Have you ever sent a salacious text to your person and realized you sent it to your boss? Do you know your partner’s email password and unlock code? Are you constantly checking your phone, even when you’re on a date? These three different examples show how intertwined our relationships are with technology, no matter how long we’ve spent with a partner.
Technology can make or break a relationship quicker than you can cut and paste, and with as many possible errors. Because technology permeates our lives and significantly impacts our love lives, we need rules for how to use it from the start of a relationship.
20 Technology rules smart couples follow daily so they can stay in love forever:
1. Plug in
If you see their device needs a charge, plug in their phone or computer when you see the juice is low. It takes almost no time or effort, but it can make a significant difference in their day.
Charging their device is a small act of kindness, and as life coach Debra Smouse put it so well, “There is joy in kindness. There is a sense of pride in acts of caring. Small gestures of affection remind me that I’m an active contributor to the overall health of our relationship. Those love nuggets I generously sprinkle in his life return to me tenfold in my own sense of satisfaction in my daily life.”
2. Share the joke
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If you laugh out loud at something on your phone, share it. Keeping the joke to yourself is a bit rude and can set up an environment of paranoia when habitual.
Relationship coach Eleen Nyland said, “If you can’t laugh together, how can you support each other in distress? Laughter is the greatest tool to survive the most horrible situations; therefore, you need a partner in crime who can laugh about the same things.”
3. Text with care
Text and email your spouse with the same care you did when you first started dating. Grocery lists, forwarded emails, and shared memes don’t count as loving correspondence.
Make time to send sweet nothings to each other over SMS and DMs. Consider each sweet little text as an act of relationship maintenance. A love note a day keeps the divorce attorney away, or something like that.
4. Download
If you see a book you know they would love, download it for them or send them the link. Make it as easy to access as possible without breaking boundaries, of course..
New words will be a sweet surprise and show you’ve been thinking of them while they were away. This is a slightly larger act of kindness than plugging in their phone for them, and with each increase in kindness, satisfaction in the relationship goes up as well.
5. Keep it secure
Don’t exchange email passwords or passcodes with your partner, no matter how good an idea it seems. This is something that requires caution, trust, and well-defined boundaries.
Counselor Richard Drobnick explained that “sharing phone passcodes is less about privacy and more about emotional needs. One partner often needs space to feel respected, while the other needs openness to feel secure. Pushing for access too early can backfire: one may feel controlled, and the other may feel excluded or suspicious.
6. Don’t hack
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Stay out of your partner’s email or phone. And definitely don’t read the messages, assume they are cheating on you, freak out, and post your suspicions on a social network or a website.
A study in The Journal of Social Psychology showed how trust in relationships is reciprocal: “Assessments of trust in intimate relationships are often based on perceptions of a partner’s behaviors. Trusting behaviors significantly determined the level of trust, heightened self-awareness, and a communal orientation further enhanced the study participants’ trust in their partners.”
7. Save everything
Keep their cute texts, emails, and voicemails to remind you of how much they love you. Pro-tip: Set up a file “for sweetness only” and make it easily clickable.
Relationships have their ups and downs, so keep a little something in your pocket for the days when you feel like you are unloved and lost in life. You can always open your phone and love-scroll through all the sweetness your partner has sent.
8. Keep business business
Don’t send flirty text messages or emails on your company phone or email. That is, unless you want to explain your texts to the Director of IT.
If you are not already aware that your work accounts are accessible to the management, you definitely should get the fact clear in your mind now. Also, sending flirty emails or texts while you’re working might communicate that you are thinking about the one you love, but it doesn’t show a lot of consideration for everyone’s time.
9. Limit time
Set a time limit for Internet scrolling while you’re hanging out together. Spending time together doing nothing or engaging in a shared activity will do more than scrolling for hours together in silence.
Dr. Susan Heitler explained, “Folks who connect over so many electronic channels with their loved ones may be doing the same with friends and business partners. Therein lies the problem. Maintaining all those connections can slice and dice your time with your main loved one. Every interruption to your time together diminishes the intensity of your connection.”
10. Give knowingly
Technology as a gift is great, but not for a romantic occasion. If you need to charge it up, plug it in, or program it, it probably doesn’t make for a good (read: romantic) anniversary present.
