How Quickly Should Spouse Answer Your Calls/Texts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you work, OP?

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where you would have the need for an emergency phone call more than maybe once a month, if even that?

Can you give examples of things you think are important?

Practice is cancelled
Your mother went into a fib again, she went to the hospital… I’ll go I know youre busy
Joe has a fever, can you go get him I’m presenting at the conference today
Can you take Rob to surgery they changed the time, I have something that am… I can stay home the next 2 days with him, if not I need to get someone to cover today!
Out of surgery
The cars is ready, Uber to it I won’t be picking you up

These are texts I got in the past 10 days from my H.

[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.

How often do you do that and what do you consider emergency? Me and mine reply promptly but we know other person won't mind if we are busy or their question isn't urgent.

[Anonymous]

Neither of us has time for chit-chat during the day but we might send short texts with news the other person might want to know- “DS made the team- yay!” or “heard back from repair guy, they can come out Thursday AM, talk later” - stuff like that. No response necessary or expected.

If we text each other a concrete question that needs to be answered in a timely manner we both try to respond ASAP. “can you pick DD up? working late” or “can you stop at the store to pick up xyz on your way home?” Stuff like that.

We almost never actually call each other during the day, and have only had a few actual “emergencies” in 15yrs of marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work, OP?

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where you would have the need for an emergency phone call more than maybe once a month, if even that?

Can you give examples of things you think are important?

Practice is cancelled
Your mother went into a fib again, she went to the hospital… I’ll go I know youre busy
Joe has a fever, can you go get him I’m presenting at the conference today
Can you take Rob to surgery they changed the time, I have something that am… I can stay home the next 2 days with him, if not I need to get someone to cover today!
Out of surgery
The cars is ready, Uber to it I won’t be picking you up

These are texts I got in the past 10 days from my H.

Frankly your whole family seems bizarrely unhealthy. But I assume you and your husband know that and are on phone/text standby constantly for crises and emergencies.

[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.

My husband and I both do this (put our phones elsewhere while we are concentrating on work). I don't know how else we would do the kind of work we do (writing and research). Of course, we have no problem sending a text and not getting a response for hours.

Constant interruptions make me feel insane. Our society should not expect that of each other!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work, OP?

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where you would have the need for an emergency phone call more than maybe once a month, if even that?

Can you give examples of things you think are important?

Practice is cancelled
Your mother went into a fib again, she went to the hospital… I’ll go I know youre busy
Joe has a fever, can you go get him I’m presenting at the conference today
Can you take Rob to surgery they changed the time, I have something that am… I can stay home the next 2 days with him, if not I need to get someone to cover today!
Out of surgery
The cars is ready, Uber to it I won’t be picking you up

These are texts I got in the past 10 days from my H.

Wow, you have a truly crazy life. I'm sorry for all the health issues.

To answer the original question, when I was married and had young kids, I probably called DH once a month with a timely issue and texted maybe once a week with a "don't want to forget but no need to get back to me" issue. But I dealt with just about everything myself despite also working and having 2 SN kids. Fast forward to my divorce. Now I actually text and call exDH far more often because he stepped up to be present in the kids' lives when I left and we have basically 50-50 custody though 1 is in college and 1 is about to go to college so it's more just whenever/whatever works for each situation. So I keep him updated on things and he and I both send pics to each other for fun events and such.

Current partner and I text all day. We genuinely miss each other and text little naughty messages or love messages or whatever to each other. But we didn't raise kids together and our relationship is a lot more loving and close and healthy and generally not fraught with kid issues though he does love my kids and help with them. He's far more involved in doing fun things as a family rather than just zoning out and doing his own thing while I spend time with the kids. I almost never call him unless it's something really time sensitive -- maybe once a month or so. He generally answers texts within an hour, but he's not always with his phone while he's working so it depends.

