SML #200 - phones in our marriage
LESSONS LEARNED
Sometimes I’m curious when I see couples on their phones together.
What are they looking at?
What are they thinking and feeling?
But it’s none of my business, and who am I to notice? We’re on OUR phones a whole lot too!
And nobody knows what we’re doing either. Unless I share what we’re doing, which I will.
This is totally not a suggestion for best practices.
It’s probably more of a confession.
But also I’d like to be a transparent example of real life.
What are we doing and looking at on our phones?
Are we on our phones instead of engaging with each other?
Can we look at each other’s phones anytime we want?
My phone says I pick it up sixty times a day.
Well, that's a lot. There are a lot of negatives to that I think. But this is where I'm at right now.
If you looked over my shoulder all day, you’d see multiple times per day I go through a routine for 1-5 minutes each time -
News
Weather
Texas Longhorn football
Indiana University basketball and football
Email
Instagram
Then a bunch of times during the day you’d see some combination of -
Text
Podcasts - sometimes an hour or two
The Bible - several apps
Music - sometimes an hour or so
The iphone notes app - open all the time
I google something probably 10 times a day.
I use the Kindle app - some days I read a lot on my phone, some days none.
How about mindless scrolling?
I’d say sometimes twice a day I scroll mindlessly for 10-15 minutes. And sometimes one time of scrolling 15-30 minutes.
I’m probably underestimating, right?
Also, I don’t do facebook or TikTok, and there are no secret places I wouldn’t want you to see.
How do we use our phones when we’re together?
A lot!
But I’d say we give our phones light attention when we’re together.
We have them but we’re not glued to them. We don’t scroll and ignore each other.
At any minute we can ask the other, “Can you put that down?” but we rarely ask, because we’re paying enough attention to each other to know when to listen.
I think our phones connect us way more than separate us.
She’ll show me an Instagram reel. I’ll laugh or maybe yawn.
I’ll talk about something I saw or read on my phone. She’ll definitely yawn.
We look up stuff related to a show we’re watching together and talk about it.
I think maybe it’s similar to having a book we carry around the house.
If you’re reading a book, you know you can come back to it at any time.
You don’t get defensive and treat it like an interruption when someone engages you.
If you want to read your book uninterrupted, you say so, or you go somewhere to give it full attention.
She has a big family and some have had health issues. She’s messaging with them lots, and I want her too.
So sometimes her phone is the priority more than talking with me. But it’s not “phone” - it’s “family.”
Also, she has lots of friends. They chat. I want her to have friends. It’s not “phone” - it’s friends.
And then she scrolls for recipes on Instagram. No complaint here, she wants to make things and I want to eat them.
We try to be sensitive to each other, and aware of each other’s tolerance for phone use.
If either one of us felt like the other was insensitive and distant because of the phone, we’d say something.
And we wouldn’t get defensive; we’d be hurt because we hurt the other one.
During the day, we probably text each other 5-10 times a day, mostly memes. We don’t respond to every meme, but we respond to some.
Sometimes we’ll talk about what the other one sent. This is just part of marital friendship.
What about privacy?
She can look at my phone any time she wants. She borrows it maybe 2-3 times a week for a minute.
She can ask to see what I’m looking at anytime. I don’t think she ever has.
She has my phone and my email password. I don’t know if she ever looks at anything.
I know her sign-ins and passwords, too.
She and I talked about all this for maybe one minute, years ago. “Here are my passwords.” It’s normal to us.
I’d say our personal privacy is covered by a mutual attitude, “I’m not really interested in all your interests and details and conversations, I’ve got my own to keep me busy."
So, If you hung out with us, this is what you’d see when we use our phones.
It’s not the phones, right? It’s the relationship. This is how it looks in ours right now.
WORTH REPEATING
“It’s important that all the empathy and compassion you have for others reaches your partner as well.” - Dr. Samantha Whiten
WORTH TRYING
I’m sitting with God more.
A few times a day.
Silently. Wherever I am.
Could be on the patio looking at the clouds. Or in the chair in the bedroom with the door closed.
Or in the car lifting my eyes above the road to the sky.
It might be five minutes. Or thirty. Or thirty seconds. Or 5 seconds.
I’m saying, “I’m here. You’re here. I don’t have to be busy. I can stop. I don’t have to earn my right to exist. You are love, and I’m in you and you’re in me.”
It’s like taking a long drive with your spouse or someone you love and there are some stretches of time where you’re not saying anything, but you’re together and you know it.
Jesus is always here, always, and I want to learn to be more aware of his every-moment presence in my heart, my marriage, and my world.
It helps me move toward being the kind of person I want to be in my marriage.
Thank you for reading!
"I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken." - King David
You matter
To ask a question or share what's challenging you, just hit reply.
Gary
JUST IN CASE . . .
The Simpler Marriage Instagram is a bite-size on-the-go version of the kinds of things you get in this letter. Not the exact same content, but the same approach. If you’re on IG, you can see and follow HERE.
If you find the tone or attitude in these letters helpful, I wrote A Family Shaped by Grace from the same posture you get here. Everything in it applies to marriage, but it shows how it also applies to kids, grown kids, in-laws, etc. Here it is.
Does someone come to mind as you read this Simpler Marriage Letter? If you think they might enjoy it, you can use this link so they can sign up for themselves -- CLICK HERE