Someone who demands your passwords isn’t protecting the relationship. They’re managing you.

The word protection is doing a lot of work there. Nothing about handing over logins makes a relationship safer, and the request is really about easing somebody’s anxiety by putting you under observation. It often arrives framed as proof, as though refusing meant you had something to hide. The frame is the giveaway, because real reassurance does not have to be extracted.

You are allowed to say no to this without a reason, and it is reasonable to expect that no to be respected. If refusing feels unsafe rather than simply awkward, tell somebody you trust what has been asked of you. Being cared about has never required being monitored.