Building a strong relationship is far from easy. If you are in one, you know that it is full of love, appreciation, and respect, but you also know that there are arguments from time to time.

It is completely normal to face obstacles and have conflicts with every person you care about in your life, as long as they do not lead to heated arguments, shouting, and assaults.

These days, many of the arguments between couples are in the form of a text. It is the dominant way of communicating among adults under 50. A study suggests that heavy texting leads to both men and women feeling dissatisfied within their relationship.

Texting has become a kind of an apocalypse that additionally ruins relationships, and here are the five stages in which it does it:

Stage 1: The need for attention

Social media are all about attention, and they have made us addicted to it. Moreover, we get the feeling that we can have people’s attention at any given time. At this speed, it is impossible to sustain all your interpersonal relationships in a healthy manner.

Stage 2: Feeling left out

In terms of intimate relationships or friendships, we feel isolated when we don’t spend as much time as we would subconsciously like with that said person online. This does not mean that we have become obsessed or stalkers, but we started feeling entitled to people’s time.

Stage 3: Phone addiction

Everywhere we go, whenever we look around us, we see people glued to their phones. The constant need to communicate has become a disease, and it puts a strain on the relationship. Instead of the quality time that could be spent face-to-face, we spent it texting.

Stage 4: Alienation

Extensive research suggests that texting, instead of a phone call, or, meeting in person with those you’re closest with, increases and fosters an illusion of closeness, while actually decreasing relationship stability and satisfaction.

We fool ourselves into believing that constant texting makes us closer to our partner. In fact, it just takes away from the natural way we typically tend to converse with each other. It does not feel intimate enough, so we start wondering why the certain person is not responding immediately, why is he/she using a certain emoji or an exclamation mark..and we get the feeling that we do not get along with him/her well.

Stage 5: Heated arguments over text

When a discussion lacks voice inflections and tonality variations, facial emotions, body proximity and an endless array of other nonverbals, a text message is forced to carry the load of the entire message being sent. In this way, texting often leads to miscommunication.

We might start arguing over trivial things, the tone we assume the other said a certain phrase with, words can be taken out of context.. and completely unnecessarily, we become aggressive and offensive.

Unlike in real life, these arguments can last for days, leading to disappointment, confusion, and even an end of the relationship.

Undoubtedly, sending and receiving information via text message has its ease-of-use and time-saving conveniences during the day-to-day. Yet, the problem is that most of us have unknowingly become so reliant on a text-based message that we started hiding behind a text message to avoid an array of self-disclosure, whether positive or negative, in close relationships.

Therefore, to develop and strengthen your relationship, make sure you spend some quality time together with your partner, let voice inflections, tonality, and other nuances carry your emotions, and enjoy a warm embrace, kisses, touch, looks, and smiles together.

Sources:
iheartintelligence.com
relevantmagazine.com
www.mhvf.net