If someone always tells you they are too busy to reply to your texts, would you give up trying?

[Nowanextraone]

Whenever I text this person, I get quite a long message back telling me why they are too busy to reply or read my messages, with a long spiel about how busy (AKA important) they are at work, how rushed off their feet they are and they will reply later on. They never do reply.

I might message again a few days later and get a similar response, and if I dare question it, I get a shitty message, very patronising. I queried it last week and reminded her that I am also busy, but I value our relationship so would like contact. She was incredible horrible actually, telling me she doesn't have time to respond to my 'great long messages' (they really aren't long). She's got form for being like this, but I was quite taken aback.

I also work full time BTW. My friends often message me when I am with patients. I reply when I am not. It really is that simple. I have friends that work and friends that don't.

This person is my sister. Since her shitty message, she has not made any contact with me.

Would you assume she does not value our relationship as much as I do? 😪

I'd be very tempted to gently point out to her that she is always too busy to respond to you, that she frequently sends holding responses and that she could have responded to your original message/ query in the time it takes her to tell you how busy she is. Then, take a step back. Give her some food for thought.

You are correct- she doesn't really want to talk to you. For the sake of your mental health, you should stop texting her.

I'd just think we'll bollocks to you and not bother again.
Sister or not, she's not worth your time op, she makes that clear herself.

OP it’s your sister. Sounds like she’s stressed/overwhelmed and yes she’s got time to message it seems but sounds like she doesn’t feel able to ‘get into’ anything by message. Maybe things are not that ok with her at the moment.

She sounds tedious - by the time she has typed out explaining in great detail how busy she is, she could have replied to your message. She seems to be full of self importance and enjoy the chase so she can tell you again how busy she is. I'd not be contacting her again and if she asks why I'd say you were busy.

Slightly similar thing I'm having I sent a WhatsApp message nothing other than family chit chat, get a response two weeks later. Which wouldn't be an issue other than its an issue for my relative when she doesn't get an immediate response. Not just me but with others' as she's commented that they have seen her text but "just ignored it" when she had a slow response. The thing I origonally texted about has moved on so continuing the conversation now seems a bit pointless. Can't be doing with the busy excuse. More so when it isn't accepted for others to be busy! You could send a gracious text to have been sorry to have overwhelmed her, but didn't feel it necessarily warranted a patronising response. That you won't continue to make contact unless you hear from her going forward. Then just Xmas/ birthday cards.

Just invite her round and see her face to face. Far more fun than texting.

My SiL is like this. Makes great efforts to tell me just how busy she is, every single response I ever get from her drops I’m just how terribly busy she is.

I’ve given up. She doesn’t care. It’s her own kids she’s denying a chance of relationship with their cousins. It’s a real shame.

She hasn't got time to be nice to you (but can find the time to be horrible to you).

Stop messaging her and wait for her to message you (then wait for her to complain about that too, at some point).

She sounds horrible!

Her trigger is getting a text from you OP, she clearly doesn't enjoy texts as a form of communication. If she is already busy with deadlines and pressure, a text symbolises yet another thing on her To Do list. Texts beget more texts, so she may be thinking if I reply then that will mean @Nowanextraone wants to engage in a ping ping back and forth that I don't have the time or patience for.

you sadly need to take your cue from her behaviour, because just keep doing the same thing, sending texts time after time, and expecting her to act differently, won't give you a different result.

it's very hard because it's your sister, but it comes across that she's not someone who wants to have a "friendship" the way you want, even though she is your sister, which is sad but that's life.

Plus it sounds like there's sibling rivalry in there too,

"I've got a much more Big Important Job than you"

My sister is a bit like this.

When my kids were younger she would ask what we were doing on X day and if we were free would we maybe like to meet up. I would respond and go out of our way to be free and make time for her then got little or nothing back to firm up arrangements then at the last minute on the day she would cancel as she had almost always made other plans or couldn’t be bothered.

