One of the most important parts of a successful relationship is to have open lines of communication. Keeping your partner in the loop with your life is a sure-fire way to keep the love in and the drama out.
Trouble always arises when a third party enters your blissful nest, and when the third party starts getting more attention than your partner, those lines of communication become blurred and your once-sunny days can turn dark.
It is with much irony that the third party invading many of today’s relationships is a device once used to open those ever-so-important lines of communication. Is your relationship with your phone coming between your relationship with your partner?
It is an indisputable fact that the majority of adults today have a cell phone, more specifically a smart phone. What a time to be alive when the answer to every question is at your fingertips and you can spend hours a day scrolling through status updates, news articles, cat pictures and more anywhere you go.
What happens when you get glued to that screen and start missing the actual world around you? Instead of having a conversation with the person in the room with you, you are busy texting 13 of your friends. Instead of going on a date and building memories with the person sitting across from you at the table, onlookers see two people staring at their phones and a dining experience totally void of any real depth.
Recently over dinner, I was talking with a girlfriend about her relationship. She was telling me about a fight she had with her husband because they were in bed and instead of trying to talk or watch a show together or get something physical started, he turned on his side and wanted to spoon … with his phone.
Every question she would ask him was responded to with an agreeing, nonchalant sort of grunt to the point where she got frustrated and went to bed. Meanwhile, he had a great date night with his fantasy football team and completely missed the entire conversation she was trying to have with him regarding an upcoming social event they were supposed to be attending.
The conversation made me look up and glance around the restaurant. There were 6 other occupied tables around us. Out of those six, five of the tables had people absentmindedly absorbed in their phones. It made me realize just how much we are killing conversation and missing out on the world around us.
There have been many times that I personally have been guilty of staring at that screen in lieu of the people I am with.
Is it a case of FOMO (fear of missing out) causing the constant scrolling? Do we need to be the first to know what is going on in the big picture instead of our immediate surroundings all of the time? In a world of Facebook pregnancy and engagement announcements, celebrity death notices and overdramatic couples airing their dirty laundry online (nothing like a real-life soap opera), have we let our phones become more significant than our significant others?
It’s time to put it away. When you’re out to dinner, focus on the people you are with. When you are in bed, spoon your wife. When you are at a family dinner at Grannie’s house, use that time to talk to your family, not text your friends. Live your life in the now before you wake up and one day see that while you were busy creeping on that girl from high school, the love of your life was having a conversation with someone who actually gave her the time of day.
Don’t let your phone be more important than your significant other, threesomes are only fun when everyone gets to play.
