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Phone use more dangerous to marriage than infidelity

Phone use is more likely to cause trouble in a marriage than infidelity, a Catholic organisation has claimed.

This week Irish marriage advice service Accord published figures which identified the most common causes of relationship problems among the people who seek their help. These reveal that between 2011 and 2015, the number of people who cited phone use and texting as causes of distress rose to 21 per cent.

This rise makes phone use a more commonly cited problem than infidelity which was only featured in 20 per cent of cases in 2015.

Accord President Bishop Denis Nulty said that there had been a noticeable change in the problems cited by couples in recent years as “texting didn’t even feature as an issue of concern back in 2007”.

The group’s findings indicate that “the more communicative devices we have in life, the less communicative we are in our relationships” he continued.

With the ever-growing popularity of social media “the effect of Instagram, Snapchat, or tweeting in the relationships of today will become more evident” he suggested.

However neither phone use nor infidelity was the most commonly identified cause of trouble by Accord clients. More than half of those surveyed – 58 per cent – said they felt like their partner did not listen or simply ignored them. Other common factors included conflict, intimacy issues, and criticism.

The blog team at Stowe is a group of writers based across our family law offices who share their advice on the wellbeing and emotional aspects of divorce or separation from personal experience. As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge.

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Comment(1)

  1. Henry says:

    I would have said that today’s smart phones themselves can well be traced to an increase in infidelity. Not only do you have the long-surpassed ordinary texting, but also WhatsApp, WeChat, Skype, Viber, etc. All of which can be done far away from the hapless partner — AND covered by a password, to ensure curious eyes don’t ever find out. It’s a sad state of affairs because with apps like WeChat, you only have to shake your phone, to find someone close by who might be up for a bit of casual infidelity.

    I write about this, not as one who decided to use such facilities, but as one who has seen his marriage disintegrate through his partner’s use of such a “smart” phone’s many features — a mobile that was actually gifted out of “love”…..

    With trust likely to become ever-more an issue then, there seems only two possible alternatives — either “open” marriage — or just never marry.

    Either way, it seems the normal human need for true intimacy can only lead to greater feelings of frustration and angst, as we march, almost oblivious, into the future.

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