Female friend texts me good morning and night every day.

[MarginWalker]

I’m looking for advice for a situation that I feel is bringing out the worst in me.

i have a friend whom I have known maybe 3 years. Our relationship at first was very sporadic but eventually she began a routine of texting me good morning every morning and we would have fun chatting while we drank our first and second morning mugs and texted each other’s before going off on our days

Slowly we began to talk much more throughout the day. the good morning Chat became an expectation and firm routine. I even joked about it and my birthday gift to her. Somehow, she also started to text me good night at the end of the day, this I found extremely grating. I would be deep in the middle of wrapping up my day and I would get a gushing good night text that would annoy me. I told her that I really didn’t like the nightly routine, and she stopped. We still send tens of messages throughout the day. We still talk nonstop.

Recently I’ve begun to feel a lot of pressure around the morning texting routine. I feel very bad, but I regret having gotten into the routine. It’s now another pressure on my head. And try as I might, I just can’t enjoy it as I used to because it’s become a pressure. Am I in the wrong here? Do you have any advice on how I can keep showing up for a friendship that means so much to me when my heart just isn’t following?

You are not in the wrong – it sounds suffocating.

Tell her that the morning routine is also too much. Or just wait for a while when she next writes in the morning and then text "Hey, I'm really busy in the mornings now. Catch up later!" Or something breezy like that.

It all sounds quite mad to me. Just tell her the morning thing isn’t working work8ng for you any more, though it makes no sense to me that you seem to be texting one another all day? Don’t you ever meet?

The most important thing is you just communicate the change to her, don’t just stop replying and expect her to take the hint.

Say “Hey, I’m finding I’m extra overwhelmed in the mornings lately and might not be able to chat like I used to. I still love keeping in touch throughout the day, but just wanted to let you know that I might be a bit quieter first thing.” Or if you wanted to make up an excuse tell her you’ve decided to start doing yoga in the mornings, or something like that

I think you should just try not replying every time.

Stop replying to every text

Just to let you know - I'm gonna have to cut back on the morning texts as I'm finding myself tighter for time. Obviously do text me whenever you would like, but I'm going to be using my phone in a more 'as and when' manner for the time being - I spend to much time glued to it and want to try and break the habit and use my time more effectively. Just to be clear, this isnt a reflection on how i feel about you in any way. I really value our friendship but just need to dial back the sceeen time and texting. Sending lots of love "

Brilliant!

She lives far away, so we can only meet in person twice a year or so. I really dislike waking in the morning to a gushing morning text - I told her so much, and she said she’d wait for me to text her first. So then I get the gushing morning text afterwards. I’ve been wanting to skip the whole morning routine but I know it means so much to her, I worry it will destroy the friendship.

I would just go with the first sentence. Sending that whole message makes the whole issue imto a bigger deal than necessary. Just the above or "sorry for the late replies this week, mornings are increasingly hectic!" and delay replyimg until later each day.

this does sound very suffocating! Are you male or female OP? I wonder if your friend is developing feelings and getting carried away emotionally, which is a complete contrast to how you are feeling.

Yep, this.

I would absolutely hate this much contact in a friendship. So claustrophobic! I used to have a friend just like this who would send me super long voice messages throughout the day 😳😬 I felt really mean but she just didn’t get the hint that I didn’t like it (even though I’d only reply with short texts) so had to practically ghost her. I felt really guilty but my sanity was more important.

"Gushing morning text"?? What does she say? Is her life a bit lonely generally? I enjoy some text chat with friends but just wouldn't have time for all of this, particularly first thing in the morning.

I’m female. My friend is married (to a man). I’d never allow a relationship with a person of the opposite sex become this. I felt safe because I felt we were both heterosexual women and she’s married. I’ve recently begun to wonder if this is some kind of intimate relationship for her. There’s also quite an age difference between us. I really loved spending all this time together until I began to feel like her life revolves around me and her affection for me. I’m not sure if that means it’s platonic still.

Basically she will text me pure sunshine. “Good morning! May it be a beautiful day, lots of work done, great gym and fun with the meeting!” Something like that.

