How Not to Get Divorce Part 2

While my last installment talked about the possible pitfalls of sharing your iPhone location with a significant other, this installment focuses, ultimately, on the pitfalls of sharing an Apple ID.

So, let's recap, the way you don't get someone's attention is to start pinging their phone at way-too-early in the morning on a weekday. Especially when the person pinging you is unemployed, an insomniac, and the person being pinged is employed, has two kids, and has to wake up early to get kids to school and go teach school themselves.

Additionally, while I understand that people need to express their feelings, it can become overkill. Please, dear readers, don't blow up someone's phone because you need to express every thought that is going through your head. It just becomes a lot. Even if you deeply care about the other person, a continual stream of texts while the recipient is working is distracting and frustrating. Yes, the ability to turn off your phone becomes a necessity rather than an option.

So, if you go to your Apple ID options, if it's attached to multiple phone numbers or emails, you can turn on and off the ability to text from different numbers. So, my ex needed to share his feelings with me, and while he claims he didn't knowingly change any settings, he started texting from my phone number. Because we shared an Apple ID, we had access to each others' contacts. So, he started texting our and my friends from what appeared to be my phone. This lead to a massive amount of confusion and resulted in me having to change the password to my Apple ID because this was not only confusing for our friends, but potentially damaging to my career as I have professional contacts too. (Note: This is probably not new information for many people, but the paranoia it causes when people start reaching out because "your" texts don't make sense and are coming at all hours of the day and night is stressful.)

It is hard to focus on work or anything else other than changing passwords everywhere. Additionally, because I have work contacts in my phone, my secondary worry was that he was going to "accidentally" text colleagues and result work problems. To be transparent, I have an anxiety and a panic disorder that is pretty well-controlled, but the additional stress created full generalized anxiety. I tried to focus on work while I was there, if for nothing else, other than a break from worrying about what could possibly be sent in my name.

I'm not sure I can fully articulate the worry and anxiety it caused, even after a year. I know that my nerves were frayed and all the while, I was still trying to teach and "be normal" while juggling chaos on the side and make sure that my boys were adjusting as best they could to the huge change in their lives that they absolutely did not ask for.

It goes on, but I won't bore anyone with the details. Most of it ends up being incoherent and continues for hours. So, while I hope this never happens to you, I hope you were able to finish a hot cup of coffee as you read through my journey and processing of my personal life. It was a lot of me, so if you find it slightly amusing, alarming, or a decent waste of a few minutes, then I'm ok with that.

If you, or a partner, has mental health issues, please contact your local mental health Behavioral Health Services. Local AA, or Al-Anon groups for any support you or your family may need.