Do you Feel Worried if your Lover Doesn’t Text you Back?

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

What is your thinking about texting in relationships?

Do you feel the need to answer a text quickly?

Recently someone confided in me that she feels very bothered and annoyed when she messages her boyfriend and she doesn't hear back within 10 minutes.

When I asked about her feelings a bit more, she went on to describe many thoughts about if she had made him angry last night. Or if that last text sounded stupid, or if he just wasn't really that interested after all. When I asked her how she felt when she got a text back, she described a big feeling of euphoria and happiness and a quick text response back to him - which of course started the cycle all over again.

So at the start of your day - you text your boy or girlfriend on the way to work, as soon as you start up your computer, at coffee, or just after the work meeting and after your workout? And what if he or she doesn't reply? Or takes a long time to respond?

Interestingly, a recent study at Brigham Young University showed findings that suggest that the less that men text, the higher their levels of romantic satisfaction. The research, found that when men are happy with their relationship they tend to talk to their partners more and have less reason to text.

When they are not so connected then they will text more to avoid face-to-face communication.

Women, on the other hand, feel more connected the more they message and receive messages back. The study warned about the disruption of texting to romance and happiness

So while hearing something sweet in the middle of the day is a good relationship maintainer the amount of texting can create a common misunderstanding between lovers, depending how much meaning and importance that they give to texting.

So is it communication or validation that the more addicted texters amongst us are seeking?

Fear of missing out, fear of being offline and fear of being out of mobile contact?

All of these worrying situations are apparently related to our increasingly heavy reliance on our smartphones.

If you find yourself checking and rechecking your phone for messages then the science suggests that this sort of need is as a result of our neurotransmitters being overactive. We get sent the uncomfortable flight or fight messages contained in chemicals in our brain. Not exactly the message we were looking for.

In his book The Distracted Mind, Larry Rosen outlines the complexity of disentangling ourselves from what he calls a dependence on smartphone use.

He suggest that we need to take control of our habits.

Think about this:

• Where do you keep your phone? A heavy user will have it in their hand or very close to hand.

• How do you feel if your phone is in another room?

• When you are at dinner with friends or family, where do you put your phone?

• Do you make sure your phone is by you as you go to sleep?

If you find yourself waiting for that text so that you can feel reassured that you are loved - only to feel the cycle starting all over again very quickly - then it is probably time to talk to your lover about both of your expectations of daily contact. This will help the worry of expectation to relax, and, at the same time protect our precious brains from the neurotransmitters that can end up damaging our relationships with unwanted biochemical messages.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.