How Quickly Should Spouse Answer Your Calls/Texts?

[Anonymous]

In this day and age of mobile phones, texts and IMs, how available do you expect your spouse to be for your call? How soon should s/he respond to a text or IM? My DH annoys the crap out of me b/c he puts his phone away at work and only checks it a few times a day. He says this allows him to concentrate on his work without interruption. He also works somewhere we he cannot take his phone into every facility at the office, i.e. SCIFs. How can I handle this and let him know my calls are important.

[Anonymous]

Are they, though? I only call my DH at work for real emergencies. Texts he can answer as I do…in a few hours or that night in person.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t he have a work phone on his desk?

My husband works in a basement that gets no signal. If I need to reach him fast, I call his desk phone or email him at his work email asking him to call me.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like he is answering you when he can. Should he look at the phone all day in anticipation of your text? What do you even text about so much?

I think you are being very selfish to keep bothering him when he is clearly working. Short of a true emergency, I wouldn't text him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are they, though? I only call my DH at work for real emergencies. Texts he can answer as I do…in a few hours or that night in person.

This. I never text DH during the day. Only call in an emergency.

[Anonymous]

I think your husband's approach is totally reasonable. In an emergency, you can call his office; otherwise, checking a couple times a day is fine. How often are you having real emergencies that can't wait a few hours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this day and age of mobile phones, texts and IMs, how available do you expect your spouse to be for your call? How soon should s/he respond to a text or IM? My DH annoys the crap out of me b/c he puts his phone away at work and only checks it a few times a day. He says this allows him to concentrate on his work without interruption. He also works somewhere we he cannot take his phone into every facility at the office, i.e. SCIFs. How can I handle this and let him know my calls are important.

99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999% are not important. Quit bugging him.

[Anonymous]

He is at work. He is paid to be working. Many employers don't allow cell phones on the job.

Let him do his job. You will see him in the evening.

[Anonymous]

Poor dude married to this nightmare...

[Anonymous]

Is he willing to get a pager? Obviously don't page him unless it's truly urgent, but at least you'd know it's there in case of emergency.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes it's in two minutes, sometimes it's two hours or more. If DH is in a client meeting I don't think it'd be professional for him to say "Sorry, my wife is texting me about organizing camps; I need to respond to these". Generally if we're going to be unavailable we text the other and let them know, but that's not possible every time.

[Anonymous]

My wife and I have a system where the first time the other person calls, we answer only if convenient. If not, we don’t pick up.

If the spouse calls the second time, we know it’s important/ time sensitive, and pick up if possible. If really bad timing, we still ignore it.

The third immediate callback indicates an emergency, and we stop wherever we’re doing. We’ve only used this a few times (once I was on the way to the hospital with our daughter for emergency surgery).

[Anonymous]

We don’t text much during work hours, unless it’s really important. Non-urgent messages don’t require an immediate response.

You are being pretty demanding and unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

The only time I expected my DH to have his phone immediately available with the ringer on was when I was nearing my due date with each pregnancy.

I will usually email him if there’s something I don’t want to forget to discuss later that night. Text if it’s quasi-time sensitive, but I would never expect him to have his phone on his desk and respond immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I have a system where the first time the other person calls, we answer only if convenient. If not, we don’t pick up.

If the spouse calls the second time, we know it’s important/ time sensitive, and pick up if possible. If really bad timing, we still ignore it.

The third immediate callback indicates an emergency, and we stop wherever we’re doing. We’ve only used this a few times (once I was on the way to the hospital with our daughter for emergency surgery).

Similar system. Though I gave plenty of room and spouse sadly took advantage.