Don’t forget that showing up for your partner is crucial. Being there in heart and mind, and being attentive to their needs and wants, can be the most satisfying gift of all.
11. Pay attention
Don’t email or scroll while talking on the phone with the other person. You may think you’re a multi-tasking expert, but it’s distracting for both of you. And it sends the message that you only half-care about what they are talking about.
When we only pay half attention, conflict is a lot more likely to occur. Especially if you respond from autopilot to a question you did not fully hear and quickly find yourself trying to defend words you wouldn’t have even said if you were fully attentive to the communication.
12. Know their style
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Don’t communicate about important topics in a way your partner is uncomfortable with. As in, don’t text them, you’re going to miss dinner if they are a bad texter who often misreads the tone of the text. And don’t message them that you’re mad if they prefer to hear your voice.
Face-to-face communication is almost always preferred if there is any tension, stress, problem, or difficulty to manage in a relationship. You can’t feel a person through a screen, and your gut instinct has a hard time reading the room when nobody else is in it.
13. Have a discussion
Talk with your partner about what ways technology is OK for big discussions. Phone calls are way different then an SMS composed mostly of emojis!
However, text messages can be a great way to talk about emotional topics. Especially if either or both of you are still working on emotional regulation skills. Writing a message gives you time to formulate your thoughts before typing, so you’re less likely to blurt something out in anger.
14. Watch your speak
Refrain from using tech-speak or chat lingo in everyday conversation if it annoys your partner. Continuing to do what you know annoys them is an unhealthy dynamic for sure.
Even if tech-speak doesn’t annoy them, it is still a good idea to avoid the shortcuts and focus on effective and clear communication in everyday practice. The better you can give detailed, easy-to-follow information, the better your connection will be.
15. Put it away
Shut off and put away your phone on important occasions. Like when you have a rare date night alone. And ask your partner to do the same.
Divorce attorney Ronald Bavero advised, “Make your dinner table, bedroom, and car no-phone zones, and put the phones and tablets away when you are there. Also, you can create No Phone Times like evenings out, date nights, vacation days, etc. You can even do this by simply turning off your phone or using the phone feature to turn on downtime until tomorrow.”
16. No snobbery
“Fine, I’ll do it.” This is a common phrase uttered in frustration and fermented in passive aggression. “Fine,” you say? Honestly, in this situation, they are anything but “fine”.
Have patience if your partner is less tech-savvy than you. You are here to fill the gaps for each other. Remember all the non-tech-related skills you don’t have that your partner contributes to the relationship.
17. Try to DIY
If you are not so tech savvy, try to figure it out before asking your partner to teach you a second time. Don’t forget there are help functions and walk-throughs available for almost any piece of technology.
You might take longer to do it the first, second, or third time, but repetition will help you remember better for the next time. There is also the added benefit of exercising your brain for better cognition, while also keeping the general frustration in daily interactions with your partner lower.
18. Bed is for sleep
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Don’t bring tech to bed. The bed should be for sleep, relaxing, and other winding-down activities.
A 2022 study showed, “A one-hour increase of screen time after going to bed was associated with 59% higher odds of having symptoms of insomnia and a reduction in sleep duration of 24 minutes. The associations between screen time and sleep outcomes did not differ for social media use versus other activities.”
19. Leverage the technology
There might be a lot of downsides to technology, but it would not have advanced so far if it weren’t useful. The trick is to figure out the best ways to leverage technology for both of your benefits.
Technology can help facilitate having a better time if you find yourself at a dead-end party, and don’t want to waste a precious date night. You can send a text to let your partner know you want to go, or drop them a pin of the location where you have fled to seek some peace of mind.
20. Give your audience a break
Don’t make every other tweet or post about your partner. We all want a good love story, but part of the fun of appreciating another person’s life is not knowing all the details every hour of every day.
Let your unexpected “my partner is the best in the world” post surprise your friends, family, and followers who have been waiting for an update. The boost they get from sharing a glimpse of love will be bigger when it is a snapshot and not a feature film.
Alex Alexander is a pseudonym. The author of this article is known to YourTango but is choosing to remain anonymous.