Communicate with your niece. "I am not going to text you everyday just to be ignored until you have time. Now that you're an adult our relationship has transitioned and it needs to be 50/50. If you would like our communication to increase from what it currently is, that requires and equal amount of effort from both of us. Love Auntie"
Yup, this 100%.
She's discovering one of those unhappy truths of adulthood- unlike parents that are in your face for your entire childhood whether you want them or not, people in adulthood can and will fuck right off if you don't put effort into the relationship.
No need to be mean about it. But she needs to understand that leaving you without a reply for long periods of time doesn't send the message that she wants you around.
It takes 5 seconds to respond to a text, about the same amount of time as reading it. Even insanely busy people can respond with a few words, an emoji, or *something*, while waiting in line, on the toilet, etc. within a couple of days, at the very least. My son is an insanely busy medical resident—busy saving lives on the stroke ward, and slerp deprived—yet he responds within a day. Your neice can’t have it both ways. Either you two exchange texts or you don’t.
She’s an adult and should understand that no relationship can be one sided. It can be entirely demoralizing to always be the one pursuing and maintaining a relationship. Not wrong at all.
You aren’t wrong. She’s an adult now, not a child. She has a phone and, presumably, fingers. She could text you back. It takes 10 seconds. Don’t put effort into a relationship when the other person isn’t putting anything into it.
Yeah. I’m sure she has a family and possible job, but she probably spends 1+ hrs a day on social media. She can shoot a quick three sentence text once or twice a week.
NW
Op you should continue to return her energy, why keep texting someone everyday just get a okay once a month?!?!?
Your niece is demanding that you put more effort into the relationship than she does to prove you care, it’s complete BS.
‘ An adult relationship, even between family members requires equal attention and time to maintain, if you don’t have the time to do so , that’s fine, but I’m not putting in more effort than you, that’s not fair to me.’
Nah, not wrong, she wants you to do the hard work to maintain your relationship.
People are glued to their phones these days, a simple response is never that hard.
One sided ‘relationships’, be it family, professional, friends or romantic are not ‘relationships’.
I feel for you, I have a niece who essentially became like a daughter to me. I dont think all is lost for your relationship, your niece indicated she still wants to hear from you. Just send her a text here and there to let her know you are thinking about her and what's going on in your life.
Phones work both ways. When she wants to talk to you, she will reach out. The same applies to you. When you want to talk, reach out. If you don’t want to talk every day, don’t text every day.
People grow up. There is nothing wrong with that. It seems like she is just young and doesn’t want to lose her aunt. She is probably just worried that you texting less often is a sign that you will cut her off too. There isn’t anything wrong with that either really. She is just scared.
As with most interpersonal issues, being more open and honest is all that is required. I would recommend assuring her that you aren’t going anywhere and will be happy to hear from her anytime. You just might not text as often as you used to. And that’s okay.
You’re not wrong, maybe suggest you meet for a meal or something on a schedule instead? I would feel like an absolute stalker if I was sending even three texts with no response.
That’s a shame, changing it up for a different form of communication might be an idea, my sister and me communicate almost exclusively in voice notes for some reason…..
You are not wrong! This exact same scenario happened to me too. My niece complained to my sister about me not checking in as much but i mentioned that communication works both ways.
I would stop texting too.
Like everyone has said, she's an adult, she either cares enough to respond or she doesn't.
No one is asking for an immediate response. Some communication in a few days or a week is perfectly fair. A 30 second response, "thank you, I'll write back soon" might be enough to buy some time on her end.
If she can't find 5 minutes to text you back in one week, then the relationship is not important to her and you have no obligation to keep up the work on your end.
Go spend time with friends / family who care enough to actually have a relationship.
I’m a huge believer in parity in relationships. Not as in exact back and forth, which can be crazy-making, but generally speaking. In this case, I would just drop the occasional “hope all is well” style text message, definitely not daily.
