Despite typically being portrayed as a perpetually happy and loving couple, President and first lady Joe and Jill Biden, like virtually every other married couple, have their occasional disputes and disagreements with each other, but unlike most everybody else, those fights are generally handled in a private and non-verbal manner.

The first lady recently discussed how she and the president will engage in what she calls "fexting," or fighting by way of text messages, to not be seen or heard squabbling in front of anybody else like staffers and Secret Service agents, according to HuffPost.

Using that tactic, the first lady can insult the president or order him around without drawing any unwanted attention or raising questions about who is really in charge in their relationship as well as the White House.

"Fighting over text," or "fexting"

The issue came up this week during an interview at the White House with MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, who at one point asked Jill Biden a series of rapid-fire questions, including about the special term the first lady coined to describe how she and the president quietly handle their disagreements.

Asked to define "fexting," Biden laughed and then explained, "So when you’re in the car and you’re texting and you’re fighting with your husband and there are two Secret Service agents in the car with you, you can’t say, 'You’re a whatever.'"

"So you’re texting, 'You’re a whatever!'" she added. "It’s fighting over text because you can’t verbalize it."

Brzinski, who is married to longtime "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, said she "loved" Biden's term for "fighting over text" and acknowledged with a laugh, "I think I might have done that a time or two in my life."

"Fexting" term originated during the Obama years

This is not the first time that the first lady has used or discussed the "fexting" term, which is why Brzinski already knew enough of the unique term to ask Biden to further define it in the MSNBC interview.

The Associated Press reported in May 2022 that, according to Biden herself, the term originated during Joe Biden's tenure as vice president under former President Barack Obama when the then-second couple realized that they needed a way to settle their personal differences in private despite always being in the presence of Secret Service agents.

What they ultimately agreed upon was to use text messages to quietly engage in arguments or insults against each other without anybody else being aware of what was happening.

Silent text arguments preserved forever in historical records

However, while Jill and Joe "fexting" each other may prevent others in their immediate vicinity from overhearing their disputes, such as Secret Service agents and staffers, it doesn't keep their arguments hidden forever from the general public or the government thanks to statutory requirements that all presidential communications be kept for the historical record, per the AP.

The fact that the first lady's secret insults by text against the president will be forever stored for posterity in the National Archives is something that Joe Biden is said to have reminded his wife of during one of their "fexting" incidents in the White House, as Jill Biden recalled in a May 2022 profile piece for Harper's Bazaar.

She recounted to the reporter how, in a "fit of pique," she'd sent a particularly bad message to the president, who then told her, "You realize that’s going to go down in history. There will be a record of that."

Jill, reportedly with a grin, added mischievously to the journalist, "I won’t tell you what I called him that time."