My husband is screen addicted and it affects his mood, how he parents, our life. And I don’t know what to do about it

I would sit him down and say you’re considering leaving him because of this issue. That either he’ll accept some help and work to reduce his screen time, or you cannot see a future for this relationship. Then he has a decision to make, but you can’t go on like this.

What apps is he on? If it’s Instagram or TikTok, get onto them and start searching for phone addiction, parenting tips, impact of screens on children - try to change his algorithm so the thing he’s addicted to reminds him of it.

second get him to look up (every phone has this) his daily usage and calculate in years how much of his life he’ll waste.

It’s an addiction not like alcohol or drugs more like food in that we tell ourselves we need our phones for work/to remain in contact, so it’s not a go cold turkey situation.

But ultimately like with any addiction they can only change if they want to

He needs to consider a Brick device which you can use to lock anything on your phone you want to for as long as you need. Trying that might help to break the cycle

Why don’t you grab all his Devices and Hide/ destroy/ disable them- that should bring things to a head he will realise he is powerless over the addition and his life is unmanageable I wonder if there are any specific support groups that would help search for things like partners of phone addiction support
you probably feel like you have been emotionally abandoned I felt the same way when my partner was prescribed morphine you probably feel like you’re in “Mourning “ you need to make a decision and stick to it there is no point in issuing ultimatums this will only stop when the user has a moment of clarity and realises that things have become unmanageable and costing them things that they don’t want to loose have a look at internet technology users anonymous for example they have a ,spin off group for family and friends

Does he have too much spare time? Can you give him more chores and errands so he doesn't have so much time for phone and video games?

Do you have a garden? Give him some DIY projects to work on. Veggie patch, a new deck, a cubby house, a bbq area? Get him cook up a bbq.

Volunteer your house to host friends and family over? Do games night with board games.

Go on a camping holiday. Road trip weekends.

Do little things to get him away from the screen a little bit at a time to get him to snap out of the algorithm. Get him a set of classes of something non screen related he might enjoy for his birthday - cooking, coffee making etc.

I think you can get a old school cordless phone that you can connect all the mobile via wifi so you can still get calls through but the family can put away their mobile.

My husband is the same and it does my head in. He's on it 24/7. He gets annoyed when the kids interrupt his screen time. Just mindless scrolling of you tube. He just sits there on his phone and ignores us all. Like it's glued to his hand, such a bad example for the kids.

Is it time for the WiFi connection to just break? I really sympathise with you OP, especially in trying to keep your kids away from screens and him not helping at all.

The only way out of this situation is the one thing you say is impossible.

Challenge him to see how long he can go without his phone.

Treat this like any other addiction. He needs help, first to recognise he is addicted and second to recover.

The most difficult thing is that these days we need the phone for every bloody thing!!! 10 apps at work, passwords for everything, it’s impossible to get away from it. It’s a very difficult behaviour to get rid of.

But you really do need to do something because your children are getting a very wrong idea of what being an adult looks like. You don’t have many more years to model good behaviour for them and once they become teenagers you’ll have problems with them as well.

Have experienced this too, but husband is a recovering alcoholic and quit vaping and before my time weed and gambling. I think it clearly represents them being uncomfortable with a gap to fill and misdirecting themselves. Because mine has removed the toxic things I'm cutting some slack but still interested in this.... clearly it's a transferred addiction and mine said once that he is thinking of getting rid of social media so he does recognise it's fundamentally doing the same thing. But he hasn't and it usually dominates the evenings.
All I've been doing is trying where possible to suggest that he takes a turn cooking or doing the little ones bath, or suggesting trips out, getting romantic or doing one of his old hobbies etc...to get him not fixating on it for all evening..the one he often does is put us on a programme but proceed to then go on the phone on social media shorts.
I'm very interested if anyone has opinion on what need it's fulfilling - I have read recently that research suggests there isn't really an "addictive personality" it's just that the things are highly addictive so in turn if someone engages with them the likelihood of getting addicted is strong. But I'm trying to understand the why...what void is it filling... especially as the content largely sounds so mindless and he's actually a really intelligent person. Thanks!

I would leave him.

You say divorce is not an option because of finances but also that you are busy, active and out and about with friends and hobbies.

Could you not monetise any of the stuff you are already doing or switch to paid work for some of it. Even small amounts will be helpful to make you feel able to leave.

The books and techniques recommended above to break phone addiction are good but they won’t work unless your husband adopts them himself.

I'm sorry you are going through this. The father of my three children is the same.
Can you start getting your ducks in a row to start prioritising your one precious life? Invest in anything you can to improve your health. (I have a chronic illness also and went down route of naturopath, lifestyle changes, therapy and any different angle I could to try improve my health... suspect my chronic illness brought on in part by relationship).
Anything you can do to improve your income.
What would you advise your children to do if this was their situation?
If you are on FB, look up Zawn...you are not alone. I promise, it's possible to build a life you are proud of and love outside of this.

