LadyBlue0527

No one knows all the circumstances surrounding your situation but there's one thing for sure. He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing. Bit of a quandary though with that saying in this circumstance because you have trust issues. He may know that you'd make something out of nothing and that's why he deletes the texts.

I would be more concerned about the fact that you have trust issues from a prior marriage (other post in F&F forum) and you are planning to marry a man who cheated on his wife and divorced because of it. People absolutely can change but to me that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Have you sought pre marriage counseling?

Mountainmanbob

keeping a safe distance in mind -- this may be ok in AA
but
we are taught that for close relationships and sharing
we stick with our own sex (only)
this keeps us out of trouble with the opposite sex

Mountainman



an excellent idea
helped me to get honest with my wife before we got married
we started our marriage with a clean slate

IOAA2

This can be a complicated subject. The reason for men for men and women for woman is mainly for the newcomers with less than ? time of sobriety. The reason is that the emotions are so rampant in so many so they are vulnerable to anyone showing care, concern, comfort etc. To complicate that is the fact that AA works because of people helping people. Then what are the usual results when an alcoholic is told they can't do something?
Over the years I've seen some very bad results of this "relationship" for both parties.

BE WELL

Nonsensical

Phones can be password protected. If he didn't want you to find it, you wouldn't have found it.

GreenEggsAndHam

I personally think it depends on the individual and perhaps even where they are in recovery. Being new in my recovery and to AA, I have had males give me their number or ask for mine and I refuse because I'm not in a healthy frame of mind right now. I stick with the females.

But that is ME. I'm sure it's not an issue with some and is for others.

Agricola

I pretty rarely deleted anything from my phone. When I did, it was almost always because I was hiding something. Of all the aspects of this story, I am most suspicious of the deletion of the texts on a daily basis.

jdooner

Personally, I think you should be lucky to see this RED FLAG before you get married. I am not making judgement on his or your actions but the lack of trust is a big deal. At the very least it should give you both pause before you jump into this marriage. Perhaps some counseling would help.

nats74

Thank you guys for all the responses. I am going to have a talk with him tonight. Man some of you are just FREAKING out about looking through the phone..lol Let me say this he use to lay his phone around me all the time!! I NEVER went through it. When my gut instinct said to pick up the phone the other day, I listened and I am glad I did.

A few of you said you would NEVER be with someone you didn't trust and you are right... I can't be either,(especially after my past) which is why I will talk to him and see what happens from there.

ScrtlyInRcvry

I'm in NA, not AA, but I think for the purpose of this question it'd be about the same. My boyfriend and I are in recovery together, everyone knows neither of us is single. But we both have members of both sexes in our support groups that have our phone numbers.
Also, my boyfriend deletes his messages constantly. It drives me nuts, but he's not doing it to hide anything - he's just not too into technology and thinks it'll make his phone run faster if he doesn't have any messages. ....lol

Also, I've had two traumatic marriages and a few bad relationships in the past. I have serious trust issues. But I have to stop and think sometimes, is my bf doing something that would warrant me being suspicious? Or am I blowing things out of proportion like I always do because I'm afraid to get hurt.

DoubleBarrel

So you admit that YOU have issues based on a PRIOR relationship that have carried over into this one, and then you snoop on his phone, and you wonder why he would delete ANY messages from another female?

Its not him with the issue. I'd do the same thing. He is probably sick of you being suspicious of him because of your other relationships. That kind of thinking is a bit twisted.

DoubleBarrel

A bit of insight into how guys think. This is not recovery related, necessarily. We just don't want a lot of drama. We know what sets our gals off, and even if we are good guys, we'll avoid it. Sometimes women are emotional and something minor will trigger the need to talk about something for an hour.
It just gets old after a while, and so we'll do something, like delete messages. It just circumvents all the assumptions, misunderstandings, and long drawn out talks about feelings before it even begins.

Is this simplistic, and avoidant? Perhaps. Is it nefarious and sneaky? Probably not.

There is no other "red flags" as people have said that I see here. the dude is IN RECOVERY, and he has friends there. That's a good thing.

Personally I get why AA recommends same sex SPONSORS. But honestly, isn't it a bit silly that some take it to the next level, and disallow all male/female friendships? What are we, in grade school? I can interact with women respectfully without getting all googly eyed, and hitting on them, and the implication that I cannot attacks my program, and my integrity as a husband and a man.