My husband asked how my day was while looking at his phone

Dear Delyara, I answered anyway. That’s what makes this kind of loneliness so confusing. Technically, the question was asked. Technically, interest was shown. Technically, I had a chance to speak. But I could feel while I was answering that I was not really being received, only attended to at the most surface level. His eyes moved, his thumb moved, and my day became one more sound in the room instead of something held properly for a minute. I know marriage is not constant intimacy. I know people get tired. I know phones ruin everyone’s presence now, not only his. Still, there is a particular ache in being invited to open and then realizing the room was never properly made for what might come out. By the time I finished speaking, I wished I had said “fine” and saved us both the performance.