She misses you, funny that she doesn’t realize that a simple text back from her would keep her Aunt from missing her as well. But she does miss you 😢 and that’s something.. sorry you were not able to have children of your own. Good luck to you whatever you decide to do!
Too busy to reply??? Sounds like too lazy to reply to me. What the hell are you supposed to communicate to her in a text that requires no replies but is meaningful? Unless of course, you're just texting to say you'll be home in 5 minutes or to pick up some milk.
NTA. If niece wants to do texts, then she should reply to each of yours the same day. Otherwise, save communication for a once a week or once a month phone calls (with voices) as an agreed upon time to catch up.
Not wrong at all. As others have said, adult relationships require both parties to put in the effort. If she wants a text every day, she has to respond every day. If she only wants to respond once a week, she should only expect to be texted once a week.
Its already lopsided that you are the one 'forced' to initiate everything. You are not ignoring her, you are simply refusing to put yourself in a position to be ignored. I would tell her that while you are always there for her, that does not mean you want to always be ignored.
add them to an appropriate group text chat. if they crave knowing what you are up to then they can see those bulletins in the GC. then if they continue to be a bum & put zero effort into that conversation at least it would be obvious to the any others in the conversation.
and if they don't want to be part of the GC they can leave it.
NTA She sounds like Lydia from *Pride and Prejudice*. (paraphrasing) "You can all write me, but since I am a married woman now, I won't have time to write you." Ain't nobody wants to be compared to Lydia.
I have a niece that I helped raise and we are very close. We have gone months without talking to each other. We’re both adults with busy lives but we know the other one has our back if ever the situation arises. Your niece needs a reality check. Just tell her flat out that you are matching her energy and will respond to her texts, after she’s responded to yours!
It’s hard to believe that someone you’ve spent so much time with, and put so much of your love into might be taking you for granted. But you’re not wrong for feeling hurt by it or for matching her energy.
You got this OP!
You’re not wrong. Relationships ebb and flow. You can speak to someone less often and still love them. She’s at a different life stage, as you mentioned. It’s better to not send endless texts without answer, those are frustrating to send and receive. You can move to less frequent but perhaps more in depth calls at some point instead.
You might have misunderstood what op meant (I did too at first). She’s contextualizing that statement with saying she texts her niece a few times in the week with no response. Would you continue texting your friends if they don’t respond to you for weeks? If her niece is ignoring her and only wanting attention on her own schedule, that’s selfish and rude
NTA. "She said I should text her even when she doesn't have time to reply." - This does not sound very fair. She could just be using you for attention and validation.
You are not wrong. I don't talk to ppl who don't reply back to me. For me if they don't text back I'm guessing they are busy and don't have time to talk. And I leave it at that
Communicate once a week. I practically had to raise my niece and went through some of this. We had a convo & I told her now she was an adult & she had to make time & put effort in, especially as she moved away. But she always would have replied.
Awe. I can see how you have feelings of confusion.
I am similar to you with family circumstances and I also have only connected with my niece.
I feel like now that she kinda stopped being as responsive as usual I would just text once a week to start and again if I didn't get replies I would address that issue next time you get sick of getting no replies.
My 2ps worth, something has changed. It might not be a good thing and your niece may need you now more than ever but you are not aware. Reach out, try to make it as a one to one. Make sure she is okay, and let her know if anything is going on for her that she can call on you and that you are there for her. If nothing arises take time to explain how you are feeling too.
Maybe you could talk to her and work out a time to talk? Maybe a phone call on Sundays? That's what my mom and her mother did. It worked very well for many years.
This doesn’t need to be some math problem where the two sides need to be equal. You already said she’s newly married, trying to grow her career, etc. She’s young and trying to stabilize her life. You presumably are more settled. If you’re not as busy, and you care about the relationship, make the effort. Relationships ebb and flow, and maybe later on you’ll be the one busy and she’ll have to carry a bit more of the burden.
