Frequent Texts from relative

[Anonymous]

We have a relative that texts us frequently throughout the day. The texts are almost like a stream of consciousness "I saw Salmon on sale at Food Lion" or "Beautiful sky tonight" or "So many joggers out tonight, let's hope they hydrate". When we don't respond timely, this person is passive aggressive when we see them in person (You must be so busy this week, you hardly reply to my texts). We have told this person that there are certain times when our family is very busy and/or we put down our phones for the evening. DH has started to ignore the texts on purpose, which I don't think is the right thing but wondering if anyone else experiences this. Most of the time I don't want to respond because i don't have time to wait for the plethora of follow-up texts or I feel like I can only say "oh neat" so many times. Is this a generational thing? (Person in in their late 60s).

[Anonymous]

It’s annoying but they are probably lonely. Through them a bone a respond at least once or twice a day

[Anonymous]

Tell them straight up: We don’t like chatting via texts several times a day. You can expect to hear from us a few times a week, unless there’s an emergency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying but they are probably lonely. Through them a bone a respond at least once or twice a day

Absolutely not! Tell them you’re not available to respond via text but would gladly set up a weekly 10-minute call to check in on how they’re doing.
Clear is kind.

[Anonymous]

I flat out tell them "I can't read or respond to a ton of texts - I'm working, driving, paying attention to kids, cooking, etc. but if you'd like to have a standing weekly call we can set that up."

And then I feel zero guilt ignoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying but they are probably lonely. Through them a bone a respond at least once or twice a day

Do nt do this. It only encourages more odd behavior. A lot of this frequency strange stuff (including the constant gift text thread) is that some people get a dopamine rush when someone responds to their text or post. Just ignoring it is best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying but they are probably lonely. Through them a bone a respond at least once or twice a day

Oh goodness no unless you want to reinforce it. If you don't like, don't respond. If the person asks, you say you have no time. Lonely people need to get out there and make friends.

[Anonymous]

My FIL used to do. Texts, phone calls during dinner, asking us what we were eating, how it was cooked. No, he wasn't lonely, interesting job, a wife, many friends. But it drove us crazy. Stupid posts on social media, texts with many spelling errors. I talked to him many times, he couldn't comprehend he was doing anything wrong or that his behavior was annoying. We felt stalked.

[Anonymous]

If this was a mother or father of one of us, we would probably respond once a day to summarize the texts.

If it was another older family member, we would probably respond once a week.

And if they made comments when we saw them, we would see them less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a relative that texts us frequently throughout the day. The texts are almost like a stream of consciousness "I saw Salmon on sale at Food Lion" or "Beautiful sky tonight" or "So many joggers out tonight, let's hope they hydrate". When we don't respond timely, this person is passive aggressive when we see them in person (You must be so busy this week, you hardly reply to my texts). We have told this person that there are certain times when our family is very busy and/or we put down our phones for the evening. DH has started to ignore the texts on purpose, which I don't think is the right thing but wondering if anyone else experiences this. Most of the time I don't want to respond because i don't have time to wait for the plethora of follow-up texts or I feel like I can only say "oh neat" so many times. Is this a generational thing? (Person in in their late 60s).

My bro was like this. After purposefully not texting him and visiting, next time he said, “haven’t seen you all in awhile” blah blah things of that nature. It’s so annoying.

[Anonymous]

I was literally just googling how to hide frequent texts from annoying elderly relative today haha! And the answer is- you can’t unless you want to block them! The best thing you can do is to turn off notifications for them.

I’m dealing with the same thing only as related to having Covid. Every day, many times a day from my mom- are you better yet? Hello? I repeat- are you better yet? Are you feeling better? And on and on and on.

I never should have said anything!

[Anonymous]

I would ignore as well. This person is rude, even though they think they’re not intruding, they are.

[Anonymous]

My mother did this in the final years before she died.

[Anonymous]

Turn off notifications, reply when you want, and dismiss the passive-aggressive comments in person because it's your choice to reply however often you want.

[Anonymous]

Here is what I do, a simple cost/benefit analysis: How much does it matter to them and how much does it cost me?

Factors that go into this equation are how much I care about this person, what their life circumstances may be, what my life circumstances are, etc.

But bottom line, if me taking 45 seconds to send one text a day makes someone I care about happier or less lonely, I'm likely going to chose to send the text.