To miss a regular family zoom

[SmudgeButt]

I'm not a big fan of zoom calls. And I dislike the intrusion the weekly zoom with my family makes on my life. Every blinking Sunday at 4 pm. For a minimum of an hour. Sometimes it's multiple calls, some of which go on and on and on.

Now I appreciate that Bro1 always organises these and has done so since early in 2020. We've talked more in the last couple of years then in all the years since we all left home - we've all led different lives, live in different places/countries so meeting up more than every year or two hasn't been an option.

But how does one duck out of these things? AIBU to not want to have these?

Clincher today is that DH is in hospital awaiting a decision to be made about heart surgery. I don't want to talk about this with my family because there will be lots of questions I can't answer, lots of comments about how it's his fault because of XYZ, oh and didn't Bro3 have it worse when blah blah blah.

I have 90 minutes to decide if I'm going to join today call. What do you think?

Invitation not a summons. Send a quick message saying I’m sorry not to join today, we’re busy, catch up
soon, and leave it at that. Weekly in the middle of a Sunday afternoon would be a bit much for me.

Just send a message saying that you won't be able to make it this week due to DH being in hospital, definitely look after yourself this time.

just text or ea=mail that you're not free this afternoon - you don't need to go into any detail why.
Don't read follow up messages - or send the message a minute or so before the zoom starts.
As to future meetings - don't you or DC have a new activity that clashes? Or be honest, the zooms served a purpose in lockdown, for you they've run their course.

That doesn't sound unreasonable at all. Just make your excuses and say no!

It sounds quite nice having a regular zoom get together, but I have to say a set time every week seems a bit too much. Once a month is enough, surely?

This is a situation where it's ok to lie if people are going to be offended about you not wanting a call or try and work around it. Just tell them you had unexpected visitors or something and you'll catch up next time and cut it down to fortnightly. Although why you would want to speak to anyone who upon news of a heart issue is likely to either apportion blame or try and turn it back on themselves is a mystery!

I would hate to have this as a tie. Does your brother not have dc? Sunday afternoon is slouchy family time, watch a film and snooze. Just message saying you’re not available.

Just contact your brother and tell him something has come up and you wont be joining. Otherwise if you just don’t turn up they may start texting, email etc which will annoy you more.

Then just do that every couple of weeks

Will this be the first Sunday afternoon zoom call you’ve missed in 3 years? That’s insane! Just say you can’t make it.