To ask for some advice?

[JustLikeThat647]

Feeling a little peeved and just wanted to ask for some advice.

One of my DBs has three young kids. He doesn’t live close by, so we tend to stay in touch via text/Whatsapp, but will aim to see each other every couple of months or so.

He never engages with what me and my family are doing, or my messages about what I’m up to, and is instead constantly just sending me photos and vids of his kids.

I love DB, his wife and his kids and love seeing them, but the comms are starting to feel really one-sided and I’m finding it irritating and pretty self-centred. I don’t feel able at all to talk to him about it as we don’t have that relationship where we can be fully open or honest with each other. Any advice?

Respond to each picture he sends with one of your own without comment?

Ha yeah maybe 😂 wouldn’t that be quite petty though?

Just don’t open the messages?

Respond with a heart emoji to one message per day. Ignore the rest. He’ll get the message.

i have a sibling a bit like this. I joke with my partner they’re just set to broadcast rather than receive.

in my experience you can either aaccept they’ll never ask but continue the relationship and keep commenting on their stuff and share what you want from your life without needing to be asked.

I think stepping back is a bit petty and if you can just accept that this is the sibling you have and make the most of the relationship.

you could also sit them down and tell them how it makes you feel.

I'd show as much interest in his messages as he shows in yours!

Thanks all. I do definitely want to keep my relationship with my DB - I love him and his family and I don’t want to do anything that upsets him or damages our relationship. @KarmenPQZ interesting that you’ve had a similar experience - can I ask how you’ve handled it please?

I think the best approach that I follow is to assume that anytime they contact you is them reaching out and subconsciously saying they’re thinking of you and so they want an uodate on how you’re doing. Just because they’re not explicitly saying ‘how are you, any news’ doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just infer they’re saying that without actually using those words. So any time they reach out I always comment on their update/info first, and then immediately follow with an update from me on my life. Similarly when i think of them, i just send them a text update or photo or whatever, without overthinking ‘is it braggy’ or whatever. But I also lead by example of how I’d like them to communicate by saying something like ‘just a little update from us, how are things at your end?’ Or similar.

I guess it also depends how frequently he sends stuff tho. If it really is too often for you then you can get apps (we used one called Tiny Beans) to share photos and videos then you can check it intermittently and control how often you get notifications. You could suggest this to him under the guise of it keeping all moments together, has a nice flash back feature and you can make printed albums really easily from it.

Does he have conversations and show interest when you are together? If he does, maybe he just isn’t much of a texter.