I Just Called To Say I Love You?
by Aja Dorsey Jackson
Last weekend I was sitting at my daughter’s soccer practice and decided to send my husband a text message. It said hi- followed by a smiley face. He called me almost immediately.
Him: “What’s wrong? Did you break something in the house?”
Me: “No! Why would you ask that?”
Him: “Because you never send text messages to say hi. I thought you were doing it because I was going to find a disaster when I got home.”
We laughed about his assumption for a little while, but afterward I thought to myself: Is this what it has come to? I can’t send my husband a hello without him thinking the furnace has exploded?
Early on in our marriage we used to call and text each other all of the time during the day for no reason. Sometimes it would be to say “hi” or “I love you”, sometimes it would be just to talk for a moment or to tell each other about something funny that happened.
Now if I text him during the day it is to ask him to pick up diapers or milk on the way home or to ask whether he’ll be off of work early enough for me to go to the gym. If he calls me it’s usually to ask me to take something out of the freezer for dinner. To be honest, the shift in our phone conversation is not something I think about much.
Maybe I should think about it more. I still feel a little excited when I see his number pop up on my phone, even if it is just to ask about pork chops for dinner and I don’t want him to think that every time my number pops up that the house must have fallen down. But we have a lot more to do throughout the course of a day than we once did so it makes sense that our conversations would center around those things. We aren’t newlyweds. We’ve been married for a few years and have a 10-year-old and a toddler. Sometimes I worry about holding on to all of those things we used to do when we were newly married and dating to keep our relationship fresh, but then I wonder, is it ok to let certain things, like talking on the phone a lot, just fade out?
Do you still talk on the phone or text your spouse? Do you think it is important to your marriage?
Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more about her at www.ajadorseyjackson.com or follow her on twitter @ajajackson.
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