About DH and his sodding phone!!

[tonightonight]

Outside of work he is glued to his phone. He can't leave the room without it. He's always playing games on there or reading the news or whatever.
I get that after work he likes to unwind and after having been alone all day with a 6 month old baby I do like to chat, but it's really annoying me now.
He's always been like this since I met him (4 years ago).
He does this when we visit his parents, my parents, my friends, his friends etc. Unless someone is directly speaking to him, he is glued to the sodding thing.
I've told him it's rude, and he said that he doesn't see a problem? I've said that it annoys me that there is always a delay in his responses to a question because he's 'concentrating'. I will ask him something and he will nod but clearly hasn't heard what I've said and then complain that I don't tell him anything!
This morning the baby had a massive vom all over me in bed so everything was covered and I asked him to grab some muslins, he said yes but still lay there in the dry bit on his phone while I was holding the baby out so he didn't get covered in vom too. I had to ask again as my arms were starting to hurt and he whinged at me for being impatient.
AIBU?

ltb seriously though this seems to be the thing now and people are addicted, hope you get some advice soon but i'm on your behalf for him being so rude. not sure though why you've stayed with him / had dc if he's always been like this though

Don't think you have much chance of him changing if he's been like this for 4 years! He sounds very inconsiderate and impolite to always be on his phone like that.

How did you get past the first date let alone marry him? He's addicted to his phone, is detached, absent and rude. All the time. You can't change him, only he can do that but you can give him an ultimatum; get in reality, pay attention to people or I'm off.

YANBU. My DP can be the same. The main gripe I have is him watching videos whilst doing chores. He can't seem to complete any chore without his phone and headphones plugged in, but that means nothing gets done properly (for example, he will wash up watching videos and then I'll come in and find a bunch of dirty glasses on the draining board because he wasn't concentrating) or he'll spend double the amount of time it takes to complete a task because he's distracted (last night it took 40 mins to change the bedding ).

Maybe make an agreement that you are happy for him to spend some of his downtime doing what he likes on his phone, but you want a bit of time every evening where you are all disconnected and spend time as a family?

I admire your restraint in other grabbing phone and dropping it in the vomit

Okay, he wasn't like this on the first date and it's probably his only flaw (obvs not but it's the only one that bugs me). As I say he whips it out whenever someone isn't talking to him but he is very intelligent and can hold a conversations, just when it ends he's back on his phone.
He's obviously more lazy at home (as we all are) than out in public, but I wouldn't end my marriage and break up our family over it... some of you people are quite intense if you would do that! It's annoying yes, but lose my family, my home, my future over it? No.
I do find it rude and he has apologised, but he always resorts back to the bloody phone! Even what the battery dies, out comes the iPad or my phone!

@WonderLime that's a great idea. He gets in at 6 and DS goes to bed at 7 so have a no phones until after DS goes to bed? We recently went away for a week and I suggested we buy a cheapy £10 payg phone and leave ours at home but his face turned white at the idea!

@BreakfastAtSquiffanys haha that would have solved my problems!

tbh there will probably come a time in the future when you decide enough is enough though and you teeter on kicking him to the wall, the dc will remember him as 'always being glued to a mobile device and quietly winding mum up as result' dc aren't stupid they know and it'snot fair on them if their df isn't fully interacting with them on some level, not fair on you either.

this is actually me and I need to address it. I chat to all sorts of people via text all the time, most evenings, am on fb, MN, checking email. DH is not like it at all on his phone, he hates them really, and he has pulled me up on using my phone when I am with him. I am a bit ashamed and embarrassed about it tbh!

It's only really him that notices, as everyone else I know is pretty much the same, not that it makes it any better, and it's just starkly obvious when I with DH as he uses his phone to call people and that is it.

I am addicted and I need to break the habit, so hard though!

I need to make some rules and stick to them. Put it somewhere I can't reach it, put it away when we are chatting, only check it when I need to. Have got into terrible habits with it.

can I just say that I don't do jobs whilst on the phone and I wouldn't do it when out for dinner or at parties or anything and it would have been me holding a vomming baby in the scenario above!

From your first post it sounded like he was walking around with his eyes permanently on the screen, ignoring everybody while he continued to look at his screen. Even when your baby vomits, he's still looking at his phone... You got extreme responses because what you described was extreme.

Iamblossom - i get told off by my boyfriend for being on my phone a lot too. It is definitely a tough habit to break! I wouldn't say I'm as bad as OPs H though.

No not as bad. But I do worry I have got into a very bad habit. Hate to think my dc see me on it all the time too, what a bad example to set!

Doesn't help that I often read my book on my kindle on my phone so it looks like I am glued it it but actually reading!

I have this problem with my DH too & sympathise. No advice because I am hitting my head against a brick wall trying to get through to my DH. I have tried explaining how anti social it is and how removed from our life he is becoming, how boring he is, how insular etc. I have also threatened to drop kick the fecking phone down the garden!

He tries to take some kind of intellectual high ground claiming that he is reading some high minded article rather than watching my crap on the telly. Yeah right! It's definitely an addiction for him.