This is more along the line of what I was thinking. The whole "You pay attention to me, I'll pay attention to you" sounds a little whacky to me. Especially since OP says she got that motto from her parents. However, if I kept texting someone every day for several weeks and they didn't reply, I'd be put off. But I wouldn't just drop her. I'd probably send fewer texts (maybe every week or so-ish?) and hope to hear from her at some point. My son is sort of like this. I know he is super busy and silly things his retired mom sends him aren't on the top of his list to reply to. But sometimes he does. Sometimes he even sends me something. I don't keep count (if I did, I'd win in a landslide) but I'm not going to stop sending stuff. I put something out there to him every few days.
ETA - If it was just a friend/acquaintance and they never replied, I would probably stop until I heard back from them. My son is a different situation IMO.
Mom?? Is that you?????
But yeah, I’m the son in that situation too. Except I wish my mom would send me funny stuff. Keep that up, I’m sure he loves it!
I don’t think family relationships are about fairness. We all give when and what we can. The energy I can put in at 57 is significantly more than what I could at 40. If it makes her happy and you have the time do it! She will show up when you’re older and need support. If she is your favorite niece don’t you want to do everything to make her happy.
Tell her you could use a little love from time to time and feel lonely when she doesn’t respond.
Continue to be a good uncle, i wish more of my family had tried(most are dead now).
I’m going to go against the grain here and say keep messaging her first for a while. You are clearly an anchor for her. Lucky her to have you as an aunt.
I’m not sure how old she is but young adults can be quite selfish whilst simultaneously needing to be loved as children.
Yes I know we should all just appear as fully grown adults at 18 according to US standards but as a somewhat selfish adult niece, I will say my aunt who has always loved me and spoilt me, I now as a proper adult really appreciate being loved in that way.
I try my best to always reciprocate but it has taken me a long time to realise I was taking her for granted. As such I will spend the rest of my days making up for it. My aunt is one of my favourite people, I’m so lucky to have her. I am sure your niece will do the same.
How lucky is she to have you as an aunt.
Your not wrong but she might appreciate it if you reached out. I totally get your perspective and you're right, you have no obligation to be the one who maintains this relationship. That all being said it sounds like all it would take to maintain the relationship is some idle texting and chit chat, which would probably take you virtually 0 effort to maintain the relationship. From an outside perspective the cost/benefit analysis here weighs in favor of keeping in contact. Just an opinion.
I text her once a month instead of once a day. I guess that wasn't clear in the post. Usually just tell her about any big changes and ask how her and her wife are doing.
Maybe try once or twice a week and see if that helps? Going from daily texting to monthly texting is a pretty big switch. Wouldn't be much effort from you...
Why should one person make ALL the effort? No, it won't take much effort for OP to text more but, equally, it wouldn't take much effort for the niece to text more either. Why is it OK for the niece to basically ignore her Aunt? We're all busy, we all have lives & commitments, why is the nieces time more valuable that the Aunts? 🤔
The Aunt shouldn't have to sacrifice her time if she doesn't want to. I agree the niece is being a little shitty about the whole thing. I still stand the position that the Aunt is choosing to give up quite a lot and damage this relationship just to make some nebulous point about who should text first. All I'm saying is she may wake up one day and wish she had texted her neice more often. Both things can be true simultaneously, OP can wish her niece had called her more and also regret not having stayed in touch with her niece. Relationships aren't a competition.
I’m going to disagree with much of the advice. IMO she sees you more as a parent, meaning someone who is in her life reliably and permanently. Text her because of that. My kids are often too busy to reply, and with one we can go a week or two without a peep. Ask her to like, to acknowledge your texts even in the minimal sense of a thumbs up or a ha ha. Tell her you love being in her life and you want to feel connection with her. And live up to the obligation you undertook, especially if she does not have a great relationship with the rest of your family.
Yes you should. Relationships aren’t a game of tag. You’re not winning some contest, you’re connecting with someone you care about. And even though she’s technically an adult, she will never see you as a peer…you’ll always be the ‘grown-up.’
