Phubbing my hubby

love.” “Yep.” “Sorry? What?” For years this was the typical “conversation” between me and my husband in the evening. So, not really a conversation at all, just me pretending like I’d listened to what he had said and offering some sort of reply.

And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t do this because I don’t love him or because I held some sort of resentment towards him. It was because, like many parents, after the kids were in bed I just wanted to wind down. Tune out.

So, Netflix was switched on for essential background noise and automatically my phone was taken out and I would start scrolling through everything I had missed out on in the digital realm throughout the day.

Then something happened over the summer break.

My youngest daughter decided she could not go to sleep without Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on repeat and due to circumstance and the short straw, this involved my phone being used as her personal speaker; thus, I became phoneless in my usual peak phone time.

Without my evening hand accessory, I unwittingly gave my scrolling fingers a rest and my time and attention to the person who sat next to me, my husband.

“We have been having such great conversations recently,” I remarked to him.

“It’s because you don’t have your phone, you’re not distracted,” he replied.

While initially a bit insulted, I realised I felt this way because it was true. I had been “phubbing” my husband for years and hadn’t realised it.

Phubbing is the combination of the words “phone” and

“snubbing”, coined by Macquarie Dictionary to describe the habit of snubbing someone in favour of a mobile phone. And I was guilty as charged. This very real issue has become so significant that professors James Roberts and Meredith David at Baylor University conducted a study into phubbing, specifically partner phubbing, or “Pphubbing”.

It was determined that Pphubbing is prominent among those in a romantic relationship and the consequences of this was having a significant impact on them.

In other words, Pphubbing can play a role in creating conflict, particularly in couples who already have anxiety, jealousy and separation issues.

Although research showed that Pphubbing is a growing issue between couples, it is also something that can be worked on and rectified, and I am a first-hand example of this.

Without my phone slotted into its self-made crevice within my hand and me no longer Pphubbing my husband, it gave me, well us, more time and a much more satisfying relationship. And that’s after all why I married him.