How do I ask my girlfriend [31f] to chill when it comes to texting me [28m] at work?

Hi Reddit :)

This is an issue that has been bothering me for a really long time. Sometimes it gets better, but sometimes I'm ready to rip all the hair out of my head.

My girlfriend and I have been together for 3 years and living together for 2 years. So, we see each other in the morning before work, when we get home after work, and text throughout the entire day during work. I have a desk job, so I can text pretty easily on the computer (WhatsApp Web) I hate texting on the phone - the keys are so small, autocorrect, ugh. Because I have a desk job, my girlfriend seems to think that I am available to text all the time.

She will send me a message and if I don't reply quickly enough (sometimes it's 5 minutes) she'll send a follow up

?

hello

are you ignoring me

hello?

are you busy today?

?

are you annoyed at me?

Usually when this happens it's because I'm in a meeting, I've gone to the bathroom, I'm talking to a co-worker. Sometimes I have people at my desk looking at my screen because we're working on something together and I don't really want to pull up my texts. Other times, I'm just plain WORKING. But it's gotten to the point that when I see the "?" message, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO REPLY ANYMORE.

We are in couples counselling and I brought this issue up. My gf had this idea that I only did it when we were having an argument and I am ignoring her, but she does this I would say...every other day. The therapist basically told her to tone it down, and that if I'm at work her first assumption should be that I'm working and not to expect any texts. She did tone it down for about 2 weeks? And during that time she would say stuff like "Look, I didn't ask you where you were!". Uh.. congratulations?

I also want to note that this doesn't just happen when I'm at work. there was a time that I was home cooking dinner and she was out shopping or something. She sent me a text but since I was cooking, I didn't see it right away. She got upset that I didn't reply because she thought I was "secretly Skyping someone".

A few weeks ago after she sent me another one of her "?" after 15 minutes of no reply, I said to her "Sending me question marks is not going to make me read your texts any quicker". She told me to stop being a bitch.

TL;DR: Girlfriend expects me to reply to her texts instantly and will send follow up messages until I reply which annoys me so fucking much.

Submitted August 01, 2018 at 05:39AM by SeniorTomatillo https://ift.tt/2LFhx14