He Thinks a Heart Rate Monitor Is the Secret to ‘Honesty’ in Their Relationship — She’s Not So Sure
A woman thought her boyfriend’s love of fitness trackers was a quirk. Then he told her what he really wanted to use them for.
A woman says her fitness-obsessed boyfriend wants access to her heart-rate data so he can “verify truthfulness” during conversations.
In a recent post on Reddit, a 28-year-old woman says her boyfriend, Austin, 30, is really into wearable tech. He tracks everything, steps, sleep, and heart rate, and recently suggested she start wearing a heart rate monitor too. At first, that sounded reasonable. Fitness tracking is pretty normal these days.
But then he explained his actual plan.
According to her post, Austin wants her to wear a device that streams her heart rate to an app he can access in real time so he can “check if she’s lying” during conversations. He told her that when people lie, their heart rate spikes, so with her data on his phone, he could “verify truthfulness.”
“I (28F) was speechless,” she wrote.
When she called the idea “insane” and said no, he hit her with the classic line: if she had nothing to hide, why would she care?
She pushed back, explaining it wasn’t about hiding anything; it was about trust and basic privacy. “Healthy relationships don’t require heart rate monitoring,” she told him.
He disagreed, saying relationships “need accountability” and that he was just using technology to make sure they were being honest with each other.
“You didn’t break up with him?”
If she was hoping the internet would calmly talk through both sides, that’s… not what happened.
The top comment didn’t mince words:
“You didn’t break up with him?”
Another person wrote, “That’s not a red flag, it’s a stop light,” while someone else upgraded it to, “more like a train crossing with the gates down and a high-speed train already in the intersection.”
Many commenters went straight past “this is weird” and landed on “this is dangerous.” One warned, “Men like that are how women wind up dead in ditches.” Another called him “a controlling paranoid unhinged lunatic” and urged her to leave immediately.
The escalation is what scared the original poster the most. She replied that once someone starts using “technology” to justify controlling behavior, it feels like a “never-ending loop.”
And commenters agreed that loop rarely stops with one device.
“Heart rate monitor today. ‘What’s my location?’ app tomorrow and maybe a GPS tracker on your vehicle for ‘safety,’” one person wrote, calling it “classic controlling behavior and more red flags than a communist parade.”
Others suggested she check her car, home, and phone for tracking devices or spyware right now.
The problem with treating wearables like lie detectors
Beyond the control issues, multiple people pointed out that his “science” doesn’t hold up.
“That’s controlling, unscientific, and a massive trust red flag,” one commenter said. Another added that even actual polygraphs, which track heart rate plus breathing, sweat, and more, are so unreliable they’re generally not admissible in court.
Several people who wear heart monitors for medical reasons chimed in, too. One said, “As someone who wears a heart rate monitor, and monitors my heart obsessively due to arrhythmias — that’s not how that works lol.” Another joked that their watch gives them “exercise minutes” just from driving on the interstate.
In other words: heart rate jumps for a million reasons… anxiety, stress, caffeine, exercise, the doorbell, getting yelled at, or just hearing something upsetting. If your partner has already decided you’re a liar, they can twist any spike into “proof.”
One commenter laid out exactly how that would likely play out: he makes a wild accusation, she gets upset and starts defending herself, her heart rate climbs because she’s stressed, and he uses that as a “gotcha” to insist she’s lying.
“He gets to interpret the data as he sees fit,” another person warned. “You could do everything ‘right’ and still be wrong in his eyes.”
So… is this “modern relationship tech”? Or just a reason to leave?
The original poster admits her “immediate reaction” was that the request was unhinged, but she was still trying to process what it meant for the relationship. Commenters were unanimous: she doesn’t actually need more time to think about it.
“Go with your immediate reaction,” one person advised. “If there is no trust, there is no relationship.”
Another put it even more simply: “You spelled ex wrong.”
If this story hits a little too close to home, you’re not alone. Women keep sharing similar experiences with partners who try to micromanage every move — from the actress whose boyfriend tried to police her quick changes backstage to the wife whose husband flipped out over her having dinner with her ex and kids.
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She Canceled Her Husband’s Birthday Surprise After He Gave Her Diapers for Christmas — and Tried to Hijack Her Birthday Dinner
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