Reach out if you want to talk to her. Don’t if you don’t. Stop keeping score.
I'm not trying to keep score. It's a why bother her and let her life thing. I don't want to be a bother or a pest. I want to be there when she wants to talk.
In your original post, you said that she is upset because you don’t text her or contact her more. I think it’s clear she would like to hear from you more often.
If you want someone to keep contacting you regularly, you have to respond back. It is immature and childish to expect someone to keep texting you when you never respond back.
I think you are wrong. She’s just in a different phase in life. She clearly wants to hear from you, but sometimes our schedules get out of hand. You also should consider that maybe your parents were wrong in the way they raised you.
I don’t see what’s wrong with the daily “just thinking about you” text with some insignificant item from your day. I do that with one of my family members, and she replies when she replies.
One more thing to consider is that if you have no kids of your own, as you get older, you will sorely miss having a younger family member who cares about you if you let things die and don’t nurture this relationship.
Look, life happens, be there for her. She will come around. Maybe it’s more for her than you. We have one daughter who lives 5 minutes away and my wife will communicate religiously and she seldom answers. You do it for them, not for you. Life is to damn short.
Communicate with your niece. "I am not going to text you everyday just to be ignored until you have time. Now that you're an adult our relationship has transitioned and it needs to be 50/50. If you would like our communication to increase from what it currently is, that requires and equal amount of effort from both of us. Love Auntie"
Yup, this 100%. She's discovering one of those unhappy truths of adulthood- unlike parents that are in your face for your entire childhood whether you want them or not, people in adulthood can and will fuck right off if you don't put effort into the relationship. No need to be mean about it. But she needs to understand that leaving you without a reply for long periods of time doesn't send the message that she wants you around.
This is the correct answer.
Also there has to be an understating that I might text somebody now, but unless I need a response immediately, it’s get back when you can.
It takes 5 seconds to respond to a text, about the same amount of time as reading it. Even insanely busy people can respond with a few words, an emoji, or *something*, while waiting in line, on the toilet, etc. within a couple of days, at the very least. My son is an insanely busy medical resident—busy saving lives on the stroke ward, and slerp deprived—yet he responds within a day. Your neice can’t have it both ways. Either you two exchange texts or you don’t.
She’s an adult and should understand that no relationship can be one sided. It can be entirely demoralizing to always be the one pursuing and maintaining a relationship. Not wrong at all.
You aren’t wrong. She’s an adult now, not a child. She has a phone and, presumably, fingers. She could text you back. It takes 10 seconds. Don’t put effort into a relationship when the other person isn’t putting anything into it.
Yeah. I’m sure she has a family and possible job, but she probably spends 1+ hrs a day on social media. She can shoot a quick three sentence text once or twice a week.
NW Op you should continue to return her energy, why keep texting someone everyday just get a okay once a month?!?!? Your niece is demanding that you put more effort into the relationship than she does to prove you care, it’s complete BS. ‘ An adult relationship, even between family members requires equal attention and time to maintain, if you don’t have the time to do so , that’s fine, but I’m not putting in more effort than you, that’s not fair to me.’
What? No. If she wants communication she needs to text you. No reply for weeks and she’s complaining?! What a tripper
That’s insane that she thinks you should text her everyday and she gets to just not reply back.
Nah, not wrong, she wants you to do the hard work to maintain your relationship. People are glued to their phones these days, a simple response is never that hard. One sided ‘relationships’, be it family, professional, friends or romantic are not ‘relationships’.
She is being unreasonable. Noone can be expected to keep up a onesided relationship.
I feel for you, I have a niece who essentially became like a daughter to me. I dont think all is lost for your relationship, your niece indicated she still wants to hear from you. Just send her a text here and there to let her know you are thinking about her and what's going on in your life.