It sounds like OP's husband prefers to work when he's working and interact when he's not. Maybe discuss how to organize that so it can work for both of you? I would be sad if I didn't hear from my partner all day every day because having a quick text exchange brightens up both of our work days. But i know we also both can't get back right away and it would be stressful if there were that expectation (I also have a position where I can't always be on my phone for periods of time).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Under circumstances that they are in a SCIF or have no cell coverage I'd say at noon and 4-ish.

My H and I text and say, "what time can you talk" we respond within 20 minutes the time we can talk.

It's rude to ignore texts/calls. Our conversations are only 5 minutes though.
It's also rude to be calling for attention or if you are bored. During work calls should be short.

It is not rude to not answer the phone or not respond to a text WHEN YOU ARE BUSY. Working means you're busy. Sure, sometimes you CAN stop and respond to a text or take a call but that doesn't mean you should HAVE to.

I can't fathom anyone with a real job being annoyed at their spouse not responding if they're also working a real job.

Then plan to respond at noon and 4 if you are “so busy”.

We all have real jobs but we are not so full of ourselves that we can’t check 2x a day if our spouse was trying to contact us.

If your in surgery communicate that in the am.

Oh, it's pretty obvious that OP does not have a real job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Under circumstances that they are in a SCIF or have no cell coverage I'd say at noon and 4-ish.

My H and I text and say, "what time can you talk" we respond within 20 minutes the time we can talk.

It's rude to ignore texts/calls. Our conversations are only 5 minutes though.
It's also rude to be calling for attention or if you are bored. During work calls should be short.

It is not rude to not answer the phone or not respond to a text WHEN YOU ARE BUSY. Working means you're busy. Sure, sometimes you CAN stop and respond to a text or take a call but that doesn't mean you should HAVE to.

I can't fathom anyone with a real job being annoyed at their spouse not responding if they're also working a real job.

Then plan to respond at noon and 4 if you are “so busy”.

We all have real jobs but we are not so full of ourselves that we can’t check 2x a day if our spouse was trying to contact us.

If your in surgery communicate that in the am.

Oh, it's pretty obvious that OP does not have a real job.

and is very annoying. I would ignore OP texts by muting them while I was at work.

[Anonymous]

If you work in a scif you can’t take the phone in there.

Most places like that have a desk where real emergencies can call and then that person contacts the person in the scif. I only know of two people who had such calls, one was when his wife went into premature labor. The other was about a family member who had a very serious accident that they died from. It’s not for “practice this afternoon is canceled”.

[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).

We have the same system. In 12 years it has been used for child with seizures on way to hospital, active shooter within 2 blocks of their location 🇺🇸, the other parent was having a medical emergency of their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you work in a scif you can’t take the phone in there.

Most places like that have a desk where real emergencies can call and then that person contacts the person in the scif. I only know of two people who had such calls, one was when his wife went into premature labor. The other was about a family member who had a very serious accident that they died from. It’s not for “practice this afternoon is canceled”.

This. My H also works in a scif and has no access to his cellphone. I'd call his desk phone if there's a real emergency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work, OP?

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where you would have the need for an emergency phone call more than maybe once a month, if even that?

Can you give examples of things you think are important?

Practice is cancelled
Your mother went into a fib again, she went to the hospital… I’ll go I know youre busy
Joe has a fever, can you go get him I’m presenting at the conference today
Can you take Rob to surgery they changed the time, I have something that am… I can stay home the next 2 days with him, if not I need to get someone to cover today!
Out of surgery
The cars is ready, Uber to it I won’t be picking you up

These are texts I got in the past 10 days from my H.

Frankly your whole family seems bizarrely unhealthy. But I assume you and your husband know that and are on phone/text standby constantly for crises and emergencies.

Well there are 35 of us so…

Life happens.

Your job and you are not as important as you think you are.

[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.

this has to be a woman writing this. always wanting control

[Anonymous]

Your DH is correct. His primary focus should be on work. If you have something truly urgent and time-sensitive, it's a PHONE CALL. Not a text.

[Anonymous]

I have a system where I record to do items that we can both check each day. This way I write them down and don't have to remember them and I know he checks them in the morning, lunch and before leaving work.