If the friendship can’t survive without some Disneyfied gushings that annoy you first thing, is it one to keep? I mean, doesn’t this woman have other friends? Surely she can’t be rambling on about meetings and the gym and it being a beautiful day first thing in the morning to lots of people?

Those kind of messages would feel very suffocating to me. You need to tell her as PP have suggested that you will be checking your phone less often, especially in the mornings, see if that helps. If not, then you need to send a clearer message about the routine she has got into feeling a bit much.

That does sound annoying but clearly you've enjoyed/engaged with it up to now.

Can you just not send the first text tomorrow and see what happens? Claim you're ridiculously busy with work/house issues/needy pets/passionate affair with the milkman or whatever.

Oh yuck.
Mute notifications and reply whenever you want. All day texting is a chore.
Does the friendship enhance your life? Meetups twice a year doesn't seem like it'd be a huge loss.

Oh god. I did similar for a while with a new friend at work while we were all working from home. Used to message her on Teams every day to say good morning. I cringe about it now, it must have been so annoying! We're still pals though.

In your situation, I would maybe just take a bit longer to respond and eventually try and tail off altogether. If you're messaging first, maybe one day just don't and see what she does. Explain later that you were busy. Does she seriously do this every morning? What about Christmas day or if one of you is on holiday or something?!

The obligation to text every single day sounds quite suffocating to me. My friendships are much easier. Sometimes we text everyday, sometimes every other day, sometimes once or twice a week. No one cares about it as we all have our lives to lead and we care about each other enough to want people to live a full and active life.

If you text everyday, there can’t be much to catch up on. It gets a bit like narrating your day to each other like a bloody Dear Diary!

It sounds like you’re filling a void in her life as you’ve become like a new romantic partner where you text loads at the beginning of a relationship - it sounds like a weird emotional affair. I reckon her husband isn’t giving her much attention so she’s trying to get that from you with the constant messages and the morning text routine.

I’d definitely back off from her and send one of the messages pp have suggested. You need space to live your own life. What about your other friends? Do you even have any energy left to text them?

I’ve gone so far as to tell her it stressed me out to wake up to a text from her, as I feel a pressure to reply as I deal with other morning priorities. I proposed that I will text first, which she happily agreed to. So I text each morning. I feel her waiting for it! The moment I text, be it 5am or 10am, it’s ticked as read and she replies.

There was definitely a time I enjoyed this and felt we were two women having fun together every morning. I started to struggle with it a few months ago. At some point I said to her- I’m an introvert and sometimes withdraw… I need some space for two weeks. She said she knew this about me, and she’ll be there when I’m ready. (I said I’d still text but lightly, which I did, and she always replied right away) But I felt her eagerly waiting for my return, so I fell back into the routine after two weeks.

I am so scared of losing a friendship that gave me so much joy, laughter, warmth and light. But I find myself seething every time I open my messaging app to see all this smothering attention. (Hate to put it this way, but it’s how I feel.) My main goal is to set boundaries without destroying our friendship.

I will take pp’s advice and just breezily say I’ll use my phone less, and hope it doesn’t blow our friendship up.

I agree with all of this!

My other friendships are normal! Easy, sometimes we talk a ton, sometimes we go days without contact, we have no shared daily rituals!

There is never anything sexual between us and she’s been quite happy for me to share positive relationship updates, which is why I got really sure this was platonic. But I think this is filling an intimacy void after all, and I frankly don’t have the need or desire for this kind of intimacy. I do think her husband doesn’t know her emotionally and lives in his own world and she’s lonely without me.

I feel I am betraying her by saying all this but I don’t think the relationship will survive for me if I don’t find a way to loosen it up!

OP, you say you’ve got a lot out of the friendship but it sounds like she’s more of a pen pal than a friend. You barely see her!

Focus on building more real life friendships with people you might not text much but who you see in person instead. You can have so much more fun, warmth, and laughter with people you actually see and spend quality time with. Focus on your hobbies or start new ones. It sounds like you’ve been too available for this woman and she’s taken up a lot of your time texting when you could have been living your life with other friends in person.