Men and passwords: Why many do not share theirs

Tommy Muganzi remembers the first time he took his fiancée to visit his aunt. She was happy to see him getting out of the irresponsible early-30s phase and finally getting a woman to settle down with and start a family. One of the pieces of advice she offered that day, much to Muganzi’s surprise, was about phone privacy.

“My aunt, who was in her 60s at the time looked us both in the eye and told us to stay away from each other’s phones if we wanted our relationship to make it through the first five years. I was shocked because I did not think she would front that as one of the biggest issues to watch out for in a marriage,” he says.

In that moment, Muganzi promised himself to never snoop through his wife’s phone. However, unbeknownst to him, his fiancée made no such promise to herself as he would later find out.

“As soon as we started living together, she started reading my messages. A month into the marriage, all the fights we had revolved around her inability to leave my phone alone. Not once did I ever look through her phone. I was naïve and did not know how to secure my phone better. The marriage soured too early that we divorced after only five years,” Muganzi says.

Today, in a new relationship, Muganzi takes his phone privacy seriously. He knows how bad it can get if she accesses his phone. So, he creates the strongest passwords and changes them regularly.

Men treasure phone security

As it turns out, Muganzi is not alone. Phone passwords are taken very seriously by men in relation to their spouses, says Evelyne Khorono Lufafa, a marriage counsellor and psychologist.

“Men take their phone privacy much more seriously than women do in marriage. In my experience as a counsellor, I have noticed that women are better at adapting to their men’s behaviours than men are. So, most women give up on checking their husbands’ phones,” Evelyne says.

Ironically, the marriage counsellor says, if possible, men would like to check their women’s phones as often as possible. She says most men are shocked to find out that their wives have protected their phones with passwords.

“If they had the power, most men would prohibit their wives from using passwords on their phones. They want full access to their wives phones, yet for them, every app on their phone is often secured with a password,” she says. 

To share or not

We talked to several men to get their views and experiences about their phone passwords. The stories range from midnight fights to divorce and everything in between. 

Cliff Eiru, chef

We have to protect our messages from our women because we do not want fights. You have to make sure it is a strong password. I personally never use a pattern because it is easy to crack. Women are always watching to learn the pattern. I would also advise other men to never use facial recognition for unlocking the phone because she will be able to unlock the phone when you are asleep. The same goes for finger prints.

The password is the best phone security, especially because she cannot make you unlock your phone when you are asleep. She has to learn the password which is harder than learning a pattern. But you have to keep changing it at least twice a month because if you take too long, she will figure it out and start world war III.

One time I got lazy and my girlfriend read my messages as I slept. I was woken up by the smell of smoke in the house at 1am as she tried to burn the house down.

Nyansio Kanyaasi, supermarket manager

I do not put passwords in my phone. I had a bad experience one day when I had to reset my phone and lose important data. I had recently changed the password and then forgot it. That is how I promised myself never to put passwords in my phone.

Having said that, my not having a password has been a source of so many problems at home. Many times, I have woken up in the middle of the night to find my wife crying.

Of course a huge fight always ensues, with her accusing me of infidelity. But I still refuse to install a password or any other form of phone security. If she wants to cry, that is her problem. After crying so many times she gave up. She realised she was about to cause herself a heart attack, I guess. She realised she was going to push herself to get out of the relationship and I guess she figured she did not want to leave.

David Tugume, accountant

I have a password in my phone for privacy. I do not want my woman reading too much in my messages. I am not the philandering type but I want my privacy. The conversations I have with my boys alone might infuriate her. The conversations I have with her younger sister, might make her think otherwise.

We have become very good friends with her younger sister and we chat all the time. I do not intend to sleep with her but my wife may read too much into the messages. So, I put a very strong password in my phone to protect our relationship. She keeps trying to crack it, especially when I came back drunk but she fails every time. The one time she opened my phone she found nothing serious because it was my side phone. Passwords keep relationships intact.

John Mugaga, businessman

All the fights I have had with my woman have been caused by her insistence to look through my messages. She wants to read my messages, probably because she knows the kind of rubbish she has in her own phone. So, I also learnt to look through her phone regularly. In fact, I must look through her phone but I made sure she does not have access to mine. She was very good at cracking my password but fights stopped when I bought an iPhone. It just has better security. So, I use facial recognition to unlock it. She cannot do anything about that because even if I were asleep and she tried to use my face to open it, it will not work because my eyes have to be open for it to work.

Shadrach Nkuggwa, businessman

My wife and I agreed that if we want to live long happy lives, we need to leave each other’s phones alone. It is needless stress and many times you find that you read too much into the messages and start fights that do not end.

But I have passwords in the phone nonetheless; to protect my children from seeing what they should not see. They can unlock the phone and play games but they cannot unlock Whatsapp for instance or my files.

Jean Marie Okello, IT specialist

I have a password on my phone but it has nothing to do with protecting my private messages from her eyes. I realised early that this is useless. I always delete all the incriminating messages as soon as I have read them because she always asks me to allow her to use my phone. And I know that refusing to give her my phone will be a source of conflict. So, she reads my messages any time she wants and that makes her trust me. This has helped our relationship grow because she feels that I am open.

Note

Nobody should ever feel pressured or forced to share their passwords and everyone should always have the right to as much digital privacy as they want.

If you and your partner decide to share passwords and one of you changes their mind, that person has the right to renegotiate that boundary and change their passwords.