I Stopped Texting My Partner For A Week & Our Relationship Changed Completely
After being together for a year, my boyfriend and I realized that we were in a communication rut.
Before we moved in together, we used to make sure the night didn't end before we talked on the phone -- even if only for a few minutes. Communication then was sweet and sexy and reserved mainly for flirting and getting to know each other better. Now, its is something we do by necessity and our preferred mode of communication has quickly become texting. Whether we were making dinner plans or asking how each other's days were going -- texting was just easier.
Texting also provided another benefit - receipts. I can't tell you how many times, mid-argument, I would conjure up a text message that provided the much needed proof required to make my point. Ever since the iPhone updated their ios and allowed the ability to edit screenshots, relationships have gone to a whole new level. My boyfriend has received more than a few screenshot conversations with circles around key takeaways.
What? I like to be thorough...
So when we decided to try out a text-free week, we knew it was going to be something of an adjustment. I'll admit, the first day there was a lot of picking up my phone and putting it back down once I remembered our agreement. But all in all, what we learned about our relationship - and ourselves served a valuable lesson about how we treat each other.
My takeaways:
I actually missed him.
Who would have thought I could miss someone I share a bathroom with? After our first day of no-texting, when he walked through our front door I was kind of filled with butterflies. From the look on his face, so was he. It was almost like we shed 6 months off of our relationship and went back to still being curious about each other.
We picked our battles.
It's a lot easier to pick a frivolous argument when you don't have to look someone in the eye. Its the entire reason Twitter is such a source of unapologetically bold statements. I'll admit there have been times when we've sparked a fight over text that honestly just didn't need to happen. During our text-free week, if something was an issue, it would still be an issue when we saw each other at home. If not, it was forgotten and generally for the best.
Our end-of-the-day conversation leveled up.
How was his day? What did he think about that thing that happened in the news that day? What was I working on? What funny thing did my five-year-old do after school? Things we would normally shoot a quick text about were suddenly question marks we carried around all day. When the day was done, dinner was had, kid was in bed and work was put away - we simply had a lot more to say to each other.
There were way less miscommunications.
Our text-free week happened to be over the Thanksgiving holiday, and we ambitiously decided to host a small dinner at our place. In the haze of cooking and multiple trips to the grocery store I forgot to ask him to grab unsalted butter. Did I say 'unsalted butter' or just 'butter'? I couldn't remember. Normally, I would have texted him to clarify, which is risky. He could over look it while browsing the shelves of a crowded market and come back home empty handed only to say, "Did you text me?". When I called him, he was already in line to pay, sans unsalted butter. I reminded him, and he grabbed it - crisis averted.
No receipts meant we had to trust.
So, this was probably harder for me since I'm petty...uh I mean since I'm so organized. Not being able to look through a log of our communication meant that when he shared his perspective on something I simply had to trust it. Maybe I don't remember the exact way something was said, maybe it doesn't even matter. I realized that keeping receipts means you may not be accounting for how things felt to the other person. Even if you did catch them in a moment of misspeaking - is that really the point? Instead of harping on the specifics and semantics of a conversation, we had to feel things out organically and trust that the other person was coming from a place of sincerity.
All in all, once the experiment was over, I was relieved to be able to pick back up our usual text banter. But, I have been more conscious about how often I rely on texting. Since then, we've had a conversation about how important in-person communication is to both of us and how it makes a difference in how smoothly things flow at home.
Now, we text a little less, we call a little more, and we talk a little deeper. And yes, I screenshot a little less as well.
Featured image by Shutterstock
Originally published December 3, 2017
Ashley Simpo is a writer, mother and advocate for self-care and healthy relationships. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @ashleysimpo. Check out her work and her musings on ashleysimpocreative.com.
Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
Why Do Millennials & Gen-Zers Still Feel Like Teenagers? The Pandemic Might Be The Reason.
There’s nothing quite as humbling as navigating adulthood with no instruction manual. Since the turn of the decade, it seems like everything in our society that could go wrong has, inevitably, gone wrong. From the global pandemic, our crippling student debt problem, the loneliness crisis, layoffs, global warming, recession, and not to mention figuring out what to eat for dinner every night. This constant state of uncertainty has many of us wondering, when are the grown-ups coming to fix all of this?
But the catch is, we are the new grown-ups.
As if it happened without our permission, we became the new adults. We are the members of society who are paying taxes, having children, getting married, and keeping our communities afloat, one iced latte at a time. Still, there’s something about doing all these grown-up duties that feel unnaturally grown-up. Enter the #teenagegirlinher20s.
If there’s one hashtag to give you the state of the next cohort of adults, it’s this one. Of the videos that have garnered over 3.9M views, you’ll find a collection of users who are overwhelmed by life’s pressing existential responsibilities, clung to nostalgia, and reminiscent of the days when their mom and dad took care of their insurance plans.
@charlies444ngel no like i cant explain to her why i had to buy multiple tank air dupes from aritzia #teenagegirlinher20s #fyp
The concept of being a 20-something or 30-something teenager is linked to the sentiment of not feeling “grown up enough” to do grown-up things while feeling underprepared and even nihilistic about whether that preparation even matters.
It’s our generation’s version of when we ask our grandmothers how old they are and they simply reply with, “I still feel 45,” all while being every bit of 76 years old. In this, we share a warped concept of time while clinging to a desire for infantilization.
Granted, the pandemic did a number on our concept of time. Many of us who started the pandemic in our early or mid-20s missed out on three fundamental years of socialization, career development, and personal milestones that traditionally help to mark our growth.
Our time to figure out and plan our next steps through fumbling yet active participation was put on pause indefinitely and then resumed provisionally. This in turn has left many of us hanging in the balance of uncertainty as we try to make sense of the disconnect between our minds and bodies in this missing gap of time.
Because we’re all still figuring out what the ramifications of being locked away and frozen in time by a global pandemic will have on us as a society, there really is no “right” way of making up for lost time. Feeling unprepared for any new chapter of life is a natural rite of passage, pandemic or not. However, it’s important to not stay stuck in the last age or period of life that made sense to us because self-growth is the truest evidence of personal progress.
So whether you’re leaning on your inner child, teenager, or 20-something for guidance as you fill the gap between your real age and pandemic age, know that it’s okay to grieve the person you thought you would be and the milestones you thought you’d hit before you ever knew what a pandemic was. If there’s anything that the pandemic taught us, it’s that we have the power to reimagine a better world and life for ourselves. And if we tap into our inner teenager as a compass, we can piece together our next chapter with a fresh outlook.
Sure, we’ve lost a couple of years, but there are still some really amazing ones ahead.
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