Could he be neurodivergent @Roseyposey10 ? Phones give an instant dopamine hit.
I think you already mentioned he suffers with depression.
It's worth looking into.

Next rainy day why not get a board game out or such like and announce to all let’s play such and such. If he goes to opt out, say it’s a family game for everyone…

we’ve had discussions re screen time too and DH didn’t agree initially about it affecting his thinking. However he soon realised he was becoming short attention spanned via scrolling video shorts so will only do it for a set time. He had also got back into reading books again too.

If I lived with him his phone and games console would be going for a swim in the bath. I'm not even joking.

You can't n change him, but the kids yes. Just do stuff with the kids without him, be a single parent in the marriage, So many men end up like this, you can't make a donkey into a racehorse and maybe this is all he has capacity for. If he has more, he is the one who needs to find it. Meanwhile, get out there and forget about him. I know it makes you sad, make a nice male friend if you need to. This guy has completely given up, ignores you and is passive aggressive.

You can’t stop broaching it just because he gets defensive.
‘I understand this may feel like a criticism and will be hard to hear but this is making me very unhappy so I need you to hear me’ rather than going on the attack.
Explain you miss him, you miss his attention, and the kids need his attention. Suggest no screens at breakfast as a starting point.

Ask him how many hours he spent on his phone today. Then tell him the average is 3hrs 21 mins. That should be a wake up call.

Do you know what he's looking at? Apologies if this has already been covered. I'm just wondering if it is those games like Candy Crush that really hook you in, or videos about gaming? What it is might determine how hard it will be for him to kick the habit.
I think if I were in your position, I accept that the defensiveness was going to come, and have it out with him - but you need to have something you want him to do instead. It's no good just saying: "I don't want you to be on your screen all the time", there needs to be something you do want from him.
To take the kids to hobbies or sign them up for X, Y, Z.
To invest in a couple of games they can play with him - not ideal, but at least they'd be included more.
To take a walk with you after dinner - even if the weather is crap.
To help decorate or bake or garden - basically anything he enjoys or you enjoy (bonus points if you both enjoy it) that you can put proper time aside for if he puts his phone down.

Some of it, you can let slide: when he's brushing his teeth? Not great, but it doesn't really effect you.
But try to pick the things that drive you most up the wall and impact your family the most and navigate those with him.
He won't like it - of course he won't, it's an addiction - but you have to be able to tell yourself you tried everything. Xx

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari is a really great book (for anyone with a phone tbh), about the effects of smartphones on the brain. I bought him a copy but of course, he didn't fucking read it 🙄

My exH was also like this and I suspected at times he might have ADHD but it was a bit of a chicken and egg situation tbh. He was always tired, but stayed up late on screens. Could never get out of bed in the morning and lived on coffee/energy drinks. Was always hyper fixated on something (sadly not his marriage or anything else useful), literally couldn't just
.. Be. He was also ridiculously forgetful/disorganised but I always thought it was because his brain was so overloaded with the sheer constant volume of crap he filled it full of via his smartphone... There wasn't any room for actual useful stuff. But because I also used my phone sometimes.... That made it ok. I would argue I was stuck on the sofa breastfeeding/paying bills/ buying stuff for the kids/researching stuff for the kids/booking stuff for the kids/arranging playdates for the kids/messaging friends for conversation because he never fucking spoke to me.... But. He wouldn't see how it was different, and sadly I suspect neither would the kids. "Why is mummy telling you off for being on your phone when she's on hers too" "I don't know" ..... Etc etc.

My husband is similar, and has recently developed a new habit of always having airpods in because he's listening to stuff on his phone/laptop, even in bed. So conversation has just died because anything I say is met with him whipping the bloody things out and saying 'what?' and I just CBA. When I complain his response is 'what do you want me to do??)

TURNING YOUR BLOODY SCREEN OFF AND RE ENTER THE MARRIAGE, THAT'S WHAT!!

It's really lonely.

This is such stupid advice. Do you really think that a man who probably has 10 hours of screentime a day will abruptly snap out of it because his wife made the wifi unavailable? It's far more likely to trigger violence or unpredictable behaviour.

I agree with the PP that some forms of adult ADHD or ASD stimming manifest as constant screen use. DH has a low level of this. We had many discussions about why he can't just leave the screen alone in a public place but I've come to realise that it's genuinely stimming. He needs it to regulate his emotions and honestly, it's not constant to the point of destroying a relationship like many examples here so I've just learned to tolerate it. It's more socially acceptable than echolalia, flapping or doing something else people may notice.

If I were you OP I would long ago have dropped all his tech into a street bin somewhere.