My parents will only answer the phone if they are together and it’s on loud speaker.

[uKu89]

Just that really...
For the last couple of months my parents will only answer the phone to me if they are both there. I have a great relationship with my parents but i feel that I am no longer able to have the mother/daughter relationship we had before where I could ring her up and ask her about girlie things. It’s making me sad but it also worries me that she will think that I don’t bother with her anymore which isn’t the case, I just don’t have the opportunity to only speak with her now.

Am I being unreasonable to be upset or do I just need to get over it and accept that their United front is what’s important to them and just let them get on with it?

@31RooCambon

I dont know if im being too harsh on my parents because im single and emotionally independent, even though i took money from them 😩😪 but... it's like needing a crutch. To ho to church. To go to Aldi. To go for a walk.

I dont get it. How do they not want to kill each other. But, a lot of their conversation is me and my failings.

Was the same with mine. My friends thought it was a bit harsh but within a fortnight of dad's death, I left mum alone to go to the shops etc or she'd never have done it.

If they talk about your perceived "failings' on the phone, hang up.

I wonder if the issue is something much simpler. My landline is atrocious and I find that if I have the phone on speaker I can hear much better. Do you think this could be the case for them?
I'd prefer not to do this so if someone could suggest a good handset I'd be very grateful.

Sorry, just realised that other posters had already suggested this

My mum does the same. I hate it as I feel as though am being judged and that her and my stepdad will analyze the conversation afterwards. I think that the reality is is that she's a bit paranoid that my step dad night ever talk about her to me. I find it disrespectful as often I'm unaware who is listening in.

@Sanchez79

This sounds deeply unhealthy to me, is your father domineering at all? Might lockdown have provided an opportunity for him to ramp up any, previously mild, controlling tendencies?

I'd be curious to know what happens if you were to assert that you want yo speak yo your Mum, 1:1, privately.

Or maybe the mother is domineering, even on MN the male is not always the guilty party!

I would do it back to your mother and put her on speakerphone so that your husband/partner can listen in.

Talk about your periods, that will soon have your Dad wandering off

Crikey, I hadn't realised how common this is! My PIL do this constantly now, and are forever correcting minor, pointless details and talking over the top of each other. Every single time, they'll say something like "oh did I tell you Brenda phoned on Tuesday?" and the other one shouts "Wednesday. It was Wednesday!", "no, it was Tuesday because...." and so it goes on.

I think it's just that they're so desperate for someone else to speak to that they don't want to miss out on even a tiny fragment of chat.

I think that's strange, but judging by the responses here, it's not as uncommon as I'd have guessed.

I don't understand the "united front" thing in this context, tbh. You're their adult daughter just chatting to them, not a toddler or teenager testing the limits or trying to play them against one another! What's there to be "united" about, in a normal chat?

It doesn't have the same immediacy and flow as talking, but maybe you could start exchanging texts or emails with your mother, to open another channel of communication. Maybe even drop in, casually, that it's been a while since you've had a talk, just the two of you, and that you miss your old one-on-one chats.

Oh gosh I loathe this. Sorry you are experiencing the same issue op. YANBU at all! Could you send your mum a text and ask to speak to her privately?

It's not just an old people thing. My husband's family has always done this - his late mother was quite domineering - and now his sister (to whom I was close) has started doing the same thing post marriage. It's odd because I supposedly had hours and hours available to chat to her when she was single and I was married with DC, but apparently the same is not true vice versa. I find it quite hurtful because I thought we had a good relationship and I valued our chats, but was dropped like a hot potato as soon as a man came on the scene. They now both ring us on speaker phone and guess what, her husband is very domineering too. It's a shame but there we are. I guess we weren't as close as I thought!

The whole thing about collective speaker phone chats with couples or Zooming with family is that it's fine to wish someone a happy birthday or similar, but other than that, unless you are all exceptionally close, you can only really talk about generalities and banalities. And that becomes meaningless after a while.

Could it be that they put it on loud speaker because they have problems hearing otherwise?

Is one of them going deaf OP?

Do you phone then at the same time each day/week ? My daughter knows if she phones late afternoon early evening she'll get put on speaker phone as a) I'm often doing things- so I can continue doing them whilst talking, and b) her dad's usually a bit bored around that time!
She know's the best time to phone to talk to 'me' or 'dad' separately.

@bluecricket

I wonder if the issue is something much simpler. My landline is atrocious and I find that if I have the phone on speaker I can hear much better. Do you think this could be the case for them? I'd prefer not to do this so if someone could suggest a good handset I'd be very grateful.

Snap! My landline is really odd when I don’t have it on speaker phone. We have to use it now.

If I use it without speaker, if I need to discuss something privately with my mum she says she can tell I’m on the extension line as it’s not clear. We only have one phone so I don’t know what it is.

My parents also speak on the speaker phone so they can both have a conversation with me, they like to share the excitement of a phone call in lockdown

Don’t know what is causing it all, but I’m amazed it’s so common.