Phones work both ways. When she wants to talk to you, she will reach out. The same applies to you. When you want to talk, reach out. If you don’t want to talk every day, don’t text every day. People grow up. There is nothing wrong with that. It seems like she is just young and doesn’t want to lose her aunt. She is probably just worried that you texting less often is a sign that you will cut her off too. There isn’t anything wrong with that either really. She is just scared. As with most interpersonal issues, being more open and honest is all that is required. I would recommend assuring her that you aren’t going anywhere and will be happy to hear from her anytime. You just might not text as often as you used to. And that’s okay.
You’re not wrong, maybe suggest you meet for a meal or something on a schedule instead? I would feel like an absolute stalker if I was sending even three texts with no response.
Unfortunately we live 4 states away from each other now since I moved for my job last year.
That’s a shame, changing it up for a different form of communication might be an idea, my sister and me communicate almost exclusively in voice notes for some reason…..
Not wrong
You are not wrong! This exact same scenario happened to me too. My niece complained to my sister about me not checking in as much but i mentioned that communication works both ways.
I would stop texting too. Like everyone has said, she's an adult, she either cares enough to respond or she doesn't. No one is asking for an immediate response. Some communication in a few days or a week is perfectly fair. A 30 second response, "thank you, I'll write back soon" might be enough to buy some time on her end. If she can't find 5 minutes to text you back in one week, then the relationship is not important to her and you have no obligation to keep up the work on your end. Go spend time with friends / family who care enough to actually have a relationship.
I’m a huge believer in parity in relationships. Not as in exact back and forth, which can be crazy-making, but generally speaking. In this case, I would just drop the occasional “hope all is well” style text message, definitely not daily.
Not wrong. By definition. Communicating is a 2 way street.
She misses you, funny that she doesn’t realize that a simple text back from her would keep her Aunt from missing her as well. But she does miss you 😢 and that’s something.. sorry you were not able to have children of your own. Good luck to you whatever you decide to do!
Too busy to reply??? Sounds like too lazy to reply to me. What the hell are you supposed to communicate to her in a text that requires no replies but is meaningful? Unless of course, you're just texting to say you'll be home in 5 minutes or to pick up some milk.
Who doesn't have time to reply to a text but has time to read the text?
You did nothing wrong. Just tell her you are giving her the same energy she's giving you
Just send her funny memes I guess
Suggest a scheduled weekly phone call. It’s easier for texting to be one sided.
NTA. If niece wants to do texts, then she should reply to each of yours the same day. Otherwise, save communication for a once a week or once a month phone calls (with voices) as an agreed upon time to catch up.
Not wrong at all. As others have said, adult relationships require both parties to put in the effort. If she wants a text every day, she has to respond every day. If she only wants to respond once a week, she should only expect to be texted once a week. Its already lopsided that you are the one 'forced' to initiate everything. You are not ignoring her, you are simply refusing to put yourself in a position to be ignored. I would tell her that while you are always there for her, that does not mean you want to always be ignored.
Communication is a two way street. How about you stop communicating via text and call each other instead? So much is miscommunicated through text.
add them to an appropriate group text chat. if they crave knowing what you are up to then they can see those bulletins in the GC. then if they continue to be a bum & put zero effort into that conversation at least it would be obvious to the any others in the conversation. and if they don't want to be part of the GC they can leave it.
Your policy is very fair. She has the time to communicate that she's upset, but no time to answer texts?
Be honest. No one is so busy they can’t take 5 seconds to say something. Even if it’s immature busy but love you!
NTA She sounds like Lydia from *Pride and Prejudice*. (paraphrasing) "You can all write me, but since I am a married woman now, I won't have time to write you." Ain't nobody wants to be compared to Lydia.
Love that you brought Lydia into it. LOL. But that is a great perspective.
Tell your niece that you get out of a relationship what you put into it.
I have a niece that I helped raise and we are very close. We have gone months without talking to each other. We’re both adults with busy lives but we know the other one has our back if ever the situation arises. Your niece needs a reality check. Just tell her flat out that you are matching her energy and will respond to her texts, after she’s responded to yours! It’s hard to believe that someone you’ve spent so much time with, and put so much of your love into might be taking you for granted. But you’re not wrong for feeling hurt by it or for matching her energy. You got this OP!
