It took me 10 years of marriage to figure out the secret I’m about to reveal.

It’s a little embarrassing this took so long for me to understand, but maybe I can help save you some time.

Want to improve your marriage instantly?

Spend less time on the phone when you’re with your spouse.

Boom! Brilliant, right? I know, I know. Deep.

But in all honesty, that’s taken me years to figure out. Only recently did I discover the following formula:

The amount of time I’m on my iPhone is inversely proportional to the quality of communication in our marriage.

It’s true. The more I check my iPhone while I’m hanging out with my wife, the less important she feels. The less we talk. The less we actually connect.

That should have been obvious to me. I mean, my wife has never once said to me, “I wish you would spend more time on your iPhone when we’re together.”

She’s never said to me, “Enough about us, don’t you need to check Twitter right now?”

She’s never said to me, “Make sure you bring your iPhone out to dinner with us tonight so that you can check Facebook updates at the table.”

And yet, that’s what I’ve done. Even worse, I do that and then act surprised that communication in our marriage doesn’t seem to be vibrant and alive. I never saw the connection between the two things.

But it’s hard to stay off an iPhone. It is for me anyway. It’s so much fun. It’s like having the entire world in your pocket! I’m not hating on smartphones at all in this post. I probably have an inappropriate amount of affection for my iPhone, if anything. Knowing that, though, I had to make a smart decision when I’m with my wife–I leave my iPhone at home.

When we go on a date, we only bring her phone. If the babysitter needs us, she’ll call Jenny. If our families need us, they’ll call Jenny. If anyone needs us, they’ll call Jenny.

You know what the craziest part of that experiment was? The first time I left my iPhone at home one night, no one died. No one called me to do emergency brain surgery and was unable to get a hold of me. No one died from missing my tweets that night. In fact the world seemed to get along just fine without me and my iPhone for a few hours.

And Jenny? Well, she felt like it was just the two of us on a date. Not me and her and the rest of the world.

Want to improve your marriage instantly?

Spend less time on the phone when you’re with your spouse.

Question:
Is the amount of time you spend on your smartphone or computer ever an issue with your spouse?