We text from time to time but not much nowadays and she always tells me how busy she is, working FT, doesn’t have time and can’t plan ahead etc. They have their own business now and her and partner are very disorganised he games and drinks until the early hours most days so they don’t start work until after 10.30 so they finish later. But they often have long weekends and take big chunks of time off (more than any AL) because they are both absolutely burnt out.

Sending you a big hug. I had the same issue with my brother who is my only sibling. The last time I saw him was last Christmas, and it was only because it was possibly our mums last Christmas and I wasn’t letting him have her at his place without us.

I have given up trying to catch up. It hurts that we have no relationship, but I can’t keep asking to catch up to be told no.

I would find someone like this laughable and extremely odd. Except its your own sister so it is very hurtful and I agree with what you said about why can't she reply normally and politely instead of spending longer explaining why she can't as she is so busy!

I would hazard a guess that for some reason she has a massive chip on her shoulder in general. At work she probably plays the martyr taking on extra work only so she can complain in a passive aggressive way later .

When she is ill she makes sure everyone knows whilst carrying on telling everyone she is fine and coughing and taking her temperature.
She claims never to take holidays and casually declares that the last time she had a day off was 3 years ago but its fine as she has a weekend off in 2026.

I would buy her a book about how to improve her time management for Christmas .

I can empathise with your sister here. I get long messages from my sister. If I reply, even briefly, I get two or three even longer messages. She's very much a 'chatter' and I'm very much not a chatter. If we're on the phone, for example, it doesn't matter what background noise is going on in my house that indicates that I'm in the middle of something, she continues. It doesn't matter if I say that I'm in the middle of something, she continues. If I directly say that I'm too busy to talk, she continues.

I have found no way to reduce messaging other than to not reply, which I try hard not to do. However, there seems to be no way of putting boundaries in place because she's oblivious to them. If I respond to messages, the chain can continue for hours.

Your DSis sounds like she's in a stressful job? I imagine she's either in medicine or social work, perhaps?

Have you tried just messaging "Hi DSis, hope all is well with you. Just a quick note to say I think you're great.", or something else that doesn't need an in-depth response?

Can you use Whatsapp rather than text ?

For me texting is for short factual communications that need a quick reply. Whatsapp is for conversations where the message may be longer, but there is no expectation of immediate response.

In any case, based on what you've said I would simply ask her if she is ok. Her stress may be self induced but it doesn't make it less real and you say she has become a lot worse over the past year, so something may be going on. If she doesn't respond then pull right back.

Génial!

if she has time to write a message complaining why doesn't she use the time to just reply to your message. Odd.

The blued out first example of OP's text starts "I need your advice on..." So it doesn't sound like sister's response could just be a quick one. Presumably she needed to think through the issue that OP wanted advice on.

Her response to that and the next couple were perfectly pleasant and normal. The fact that she then doesn't follow up, is of course frustrating. But the placeholder itself was fine and appropriate for something that can't be answered quickly.

Ah, ignore that. I misunderstood who sent that text that was blued out.

I picked up the ‘need advice’ too. My question would be are you texting her wanting things doing or advice? How often are you texting her? Are you enquiring after her? There could be many things going on but one of them could be she’s busy and you keep asking her for her time to help you?

@Lougle the long texts are not from the OP they are from her sister.

That's her sister.

That is what the OP has shown us. But they all contain "I will read all this I promise..." or "I can't read really long texts in the day time...." which implies that the OP's initial message is not short.

Yes the long text (blued out) are from my sister. She sends huge texts from time to time when she wants advice, far longer than I've ever written. Thr.irony of her saying she's too busy to reply to me but then writes that.

Also, whoever said about her making out her job is more important than mine is 100% correct. I have lived with this my whole life. She's actually not got a busier job than me (we are both AHPs) but she's higher up than me.

@Lougle ak ok yes good point, I see what you mean.