Oh, this one. I see this in my office probably three times a week right now. Technology fights are almost never actually about technology.
Let me say that again because it matters: the phone is rarely the real problem. The phone is the symptom. What’s underneath is almost always a question of presence and priority.
Competing with a screen for presence feels like a quiet rejection.
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Ask Figlet about fighting over phone use.
When one partner is scrolling and the other is sitting right there, what the person watching the scrolling often feels is: *I am less interesting than whatever is on that screen. I am not enough to pull you toward me. You would rather be there than here with me.* That’s a loneliness that happens inside a relationship, which is one of the most painful kinds of loneliness there is.
And the person on the phone? They’re often not trying to reject anyone. They might be decompressing. They might be anxious and using the phone to regulate. They might not even realize they’ve drifted away.
So what happens is this: one person feels abandoned and comes in with criticism (“You’re always on that thing!”). The other person feels accused and unfairly attacked, and pulls back or defends (“I just need a minute to unwind!”). And suddenly you’re fighting about screen time when the real conversation underneath is “Do I matter to you?”
That’s the conversation I want couples to find their way to.
Competing with a screen for presence feels like a quiet rejection.
Do you know you can get personalized answers to all your questions from the same wisdom that wrote this article, right now?
Ask anything about your own situation and get an answer immediately. Keep asking, think it through, work out what to do next.
No credit card required. Your first 10 messages are free.
Ask Figlet about fighting over phone use.
I worked with a couple last month where she would get furious every time he picked up his phone during dinner. The fights were brutal. But when we dug underneath, she said: “When you look at your phone instead of me, I feel like I’m invisible. Like you’re choosing everyone else over me.” And he said: “I had no idea. I’m just trying to check out for five minutes because work was awful.”
Once they got to that deeper place, the whole dynamic shifted. He started putting his phone in another room during dinner. She started asking for what she needed instead of attacking what he was doing wrong.
Here’s what I’d ask you: when the phone fight happens, what do you actually want your partner to know about how you feel? Not what they’re doing wrong. What hurts. Because if you can get to that softer place, and your partner can hear it without going into defense mode, you’re no longer fighting about a device. You’re talking about connection and need.
That’s where things can actually shift.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Stop Fighting and Start Communicating in Your Relationship
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