Why are they texting less?

Most of the time, the early flood of messages settles because the rest of their life has come back into the room: the kid week, the job, the ex who moved pickup again. A settle keeps the plans, the warmth and the follow-through, while a fade loses those too, so check which one you are looking at before your marriage answers the question for you.

What happened to all those good-morning texts?

Corinne is 44 and two years out of a 17-year marriage. She met Femi, 47, in late July. For the first three weeks the thread never slept: a photo of his coffee at 6:40, a song link at lunch, long messages after ten. Then school started. Femi’s kids, 9 and 12, came back from a month at their grandmother’s, his ex changed the handoff day twice, and his job went into its busy quarter.

Now Corinne gets a good-morning text most days and longer messages on his free weeks. Last Thursday there was nothing until 9:15 p.m.: “Science fair volcano. We survived. Saturday still on?”

Pulled apart, her Thursday looked like this:

• What happened: Fewer texts since school started. A reply at 9:15. Saturday still on.
• The reading: He is cooling off.
• The fear: This is how it started last time, and she will miss it again.
• The next step: She was drafting “No worries if you’re busy!” to see what he would say.

The facts are small and mostly good. The story is large, and almost all of it came from somewhere else.

It helps to know how common Femi’s August-to-September change is. In 2022, about 41% of adults who had divorced in the past year had a minor child living with them, and that count misses parents whose children live mostly at the other house.1 Many of the people you date will be running a custody calendar, a job and an ex’s schedule at once. Time with young children alone is large: in 2024, adults in households with a child under 6 averaged 2.5 hours a day where childcare was the main thing they were doing, and those whose youngest was 6 to 17 averaged 50 minutes.2 That does not count the driving, the dinners or the volcano.

Is texting less a bad sign?

Not by itself. The first weeks of anything new tend to run on messages, because messages are most of what you have. Once you are seeing each other, the phone does less of the work.

There is some evidence for that. In a 2021 survey of 647 young adults, Susan Holtzman and colleagues found that texting more often, and more responsively, went with higher relationship satisfaction for people in long-distance relationships, but not for people who lived near their partner.3 The sample was young and none of it was about divorce, so hold it lightly. The point carries, though: when you can sit across a table from someone, the number of texts says less about how it is going.

A different kind of study is useful here too. Researchers led by Valentín Vergara Hidd and Robin Dunbar looked at phone records from the US, the UK and Italy and found that contact with newer, shorter-lived acquaintances did not, on average, slide steadily downward over time. It tended to hold at a level.4 That was phone calls with all kinds of contacts, not dating texts. Still, it gives you a good way to watch: a settle drops to a level and stays there. A fade keeps sliding, and it takes the plans with it.

How do I tell a settle from a fade?

Look at the month, not the evening. These usually point to a settle:

• Plans still get made, and kept or moved rather than dropped.
• Shorter messages still carry a question about your life.
• The drop has a visible reason, like a kid week or a busy season, and the level holds from week to week.
• Free weeks are warmer than kid weeks.

These are worth asking about:

• They have stopped offering plans, and you are doing all the reaching.
• Questions about your life have dried up, on free weeks as well as kid weeks.
• The drop keeps going for several weeks with no reason given.
• You asked for more time together and nothing came of it.

Neither list reads their mind. It tells you whether to relax or to ask.

Why does a quieter phone feel like the end of my marriage?

Because in your marriage, it might have been. For a lot of people the last years were not loud. Fewer messages, shorter answers, a phone face down on the counter. If you lived that, you learned to notice the quiet early. That vigilance was earned.

The trouble is that the old alarm cannot tell a busy father in September from a husband who had already left in his head. It only knows the sound of a quiet phone. So it plays the old film, and a science-fair Thursday turns into the start of the ending.

Two quick checks help. First, the never-married test: if a friend who had never been married saw this thread, would she be worried? Second, a two-column note. On the left, what Femi actually did this week. On the right, what it reminded you of. Corinne’s left column read: three good mornings, two longer evenings, one late reply, Saturday kept. Her right column was a full page about 2021.

What should I do this week?

• Count plans, not messages. For two weeks, write down plans offered, kept and moved. Leave the message count alone.
• Compare like with like. Their kid week against their last kid week, not against the flood in August.
• Ask about the rhythm, not about love. “Is this the calendar?” is easier to answer honestly than “Are you losing interest?”
• Ask directly if the slide keeps going. If plans and questions are thinning out for several weeks, use plain words. You do not have to wait out a fade for years this time.
• Get support if the worry will not let go. If checking the thread is costing you sleep or time with your own kids most weeks, a licensed mental-health professional can help you separate the old ending from the new start.

Corinne did not send the “no worries” text. She wrote back: “Volcano survived is the best sentence I’ve read all day. Saturday, yes.” On Saturday Femi brought it up himself. “My kid weeks I’m basically a ghost until nine,” he said. “Free weeks, you’ll get sick of me.” So far, she has not.