I just got an iPhone a couple of months ago.
Until then I had a total old-school cellphone that, in order to send a text with the word C-A-T, you had to push the number 2 button three times to get the C, again one time to get the A … and then the number 8 button one time for the T. That’s just for C-A-T. Try setting up a playdate for a Wednesday. It would take me 10 minutes to send one text with only one sentence in it.
With my new iPhone, I can whip out a message faster than Kiddo can devour a cupcake … and she loves her cupcakes. I love texting. I love sending texts, I love getting texts. Instead of emails, my husband and I text a lot more. Or, should I say, I text a lot more.
He hasn’t said anything but, some days, I think I may send too many texts. I’m not sure. How many times a day do you text your spouse or significant other? How much is too much … and what will that do to my marriage?
We all know the basic rules: don’t send texts while driving and, for those of us city moms, that includes driving a stroller (ramming into someone’s heels with your Bugaboo because you are texting is not a good thing). It isn’t good to send a text while he’s at work — and definitely not if he’s a brain surgeon and he has his hands in the middle of, well, someone’s brain.
And I’m not talking about any sort of emergency texts or super good news texts (like your ultrasound results came back just fine). I am talking about your basic text. Sure, some are necessary, when you need to tell him to pick up coffee or to check if he’s free on Friday for dinner with Jeff and Joanna, but some aren’t.
Google “how much should you text your spouse?” and it’s one of the few times Google lets you down. There’s no real answer — you get a lot of people telling you how often they text their spouses, but no definite guidelines. So, I did my own extremely not-scientific-at-all study on how many times a day people text their spouses — I asked my mommy friends.
Almost all of them said it depended on the day. If it’s a really busy day with the kids or if they are getting ready for school or vacation, it’s higher, but on average, it’s at least 5 or 6 times a day. Almost all break the rule of no texting him while at work. Oh, and to be clear, I didn’t ask about sexting. Interesting side note: many say they don’t ever talk to them on the phone, so it seems a text has replaced a phone call … but that we should explore in another post.
Okay, five or six texts … I am right in the ballpark! But I know there are those days when I text too much. How do I know when I’m about to don the “annoying, smothering wife” hat? I just feel it. The vibe I get, the amount of time between my text and his response time. To quote the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.” And we all know when you wear the “annoying, smothering wife” hat, you’re not that sexy. Too many texts equal one big turn-off.