Quit Multi-tasking Your Marriage

MULTITASKING.  Some of us “multitaskers” where the title like a badge of honor.  It’s, more or less, become a requirement to stay ahead of the game in our fast-paced world.   Being a multitasker seems like a good thing, right?  It can be…but not when it comes to our marriage and family.

I recently wrote an article on “phubbing“– a new word for snubbing someone right in front of you, because you are on your cellphone.  After I posted this blog, I received numerous messages from both husbands and wives stating that phubbing is a huge problem in their marriage because it keeps them distracted and disconnected–utterly unable to have a coherent and productive conversation.  This got me thinking–

Why are we so easily distracted by our cellphones and other devices in the first place?

I think one of the reasons is our affinity for multitasking.  Many of us have been primed for this since we were little.

Oprah Winfrey even did a whole show about it decades ago.  It was the big, new thing to do back in the day.  But, now, it’s simply how most of us do life–and we’re overbooked, overwhelmed, and well, exhausted.

Multitasking is no longer just a noun–it’s a verb.  We multitask our way through life.  We try to do too many things at once to that point that essentially NOTHING we accomplish is well-done.  And, many of us repeat this cycle day after day.

We feel so normal doing multiple tasks at one time, don’t we?  This is harmless enough when we are simply doing tasks, but in this day and age, many of us–including myself–have fallen into the bad habit of multitasking our relationships…including our marriage.  

This is a terrible trap to fall into for the following reasons:

1.  Our spouse is not a task; therefore, we shouldn’t treat him/her that way.  I can’t look at my relationship with my spouse as another thing on my “to-do list”.  Why?  Because it will affect the way I treat my spouse.  When we have a task on a list, we try to check it off and be done with it, so we can move on to the many other tasks we have for the day.  Marriage doesn’t work that way.  Relationships don’t work that way.   Our marriage must come before anything on our list of tasks.  Otherwise, we can fall into a business kind of relationship where we are more like roommates rather than lovers and best friends.  This kind of marriage dynamic ultimately leads to a loveless marriage and even divorce.  Therefore, we must refrain from seeing our spouse as another task to check off of our list.
2. When we multitask our marriage, we never give our spouse our best attention.  Like I said before, multitasking can be a good thing when we’re talking about folding the laundry while making dinner.  That works and ultimately saves you time.  But, our spouse and family deserve our undivided attention.  And, this is so hard sometimes.  It’s easy to feel the pressure of work phone calls we need to make or emails that need our response. Many of us feel like we need to constantly check our social media all the time in order to connect with our friends or followers on our page.  No matter how important these things seem to be, we must be willing to turn off the devices, look into our spouse’s eyes, and offer our time and attention.  When we don’t, we make our spouse feel like he/she isn’t important.  When a spouse feels unimportant, communication slowly breaks down, and the marriage suffers greatly.  We must stop doing this. Our spouse deserves our very best attention–not our distracted, left-overs.  

Dear Reader, I don’t see anything wrong with having a phone conversation with your spouse while traveling for work or calling him/her while working out.  Those acts often enhance our marriage because we are able to have a focused conversation.  But, these can’t be the only kind of conversations we are having with our spouse.  Nothing replaces face-to-face, undistracted, uninterrupted communication.  And, I know that in many cases…crazy work schedules, raising kids, community obligations, etc…this is very hard to come by naturally.  Therefore, we must fight for it.  We must prioritize it, and make it happen.  Our marriage and family will be much stronger because of it, and they are more than worth the effort.

Thank you for reading, responding, and sharing.  I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, instagram, and Pinterest.

Also, for more on how to strengthen your marriage, check out my husband’s NEW, best-selling book, “The Seven Laws of Love,” by clicking here.