📱Using Phone to Avoid Conflict With Your Partner📱

We turn to our cell phones for a variety of reasons. We are bored standing in line, waiting for an appointment, or killing time. We also use them frequently in social settings to avoid feeling uncomfortable or avoid interacting with others.

Many of us may use phones or other devices to avoid potential conflict with our partners. Even positive activities like working out or being social can be ways to prevent the distress and discomfort of addressing a festering concern.

For those on this side of the attachment spectrum, this was most likely a learned behaviour, freezing or fleeing to help keep mom or dad’s anger or negative attention from reaching us as children.

However, what is adaptive and functional as a child can be maladaptive and destructive later.

While many kinds of conflict can certainly inflict further damage in a relationship, doing conflict well is a skill all couples should have at their disposal. Ground rules–or don’ts–are helpful starting points for a couple.

Gottman’s Four Horsemen–criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling–are a good place to start.

But, we need more than just “don’ts” to look out for when we arrive at tough conversations because even these can be weaponized against your partner (“You’re always criticizing me, and that’s a red flag!”).

Thinking as an “us” asks us to frame conflicts based on what is best for the relationship, as a third entity outside you and me.  Does it matter more that you were right or that your partner felt better? This type of thinking is an important place to reach in a relationship.

Ways to Be Less Avoidant With Your Partner

1. Pay attention to the moment you look at your phone or a device when you are with your partner. What motivated that action? Boredom, irritation, annoyance?

1. Notice actions from your partner that seem avoidant–withdrawal, silence. Before you call them out, note how they make you feel–rejected or irritated. Find curious language to invite a conversation: “I notice you’re scrolling through Instagram a lot today, is something up?”