not receiving texts in message on mac

I have been having trouble with receiving messages on both my mac and my phone for the last few days. When my computer is open, I would receive messages on the computer but not my phone. I called and spoke with a tech at Apple, and after a complicated series of turning things off and then on again, I was able to do both. Today, I sent myself a message to test it and it came through on my phone, after about 4 minutes, but not on my computer. And there was no sound on my phone. I am not using handoff. The problem is with both the iphone xs (currently on latest ios) and my new mbp (currently on updated mojave).