not change anything suddenly. Talk to someone first: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 (24 hours, free), Men's Advice Line 0808 801 0327, Galop (LGBT+) 0800 999 5428. In an emergency, 999, and press 55 if you cannot speak. Pressing Escape twice leaves this site at once.