The Silliness of ‘Phubbing’ and Recognizing Real Marital Problems

Humans have a very odd psychological tendency to focus on the wrong problems, and martial problems are no different. The new strife du jour is called ‘pphubbing‘ — a portmanteau of ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing,’ with an extra ‘p’ at the beginning for ‘partner.’ Phubbing is when someone (your spouse, in the case of pphubbing) ignores you in favor of their smartphone, whether that means they’re texting, watching cat videos, or endlessly tapping tiles on Gumballs and Dungeons.

There are numerous articles out there about the horrors of being phubbed. How it’s deeply insulting to be overlooked by someone who loves you in favor of a phone. And it’s true — it is degrading for your spouse to prefer dealing with their phone to dealing with you. But it’s also nothing new. ‘Phubbing’ isn’t a problem…it’s a symptom.

The Horrors of Reading
We hear all manner of experts talking about how the allure of smartphones will shatter the American family by drawing everyone into their own little world. It seems like a phenomenon that is unique to this new, deeply-interconnected age. We hear of things like ‘Facebook addiction’ and concepts like FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out, because after all, You Only Live Once) and they seem frightening because they’re so obviously novel experiences that humans haven’t had before.

But these fears are nothing new. When newspapers started to be delivered to people’s front doors in the 1830s, experts of that age decried the end of the American family as well. They were afraid that the all-important ‘social breakfast’ where the family connected with each other would be replaced with a table full of people, each hidden behind a great wall of paper, nose buried in their favorite section. “Newbbing,” they called it. OK, that was a lie…but you get the point.

It’s Not a Problem…
The reality is that the problem has nothing to do with phones. Phones are merely today’s most convenient way to disengage from your surroundings — but humans have been actively disengaging from their surroundings for millennia. Our culture expects and even encourages people to disengage from their families.

Have you ever heard of a ‘NASCAR widow?’ Or seen a man go out of his way to tell his wife not to bug him until the Superbowl is over? Or on a more basic level, heard someone describe their spouse as a ‘workaholic’? Heck, we have at least one major world religion dedicated to disengaging from your surroundings.

…Until It Is
When you marry, however, you’re making a commitment to remain engaged. When a married person chooses to disengage from their marriage — from their spouse — to a degree that makes that spouse feel unloved, they create a problem. It doesn’t matter if they do it with NASCAR, with the Sports section, or with Clash Royale. And you have to ask yourself, why are they disengaging?

Answer that, and you will get to the root of the actual problem.