I Hadn't Heard From My Ex In 6 Years. Then, He Popped Up In The Strangest Way.
Six years ago, I went on a trip to Hawaii with my then-boyfriend and his family. Later that year, we broke up; I unfollowed him and everyone he knew, and I’ve nary seen a trace of him online or anywhere else since. So I was startled when, a few months ago, his name popped up in a phone notification that said something like: “[My ex’s name] updated the shared Google Map list for Hawaii.” I quickly clicked into the list, one I vaguely remember we added beaches and hikes and shaved ice spots to, and removed myself from it. More than five years since we’ve spoken, the internet kept me tied to my ex in this amorphous way.
Some people have far more consequential tales of post-breakup digital enmeshment in our modern account- and password-sharing world. Horror stories regularly surface online and in the news about exes draining a joint bank account, using shared email accounts to send embarrassing mass messages and stealthily stalking ex-wives.
Lindsey Hall, a 35-year-old who works in public relations, had an international breakup last spring (she was living in Colombia with her Canadian boyfriend) and found herself in a confusing maze of trying to separate finances across continents.
The digital life they had created together lived on well past their split. Hall’s ex still had access to all of her streaming accounts and continued to rent movies off Amazon Prime under her credit card. They had shared a Rappi account, which is a food delivery service, and Hall was continually charged monthly for the pro account her ex had signed up for. Six months later, she eventually had to contact the company’s headquarters in broken Spanish and get her ex’s approval to close the account.
“Don’t even get me started on the subscribe and saves,” Hall said, referring to the Amazon subscription feature. “I had deodorant and body spray and other stuff on delivery for him, and for up to six months I was still canceling subscriptions we’d forgotten about. It would be like, ‘Your Axe body spray has been delivered to an address we don’t live at anymore.’”
Hall and her ex got everything sorted eventually.
“It finally feels like I’m free, and I’m sure he feels that way too,” she said. But she hopes to handle things differently in her next serious relationship.
“Ideally, I would make sure that anything intertwined digitally is kept in an Excel file,” she said. “It seems silly in retrospect that I didn’t keep track of this more and take note of, hey, here’s what I’m subscribing to and here’s what I have monthly costs for.”
Because of our growing reliance on internet-connected devices, it’s getting more and more complicated to completely detach your online life from an ex’s.
Tim Bates, professor of innovation and technology at the University of Michigan, has witnessed many acrimonious tech breakups throughout his career. More than a few of them involved smart cars, such as Teslas. If someone is listed as a primary owner of a smart car that you drive, they can usually know that car’s location, open doors remotely and remove your access to the car — even if it’s legally yours.
“[A couple was divorcing], and the person [who ended up owning the car] was a secondary owner and not a primary, and they let the whole divorce go through,” Bates said. “After that, [their ex], who was the primary owner, shut the car down, and the secondary person couldn’t even unlock the car. They had to get it towed so they could get all that fixed, plus show all the paperwork to the dealership so that they can legally do what they needed to do to get the car tech taken care of.” Bates also has a friend whose ex was tracking their car and showed up unannounced at a date they were on with someone else.
One way to avoid potential joint account issues is to follow the same advice some give about finances when entering into romantic relationships: keep all of your accounts completely separate. However, Bates noted that modern technology is making that harder to do and much more costly. (Imagine paying for two Max accounts for the same household, let alone two of everything.)
“A lot of people say they don’t go into marriage thinking they’ll get a divorce, which we don’t,” Bates said. “But I think from a digital standpoint, because of the way the internet works, it’s harder to keep those things separate.”
Instead of trying to create strict tech borders, Bates said you should always make sure you’re the primary account holder or owner. That way, you’re the one who’s ultimately in charge of access and account changes. He also advised keeping a separate email account from your partner.
“I see a lot of couples where they share email addresses or use one email address for the entire house, and they’ve done it for 30, 40 years,” Bates said. “But when they got divorced, they’re like, wait a minute, I don’t have an email address. Or one person is playing games.”
Hindsight is always 20/20, but what can you do to separate your digital life from an ex’s if you’re going through a breakup right now? Here are some of Bates’ top tips and a few of my own.
How to separate your digital life from an ex’s:
1. Make a list of all shared accounts and devices.
Bates’ long list includes digital wallets, rideshare accounts, navigation apps, phone plans, cloud services, utilities, subscriptions and even health insurance.
2. Secure your personal accounts.
Change your password for personal email, cloud and banking accounts, and double-check who is the primary account holder and who has access to priority items like cars and home security systems.
“They could still have access to your cameras, so they can sit and watch whatever they want via your house while you’re there,” Bates said. “So you have to make sure you remove those that have access also.” Additionally, factory reset devices to restore primary ownership if needed.
3. Get legal documentation in order.
If you are getting divorced, make sure you clearly define ownership and access rights to items in your agreement.
4. Notify all providers.
Request account separation for utilities, subscriptions and any other shared services. Remember to check on recurring credit card bills as well; you may be paying for your ex’s services (such as recurring Amazon deliveries) without realizing it, or vice versa.
5. When it comes to social media accounts, decide whether you want to block them, unfollow/unfriend them, or create limited visibility on posts.
Blocking someone typically means they will no longer be able to see your account and content or contact you. Unfollowing or unfriending means they may no longer have full access to your social media account but can often still view some of your content. You can also set up limited visibility, like excluding certain people from seeing posts on Facebook or posting stories only to “close friends” on Instagram — but that might be more work for you in the long run.
6. Remove your ex’s number from your contact list.
Social media apps often recommend you connections based on the contacts in your phone, so you may want to delete your ex’s number from it completely. This way, they’ll pop up unexpectedly less often online. Plus, consider not sharing your contact list with any digital service. This safeguards you from unwanted connections and also prevents any other users connected to your account from gaining access to your contacts and personal information.
