My phone has caused more than a handful of arguments in our home over the years. Most of these arguments aren’t about my phone though. It’s only the tool I used to love my wife poorly. She has jokingly referred to my phone as my mistress in the past. I’m not proud of that.
You probably have excuses for why you spend so much time staring into the face of your phone. It’s a shiny, dinging temptation. It was designed to interact with us effectively and constantly. I have found that if I don’t purposely setup some general guidelines, my phone will do what it was created to do – maintain my full attention as often as possible.
Here are several guidelines that I have attempted to impose on myself to love Kristie better in respect to my phone:
- Place your phone outside of earshot while having dinner.
- Phones should not come to bed with you and your wife.
- A pause in conversation is not an opportunity to check that last notification.
- Don’t make a 15 minute errand to the store last 25 minutes because you’re “multitasking.”
- My children’s bedtime or bath-time routine is more important than a phone call or an email. It can wait.
These aren’t rules. They’re guidelines. Most of them sound like common sense until you’re in the act of loving your wife poorly. Doing any of the above will, more often than not, make you wife feel under-appreciated or like an inconvenience to your life. Don’t make your wife feel like she’s the distraction to your life. Your job, entertainment and outside conversations are the distraction, right? Your wife and your family are the main event, right?! Don’t forget that.
This is part of a series of posts centered on loving our wives as Christ loved the church.