Recently, a new policy has been implemented in the Warren household in Leola: All cellphones must go in the other room during family time. If it's date time for the parents, the phones stay in the car.

"It was getting ridiculous," said mother Sarah Warren. "And my husband was one of the worst culprits. He would be checking his work email in the middle of dinner."

With a family of five and five cellphones, communication was more tech than verbal, according to Sarah. The parents were more understanding about the teens and their texting. They know that technology is a teen's lifeline these days. It was the rare "alone" moments that were bothering Sarah.

"It's when we were out together and trying to catch up with one another that it would really start to annoy me," Sarah said. "And if (my husband) wasn't on his cellphone at home, he was checking work on email."

Along with the five cellphones, the Warren family home has four computers, two game systems and one hand-held gaming system.

"We were just becoming one of those families that was too plugged in," Sarah said. "We had to make some rules."

Rules are a good thing when it comes to making communication a priority, said relationship counselor Tim Ronsfield of Lancaster.

"They may be required because generally people don't like to break rules," Ronsfield said. "If there aren't boundaries, they won't see that they are being rude and their behavior is unacceptable. They think that it's just them taking a second to look at their phone."

But those seconds add up and the people with whom the offender is spending time may start to feel slighted.

Matt Williams of Lancaster found himself feeling rejected by his wife's obsession with texting and checking her email when out.

"I would be talking to her and I know she was listening but not hearing what I was saying because she was reading her phone," Williams said. "It was really starting to get to me."

His wife would not only be emailing from her computer, but also checking her social network accounts and responding to texts on her phone.

Williams was able to show his wife how annoying it was. One day he did the same things to her. Every time she would start a conversation, he would pick up his phone.

"She got the message pretty quickly, and I didn't have to text it to her," Williams said.

"When it came down to it, it wasn't one more thing that needed to be added to any stress in our relationship."

Two women from Florida found themselves bonding over the fact that their husbands were constantly texting and emailing each other about work. They launched a Twitter page and website (www.gadgetwidows.com) last year as a therapy tool and support for other women who may be tech widows. Since then, they have helped readers deal with having "over-connected" partners, and have gained a following of more than 500 people on Twitter. They even host spa days for lonely spouses at tech conferences, according to their website.

Ronsfield offered some tips for dealing with being a tech widow or widower:

• Set rules for the use of technology during important time.

• Get on board and maybe ask to be included in the games or interaction online. Start a game of Scrabble between the two of you.

• Keep relationship problems between you and not between you and the rest of the world. In translation, don't make the most recent fight your status on Facebook. "It just fuels the fire that everyone now knows your side and not the other side of what may have happened," Ronsfield said.

• If you can't get the other person's attention in person, try writing it in an email. "It's obvious that they like reading things on email, then try that," Ronsfield said.

The Gadget Widows have some alternative ways to deal with the problem:

• Take deep breaths and count to 10 before you stab at your partner's iPhone.

• Hide the electronics in a box.

• Accompany your partner to tech conferences and enjoy a spa day while he or she gets a tech fix.

cesbenshade@lnpnews.com