Is my phone hurting my marriage?

"You're on your phone again."

If you've heard that from your partner, or said it yourself, you're in very good company. Most couples don't fight about phones directly. It shows up as something smaller: a conversation that trails off, a question that gets answered a beat too late, an evening spent side by side on the couch, each lit by a different screen.

It's completely normal, and it's also worth paying attention to. Here's what researchers have found, why it matters more than it seems, and what tends to help.

What the research says

Researchers have a name for snubbing someone in favor of your phone: phubbing. In a 2015 study from Baylor University, 46.3% of adults in relationships said their partner phubbed them, and 22.6% said it caused conflict (Roberts and David, 2015). People who felt phubbed more often were less satisfied with their relationship.

Phones don't ruin marriages on their own. The small moments add up, though.

Why it matters more than it seems

Attention is how we show we care. When your partner starts telling you about their day and your eyes stay on the screen, the message they hear is "this matters more than you," even if that's the last thing you mean.

The small moments are the relationship. Most of a marriage happens in ordinary gaps: the drive home, the dishes, the ten minutes before sleep. Those are exactly the moments a phone fills first.

It's contagious. When one person picks up their phone, the other often does too. Before long, the evening belongs to two separate feeds.

It follows you to bed. For a lot of couples, the bedroom is the last place left to talk. A phone on each nightstand quietly takes that over too.

How to get the time back

Keep your phones. Just protect a few moments that belong to the two of you.

• Pick one shared window. Dinner, the first half hour after you both get home, or the hour before bed. Start with just one. Our guide to keeping phones off the dinner table is a good place to begin.
• Give both phones the same home. A shelf, a drawer, a basket by the door. When both phones are out of reach, nobody has to be the one who asks.
• Make the bedroom phone-free. It's one of the simplest changes a couple can make, and it helps your sleep too. Here's how to keep your phone out of the bedroom.
• Say it kindly. "Can we put the phones away for a bit?" goes over far better than "You're always on that thing."
• Plan something for the time you get back. A walk after dinner, a show you watch together, a game, a real conversation. An empty evening gets refilled by phones fast. We share more ideas in why you should spend your evenings without your phone.
• Notice the good stuff. After a week, talk about how it felt. Most couples are surprised by how much they missed each other.

If you'd like the phones' shared home to be something you both enjoy using, that's why we designed the Saalo Box. Both phones go in, the lid closes, and the Saalo app counts the time you spent together.

A few protected minutes a day is enough to tell your partner they still have your attention.