My boyfriend is unhappy with my phone messages

Hi Chris,

My boyfriend and I had a huge row when he found a chat between me and a workmate on my phone. Fortunately, it was nothing really, and so we are back on track. But it made me think. How could I be so stupid as to leave such incriminating messages lying around?

Message Mistakes

Hi, Message Mistakes!

Lots of people have been caught cheating with incriminating messages on their phones. And there are lots more to mistakes like that than just carelessness. Like I will bet you have sent the odd message that had an unexpected double meaning. Or sent one to the wrong person. Or write something you wish you had not on Facebook!

Mistakes like these are called Freudian slips, and people make them all of the time. Especially when they are nervous, tired, or tipsy. During live shows, for example, even the most professional broadcasters make mistakes because of all the stress they are under.

But the really interesting mistakes are the ones which reveal something we are trying to hide. Freud argued that subconscious thoughts often lie behind our language mistakes, and we are especially prone to making them in text messages.

That is partly because we often send messages on impulse. And not having the person we are communicating with right there in front of us lowers our inhibitions. So we text things we would not say face to face, are more flippant, more sexual, and lie more easily.

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And our subconscious often slips any guilty feelings we might have into our messages or tempts us to store them, or to leave our phone around the house. This means there is usually more to our messaging mistakes than meets the eye. So for example, cheaters often leave incriminating messages lying around because they have a subconscious desire to be caught.

And for the same reason that drives many cheaters to stray in the first place. They want out of the relationship. So maybe you need to ask yourself if everything is all right between you and your boyfriend, or whether you should be listening to your subconscious...?

All the best,

Chris