I don't know if anyone else deals with this but wanted to put it out there and get some feedback.
My wife has a habit that is really starting to send me over the edge some days. She will send me a text on some non-emergency subject. If it's an emergency she calls. If I don't respond to the text she will start to send me one word texts. That word is "Hello?".
She doesn't do it all the time but it happens enough that I am getting aggravated by it. I have gotten to the point now where when I get the text I do ignore it which is %100 passive aggressive and I fully acknowledge that.
So I have two questions.
First, is my reaction to this (being aggravated not the PA part) an over-reaction to what is going on? It seems really childish but it does get under my skin. In the big picture of our lives it seems really petty but there are some days it just sets me off.
Second, how should I handle this? There is a part of me that says I need to tell her but there is also a part of me that says I should be able to let this go. Now if I do tell her how do I do it without sounding like a whiny kid.
0
Comments
How will you live well today?
"OMG!!!! I'm soooo sorry I didn't return your text in 36.2 seconds. Will you ever, ever, ever forgive me????"
[Caution with this one.] "Cathy was playing with my phone." "Who's Cathy?" "You'll never know " [new text] "But she's nowhere near as hot as you are."
The goal of these type of responses is to get her to smile and say "you asshole." If that's not likely, stick with Tennee's answer.
Enneagram 5w4. I'm researching what that means, before designing t-shirt art about it.
"I feel no shame in making lavish use of the strongest muscles, namely male ones (but my own strongest muscle is dedicated to the service of men - noblesse oblige). I don't begrudge men one whit of their natural advantages as long as they respect mine. I am not an unhappy pseudomale; I am female and like it that way." RAH
============================
Fuck Culture. Live your life - Beatrice
Prompted quite a few "you're such an arsehole!" responses.
First off, why don't you answer it? If you have time to read it, you probably have time to send a quick answer, even if that answer is, "I don't have time to give a proper answer right now. We'll talk tonight." And then you must actually follow up. It isn't unreasonable of her to want some contact during the day, especially if her love language is quality time. Maybe the initial text is a bid for connection, in which case ignoring it will get the testy "hello?" reminders.
So what is the reason? Are the subjects something annoying or contentious? Are you truly tied up at work and can't respond? Is this a passive aggressive way to pay her back for the sex life not being where you want it?
Depending on the answer, maybe you need to suck it up and have a conversation, in person, about work time and manners and how unattractive the impatient "well???" texts are. Or you need to say once, "we will discuss this in person, not by text." Or if the initial text is her way of trying to be connected, maybe you need to be doling out a little more relationship comfort in some other way that doesn't interfere with your work.
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
Busy.
It seems so obvious when you read that above paragraph, but many of us don't effectively do it in everyday life because most people allow others, particularly the ones they love, to violate their boundaries. Nothing good comes from allowing one's boundaries to be trampled over.
After reading the book, I realized that without knowing it,:
I've trained the people in my life to accept that I will read and reply to texts and emails when it is convenient in my schedule to do so;
If it is time-sensitive, they should try calling me;
If it is urgent, they should call a couple of times, and I will get to them when I can, and;
If it is an emergency and I am not responding, to blow up my phone with call after call without pause until I do answer and/or contact someone who is with me or contact the staff at a facility and ask them to alert me (work, client's business, hotel, etc.)
If I get two or three quickly repeated phone calls from the same person when I am busy, I know something is up and will find a way to communicate with the person who is trying to contact me.
Training others has always been a work in progress as I've gone from the day of only a desk phone and a pager, to a cell phone left off and a pager, to a dumb phone, and currently to smart phones and Sat phones.
Back in the day, a 911 added to a phone number on the pager told me that there was an emergency with the person calling me. Just a 911 on the pager screen meant that I had just gotten called to duty and everything was getting dropped to go handle someone's real emergency.
The above is what has worked for me. Others' life situations likely require different standards. If I were in your shoes, I would establish what is going to work for you, discuss it with your wife, then enforce it with your wife.
Repeated "Hello?" texts sent to me by anyone would do nothing but wear down the skin on their fingertips without getting any reward, because that is behavior that I do not want, and thus would discourage by not replying. It really is that simple.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
You definitely want to make it clear that text messages are fine (you want her texting you and not someone else), but it's all when you can respond.
This is is a minor annoyance that many of us have had to deal with. Do whatever you can do to A&A after the expectation discussion going forward.
Personally, most all of my communication with my H during the work day is via text (as a teacher I really don't have the opportunity to talk on the phone at work). If my husband is busy, or if he was in a meeting with his ringer off, or whatever, he may miss the text OR see it and intend to respond after he finishes something. Sometimes he either misses it or forgets about it by the time he gets finished with whatever prevented him from responding right away. So maybe an hour or two elapses and I might send a "hello" or "what's up?" text to remind him I exist LOL. It's not intended to be testy; sometimes it's an answer I need to have and sometimes I am just looking to connect during the workday which we have few opportunities to do.
Text. Email. Voicemail. Post-it note. Carrier pigeon. Smoke signal. Western Union telegram. All the same.
How the hell did it get more complicated than that?
Digging your advice lately. Thanks
Fate favors the prepared.
My MAP: http://marriedmansexlife.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/14002/samson-map#latest
Personality type: “The Logician” (INTP-A)
Enneagram 9w1
OI is about a LOT more than sex.
You're welcome. :-)
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
My MAP: http://marriedmansexlife.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/14002/samson-map#latest
Personality type: “The Logician” (INTP-A)
Enneagram 9w1
I'm not advising a no comms policy or getting pissed or ignoring communications from my wife, or anyone else (ok, maybe not everyone but that's a special case).
I am saying reply when you can reply. When you can't, then wait until you can.
And, if her expectations are setting her up for disappointment then that's on her. She can express them vocally, rather than through passive agressive "hello?" texts when her expectations aren't met. At that point, I could presumably point out how they're unreasonable under the conditions of my workplace or whatever function I'm at or whatever I'm doing (like driving!!!! **). And, maybe during that conversation we could come to an understanding about whatever our disconnect is.
The implication in the reply to me was that it's somehow up to me to manage someone else's expectations born out of their unstated unreasonable assumption, specifically -- because technology facilitates instantaneous communication, then we should expect it.
** [The fact that some people expect texting while driving is infuriating btw, especially since other people are endangered by this assumption... but that's probably an aside for now. I admit I personally have a lot of anger and frustration with distracted driving since I have been struck before; once while I was on a bike, which could've been life-ending if not for an extremely fortuitous circumstance.]