My bf has a really bad phone addiction but I didn’t know how bad it truly was till he got phone service for the first time in maybe a year. I met him shortly after he stopped being able to use the internet on his phone and I have heard that it was a struggle of his but I had no idea that it was going to be this bad. From what he’s told me, it sounded like it wasn’t going to be a problem for him anymore due to how long it had been since using phone service and I figured he had basically kicked his phone addiction. But about 7 or so months ago, he had been given a new phone and phone service came with it from one of his friends. Me and him were both excited to be able to talk to eachother over phone whenever he was at work or out and about town and it gave him the opportunity to talk to his friends online from his home town too. But it started to get bad.
He started spending more and more time on his phone to the point where just asking him to get off for even a few minutes would leave him visibly upset. He admitted that he has a problem and said he would work on it, so I gave him a good while but I never saw any improvement. I think it would be important to note he has adhd and struggles with depression, so I try to give him some leeway as I also struggle with those things and know it can be hard. But I felt like it wouldn’t get better unless I tried to set some boundaries.
He and I talked for a bit. He had some confusion on the meaning of quality time believing that it counts as long as we are physically present with eachother. I told him he may be physically present but he isn’t emotionally. I told him I felt lonely. He seemed to finally grasp it after that.
So I asked him if we could set an hour a day of phone free time so we could focus on eachother, be able to talk to eachother without me feeling like I’m being interrupted by his phone or going unheard or not being fully listened to when I’m trying to communicate with him. He said he can do that and did a few times at first whenever I’d bring it up again. But would always stop after a certain point.
I’d ask why he stopped and he usually would say something along the lines of being overstimulated and needing a break from it just for today. I would say ok, we can leave it be for today. But then one day would turn into two, then three and so on.
So I approached him saying we could use an app to help remind us. We got one that helps keep track of promises and things to do for people in relationships that sends reminders. We had a few other basic reminders on there for eachother but the biggest one for him was the hour a day with no phones. For me, it was mostly just cleaning and cooking here and there and giving him compliments. I had been doing everything on there and he did too. For the first 2 days that is. But after that, he stopped doing the phone thing, and eventually stopped doing all the reminders all together.
It went on a couple months till I brought it up to him again asking if we need to use a different approach. He said he did. I can’t completely remember what his reasoning was for why it wasn’t working for him. Something along the lines of it feeling forced on him or like it felt like it was nagging him. So back to the drawing board it is.
All I could think to do was just keep reminding him myself. It got exhausting and I started feeling sad that I had to keep asking him to spend just a little time with me off of his phone to pay some attention to me. I ended up having a bit of a mental breakdown maybe a month and a half ago saying I felt neglected and lonely that I have to constantly ask for his attention. He apologized and acknowledged it wasn’t fair to me.
I said we could try to work our way up to an hour. We agreed on starting off with 15 minutes a day. It went great the first week and there were a few times he’d opt to go for a whole hour instead of 15. Then his work got chaotic as around that time, we had a huge tourist event happening. He asked if we could forgo the phone time off thing for the duration of the event as work had him really stressed out from the insane amount of customers coming through and all the new rules at his work place put in place to regulate them for the time being. I said I was fine with it for the duration of the event.
Then he ended up getting sick. He would still go to work besides the occasional day off to go see the doctor so we can figure out what’s going on. As far as we can tell, it seems like he might have a stomach ulcer but its only a theory. But we need to go out of town so we can get some more tests done to figure it out. Anyways, he has been saying his stomach issues have been stressing him out too much and he needs to be on his phone to decompress. I let it be for awhile longer and his doctor prescribed some acid reflux meds to see if it helped. We got them a week ago and he’s been cutting back on dairy as well on account of another doctor suggesting he might have a sensitivity to it. It’s been a week and he’s been saying he’s feeling a good bit better but still wants to go get checked to be sure its nothing else or not just a fluke.
But despite that, he still hasn’t tried to get off his phone. I was talking to him about something that was bothering me and was kind of important earlier today, and he was just sitting on his phone the whole time only half responding to me as he was watching YouTube videos while I was trying to talk to him. I kept trying to see if I could get his input only for him to give me short, yeahs as he was too invested yet again on what was on his phone.
He said he’s been feeling a lot better lately, but he’s always still saying he’s too overstimulated to be off the phone. That he will get off of it basically once he doesn’t have any stomach issues at all, which, considering he has ibs, I’m worried it will never happen and he’s just going to continuously make excuse after excuse to keep putting me off for his phone.
I honestly hate his phone. I daydream of smashing it. I never would but, I hate that thing so much. It has caused so many issues in our relationship. He is otherwise a great bf but, when it comes to his phone, I feel so lonely and resentful of that dumb black rectangle. I’m just so tired of having to constantly ask everytime I want to talk to him.
I don’t know if I should just wait it out a bit longer to see if he really will try once his stomach gets more better or if I should say something now and if so, what? Idk. It’s exhausting. I’m stressed out that this might never get better and forever get put off. What do I do to get him to understand the importance of this? To take initiative in this? I feel like I don’t matter when he’s on his phone to this degree. Has anyone else struggled with phone addiction and gotten better or had a partner who did and was able to work through it? What did you do that helped?
TL;DR: bf says he will work on phone addiction but only does for a week max before giving up or making excuses to not spend an hour a day of no phones which turns into weeks of constant phone time leaving me feeling neglected. Already tried reminding him myself, phone apps to remind him, and working our way up to an hour from 15 minutes. Any other ideas for how to beat phone addictions in relationships?