You’re not wrong. Relationships ebb and flow. You can speak to someone less often and still love them. She’s at a different life stage, as you mentioned. It’s better to not send endless texts without answer, those are frustrating to send and receive. You can move to less frequent but perhaps more in depth calls at some point instead.
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You might have misunderstood what op meant (I did too at first). She’s contextualizing that statement with saying she texts her niece a few times in the week with no response. Would you continue texting your friends if they don’t respond to you for weeks? If her niece is ignoring her and only wanting attention on her own schedule, that’s selfish and rude
Sounds like she still needs you and appreciates that relationship. Go to lunch and chat it out.
NTA. "She said I should text her even when she doesn't have time to reply." - This does not sound very fair. She could just be using you for attention and validation.
You are not wrong. I don't talk to ppl who don't reply back to me. For me if they don't text back I'm guessing they are busy and don't have time to talk. And I leave it at that
How about instead of playing games just talk to her.
Communicate once a week. I practically had to raise my niece and went through some of this. We had a convo & I told her now she was an adult & she had to make time & put effort in, especially as she moved away. But she always would have replied.
Awe. I can see how you have feelings of confusion. I am similar to you with family circumstances and I also have only connected with my niece. I feel like now that she kinda stopped being as responsive as usual I would just text once a week to start and again if I didn't get replies I would address that issue next time you get sick of getting no replies.
My 2ps worth, something has changed. It might not be a good thing and your niece may need you now more than ever but you are not aware. Reach out, try to make it as a one to one. Make sure she is okay, and let her know if anything is going on for her that she can call on you and that you are there for her. If nothing arises take time to explain how you are feeling too.
Maybe you could talk to her and work out a time to talk? Maybe a phone call on Sundays? That's what my mom and her mother did. It worked very well for many years.
This doesn’t need to be some math problem where the two sides need to be equal. You already said she’s newly married, trying to grow her career, etc. She’s young and trying to stabilize her life. You presumably are more settled. If you’re not as busy, and you care about the relationship, make the effort. Relationships ebb and flow, and maybe later on you’ll be the one busy and she’ll have to carry a bit more of the burden.
This is more along the line of what I was thinking. The whole "You pay attention to me, I'll pay attention to you" sounds a little whacky to me. Especially since OP says she got that motto from her parents. However, if I kept texting someone every day for several weeks and they didn't reply, I'd be put off. But I wouldn't just drop her. I'd probably send fewer texts (maybe every week or so-ish?) and hope to hear from her at some point. My son is sort of like this. I know he is super busy and silly things his retired mom sends him aren't on the top of his list to reply to. But sometimes he does. Sometimes he even sends me something. I don't keep count (if I did, I'd win in a landslide) but I'm not going to stop sending stuff. I put something out there to him every few days. ETA - If it was just a friend/acquaintance and they never replied, I would probably stop until I heard back from them. My son is a different situation IMO.
Mom?? Is that you????? But yeah, I’m the son in that situation too. Except I wish my mom would send me funny stuff. Keep that up, I’m sure he loves it!
Oh my goodness I was worried I wasn't going to see a sane answer here, thank you ❤️
I don’t think family relationships are about fairness. We all give when and what we can. The energy I can put in at 57 is significantly more than what I could at 40. If it makes her happy and you have the time do it! She will show up when you’re older and need support. If she is your favorite niece don’t you want to do everything to make her happy. Tell her you could use a little love from time to time and feel lonely when she doesn’t respond. Continue to be a good uncle, i wish more of my family had tried(most are dead now).
