Thursday, February 28, 2013

the "C" word...

Communication, they say, is VERY important in a marriage. I use to not believe it, not that we don't have communication in our marriage but I always thought it sounded so silly. J and I have always talked about everything together. Some people have thought we know too much about each other but after being married almost 9 years, I now understand how important communication can be!

We have always been behind the times with technology. (I promise I'm getting somewhere with this) We just never have made it part of our lives and we never, ever cared much about having anything in our house beside a computer and T.V. with cable. So this past Christmas, we felt the peer pressure and decided to become part of something and get new wireless devices. We first installed wireless internet in the house, then J got an iphone (which I must add he had a dinosaur phone and the new iphone was free to him since he hasn't upgraded in like 5 years). He is in phone heaven right now, it's been several months and he's still in love. He was so kind to get me an ipad for Christmas, I was stunned but let me tell you I can't put the thing down. I'm on it every single night and I read on it all the time!! It is fabulous!!!

I tell you all of this because NOW we are having a communication problem. Sure after work we are hands on with the kids, cooking dinner, getting them in bed and doing a few chores. But the MINUTE things calm down we are both on our devices just tuned OUT of each other. This doesn't happen every night, there are some nights when we are talking each other's heads off about things going on in our lives and people we know... normal things that married people talk about. When we have several days though, when we are not tuned into each other real often, that's when I start to feel our communication slip away and I start to feel... lonely. It's not J's fault, it's just our fault for allowing these stupid devices to control our time together. It's not having marriage problems, it's having a hard time realizing when it's time to put them down. Before we allow it to get out of hand.... we are going to start having no devices nights. Yes it will kill me to not read a few chapters in my current book and to not catch up on facebook updates but there comes a time when I must just put it down and make time for each other. J and I have no other plans but to grow old together and I want to continue to have fun doing it, I sure don't want to look back and wonder why we let silly things come between us.

Friends, it is so important to talk, communicate and listen to your spouse. When it's not happening you feel as though something is off and I will be sure that the one thing I will NOT allow something to be off in is my marriage and the enjoyment we have together in each other's company.

I know we aren't the only ones dealing with this issue right now, I'm just so glad we can realize it and make better changes for ourselves!

2 comments:

There's No Place Like Memphis Mama said...

We do the same thing sometimes. Smart phones can be the devil!

crissy231 said...

We had this talk the other night! I feel like some nights we just sit there after the kids are asleep and stare at our phones/ipads, etc. I joked that maybe I should just facetime him on the phone. ha But we are in the same boat as Im sure A LOT of other couples are and def need to work on it!