Time On Phone Equals Time Away From Spouse

“Alex becomes so angry when he sees me on the phone talking to friends that I’ve actually started taking the phone into the bathroom and locking the door so he can’t see me,” says 33-year-old Eve.

“At first, his attitude was somewhat endearing,” she adds. “I figured, gee, he loves me so much he wants to spend time talking to me. But I soon realized that wasn’t the case at all.”

As soon as she’d hang up the phone, her husband of seven years would go right back to doing whatever “important” things he was doing before - taking a nap, reading the newspaper, flipping the channels on the remote.

“He doesn’t want me; he just wants me off the phone,” she grumbles.

Eve admits that she does talk on the phone a lot. “I stopped working five years ago when my son was born - I was in publicity for a large movie distributor - and I missed the office camaraderie very much. The phone was a link to my old life.” As the isolation of new motherhood continued, the habit became more entrenched:

“Most of the time I talk to my friends after 10 p.m. The kids are asleep, and it’s the only time we can have an uninterrupted conversation. Do you know what it’s like to try to talk when you have a toddler and a 5-year-old pulling on the cord, desperate for your attention?”

Eve believes that Alex’s behavior is immature and she doesn’t know how to get him to change.

“He stands next to me and shouts my name or a question while I’m on the phone, so I feel as if I’m listening in stereo to two different conversations. Or he’ll go into the den and pick up the receiver every three minutes to check if I’m still on,” she says.

The irony of all this, Eve points out, is that when she tries to talk to Alex about how overwhelmed she is at times with motherhood, how fearful she is that she isn’t doing a good job and how concerned she is that she made a critical mistake by quitting her job, he tunes her out.

“He jumps in, in Spock-like fashion, and issues instructions about what I need to do. Maybe if I had someone to listen to me at home, I wouldn’t need to be on the phone so much,” she adds.

“And don’t you think a 33-year-old woman like Eve can figure out a way to juggle her life and still pay a little attention to me?” retorts Alex, 40, a book editor at a large publishing company.

“Yes, I’m angry. I often don’t get home from the office until 9:30. If that’s exactly when she picks up the phone, there’s no time for us, is there?”

Alex is also miffed because Eve never wants to go out alone with him for dinner or to see a movie.

“Asking her to get a baby sitter is like asking her to swim the English Channel. It’s always too much of an effort, and she’s bursting with excuses: She’s too tired, she can’t find a sitter - you name it, she comes up with it.”

Alex feels he is last on his wife’s list of priorities.

Phone-itis: Tracking symptoms to uncover cause

“Eve is using the phone as a lifeline to her friends,” says Jane Greer, Ph.D., a marriage and sex therapist in New York City. “Eve is so focused on getting her own needs met, she fails to understand that she’s making no room in her life for her husband. What’s more, she doesn’t even hear the often sarcastic tone she uses with Alex.”

When Eve brooded about her work or became panicky about motherhood, a switch flipped in Alex’s head and he automatically retreated. This was the only way he knew to deal with his wife’s always escalating anxieties.

Highly pragmatic, Alex insisted he was helping by pressuring her toward his solution, regardless of Eve’s feelings.

Unfortunately, the more he did this, the more isolated she felt, triggering her need to reach for the telephone.

Do you and your spouse battle over the phone?

Consider whether the fight might be masking another problem in your relationship, as it was in this couple’s. Many superficial marital arguments are cover-ups for hidden power struggles.

Once Eve and Alex realized their battling was in essence about empathizing and sharing with one another, they were able to discuss ways they could improve communication between them. They stopped dwelling on what the other wasn’t doing and started thinking about how they each could change to make their partner feel loved and valued.