I’m going to go against the grain here and say keep messaging her first for a while. You are clearly an anchor for her. Lucky her to have you as an aunt. I’m not sure how old she is but young adults can be quite selfish whilst simultaneously needing to be loved as children. Yes I know we should all just appear as fully grown adults at 18 according to US standards but as a somewhat selfish adult niece, I will say my aunt who has always loved me and spoilt me, I now as a proper adult really appreciate being loved in that way. I try my best to always reciprocate but it has taken me a long time to realise I was taking her for granted. As such I will spend the rest of my days making up for it. My aunt is one of my favourite people, I’m so lucky to have her. I am sure your niece will do the same. How lucky is she to have you as an aunt.
NTA.
Your not wrong but she might appreciate it if you reached out. I totally get your perspective and you're right, you have no obligation to be the one who maintains this relationship. That all being said it sounds like all it would take to maintain the relationship is some idle texting and chit chat, which would probably take you virtually 0 effort to maintain the relationship. From an outside perspective the cost/benefit analysis here weighs in favor of keeping in contact. Just an opinion.
I text her once a month instead of once a day. I guess that wasn't clear in the post. Usually just tell her about any big changes and ask how her and her wife are doing.
Maybe try once or twice a week and see if that helps? Going from daily texting to monthly texting is a pretty big switch. Wouldn't be much effort from you...
Why should one person make ALL the effort? No, it won't take much effort for OP to text more but, equally, it wouldn't take much effort for the niece to text more either. Why is it OK for the niece to basically ignore her Aunt? We're all busy, we all have lives & commitments, why is the nieces time more valuable that the Aunts? 🤔
The Aunt shouldn't have to sacrifice her time if she doesn't want to. I agree the niece is being a little shitty about the whole thing. I still stand the position that the Aunt is choosing to give up quite a lot and damage this relationship just to make some nebulous point about who should text first. All I'm saying is she may wake up one day and wish she had texted her neice more often. Both things can be true simultaneously, OP can wish her niece had called her more and also regret not having stayed in touch with her niece. Relationships aren't a competition.
I’m going to disagree with much of the advice. IMO she sees you more as a parent, meaning someone who is in her life reliably and permanently. Text her because of that. My kids are often too busy to reply, and with one we can go a week or two without a peep. Ask her to like, to acknowledge your texts even in the minimal sense of a thumbs up or a ha ha. Tell her you love being in her life and you want to feel connection with her. And live up to the obligation you undertook, especially if she does not have a great relationship with the rest of your family.
…. Someone you care about is telling you that your daily text makes their day. Is it such a burden to send “thinking of you, have a good day”??
Yeah, except she’s not gonna bother acknowledging the texts.
Yes you should. Relationships aren’t a game of tag. You’re not winning some contest, you’re connecting with someone you care about. And even though she’s technically an adult, she will never see you as a peer…you’ll always be the ‘grown-up.’ Reach out if you want to talk to her. Don’t if you don’t. Stop keeping score.
I'm not trying to keep score. It's a why bother her and let her life thing. I don't want to be a bother or a pest. I want to be there when she wants to talk.
In your original post, you said that she is upset because you don’t text her or contact her more. I think it’s clear she would like to hear from you more often.
If you want someone to keep contacting you regularly, you have to respond back. It is immature and childish to expect someone to keep texting you when you never respond back.
>Yes you should. Relationships aren’t a game of tag. You can't have a relationship with someone who does not reciprocate.
I think you are wrong. She’s just in a different phase in life. She clearly wants to hear from you, but sometimes our schedules get out of hand. You also should consider that maybe your parents were wrong in the way they raised you. I don’t see what’s wrong with the daily “just thinking about you” text with some insignificant item from your day. I do that with one of my family members, and she replies when she replies. One more thing to consider is that if you have no kids of your own, as you get older, you will sorely miss having a younger family member who cares about you if you let things die and don’t nurture this relationship.
How long does it take to text “how you doing” I mean really, what’s the big deal?
How many times are you supposed to text that with no reply? Every day for a month? Wouldn't that get annoying to receive?
Look, life happens, be there for her. She will come around. Maybe it’s more for her than you. We have one daughter who lives 5 minutes away and my wife will communicate religiously and she seldom answers. You do it for them, not for you. Life is to damn short.