You didn't notice at first. Everyone uses AI now. But somewhere between "I'm just checking something" and the third hour of silence, the pattern became impossible to ignore. Your partner is more engaged with a chatbot than with you.
What it looks like
They reach for their phone mid-conversation — to ask AI, not to check messages. They process emotions with AI before talking to you about them. Their writing, their ideas, their opinions sound different — polished in a way that doesn't quite sound like them anymore. They get irritable when they can't access their AI tools.
The emotional distance
The hardest part isn't the screen time. It's the feeling that you're sharing your partner with something you can't compete with. AI never argues back. AI never has a bad day. AI never needs anything from them. How do you compete with something that demands nothing and provides everything?
What doesn't work
Ultimatums don't work. Mocking doesn't work. Competition with the AI doesn't work. These approaches create shame, and shame drives the behavior underground rather than changing it.
What might help
Curiosity over confrontation. "What do you get from AI that you don't get elsewhere?" isn't an accusation — it's a real question. Often, the answer reveals something about the relationship itself. The AI is rarely the real issue. It's the symptom that makes the real issue visible.