Is it ok to be 'annoyed' by just one bad habit?

If it is a consistent bad habit, tell her nicely that from now on when she vanishes without an explanation, you are going to hang up.

Or, ask her what’s a good length for the call where she can concentrate and focus only on it? Then stick to the 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 40 minutes or 30 seconds that you both have agreed on.

That way, you can hang up without being rude. Forewarned is forearmed.

If she is super busy as you describe, perhaps she would appreciate shorter calls.

@gailcalled Good advice, thanks.

I have tried asking her a few times. I tried making a deal that if she has stuff to do, to just do it, and just call when there is time, but she is very busy and it is obvious she can only make time when she can.

Thanks, will give it a shot.

Well you asked if it is OK? to be annoyed by one bad habit. I am sure after a time, we all get annoyed by certain bad habits significant partners have. It’s all part of the settling ‘in’ together. And that takes a little time and communication.

@Shippy Thanks, I am just a little concerned that maybe I don’t have a right to do something about it. Be it limiting the call, hanging up, or mentioning it more, or something like that.

I would follow @gailcalled‘s advice. What was her reaction the first time you brought this up with her? Did anything change at all?

The best advice I can offer you is to make sure you let her know that you’re not trying to put a demand on her time, just that it would be nice for her to give you a heads-up whenever she has to go as a courtesy to you; it really doesn’t take much to just say “hey, give me a few minutes and I’ll be right back.” My heart goes out to you because I went through something similar with my ex when we were apart for an extended period of time and unfortunately that became part of the reason I broke up with him. Don’t let that happen to you if you can help it.

See what happens if you do it to her just a few times. With women, turnabout is not fair play.

@woodcutter I would steer clear of spiteful behavior, it’ll just cause unnecessary trouble. I would give her the benefit of the doubt because, as the OP said, she has a lot on her mind and it doesn’t seem like she’s doing this on purpose. In the long run, honest, straight-forward, mature communication beats “giving her a taste of her own medicine.”

I don’t understand how anyone can just leave the phone without signing off. She leaves while you are talking? That is such extreme rudeness that I can only assume there are a few marbles missing somewhere. And you just sit there and wait for her to come back on for more than 3 minutes? There are some slipped cogs on somebody’s side; maybe both.

When I have mentioned it to her, she said sorry for doing it, and it stops happening for a while, but after a while it slips back.

Also, maybe I have not really explained the situation right. We use skype, and web-cam, but we don’t use microphones because we talk late at night or real early morning, and can’t make much sound.

She will get up and go turn a light off and come back, while I am typing things out, mid-thought, and then come back and read it, and respond. It is still bad, but not as criminal as walking off while someone is actually speaking in a call. If she did something like that, there would be words.

It is that she is a scatter brain with a short memory and attention span, and on top of that is loaded down with work like you would not believe. The short version of daily things being: university, homework, help her brother with homework, chores, actual work in a restaurant 5 hours a day, actual work at a market couple hours a day, learning Spanish 1 hour a day, getting papers ready to marry and live in spain, etc, etc. She is lucky if she gets 6 hours sleep.

I agree with not trying to “give her a taste of her own medicine”, but hanging up and ending the conversation would at least help me limit the annoyance, it is the being tied up without knowing what is going on that does it to me.

Some sort of “consequence” would be good though, as it would help bring the skype chat to the forefront of her mind more. The problem it is just too easy to get thrown off path.

To be honest, depending on your gf’s personality and how she handles different things, I would advise caution. Hanging up on her might be like lighting the fuse to a stick of TNT. I say that, because I’ve had exactly the same problem in the past. I did hang up, and it did escalate into a full scale battle of wits and words – none of which were too pleasant at the time – and she was forewarned. So be careful with that approach, because even though it makes sense to do so, it may be a plan of action that does not yield pleasant results. We are talking the same kind of communication here. Skype and what have you.
It is totally annoying, and I’m with you 100% that it really is so very incredibly rude, if not inconsiderate. She buggers off and you’re left waiting for her to I dunno…do the dishes, iron her shirts or some such, I dunno. So…may not be the best move, but you could try starting a majority of conversations with “Let me know if you’re going to go off momentarily with brb or something?” somewhere along the line. Just keep doing that. It’ll bug her eventually until she says you don’t need to keep doing that, but I figure the reinforcement by way of request should help in drumming it into practice.
Some sort of consequence, makes it sound like it would be unfair to actually have the consequence. She works hard, so she’s obviously busy, does a lot of stuff, so I’d go with the reinforcement route before you start hanging up maybe?

I have chatted with a number of people, from my sister to various friends, and every single one of them does this. Usually something will happen and they have to attend to it, and it’s never clear if and when they are coming back. Sometimes this happens with video skype, too, although I don’t do that as often as I chat.

My sister will get phones calls. She works from home, and so a lot of time talking to her is like talking to someone I am working with. Other people at home will get interrupted by family members and just go off for a while to attend to a stubbed toe or homework or whatever. They don’t say good bye, most of the time. They just go.

Sometimes they come back. Sometimes not.

At first this really annoyed me, but eventually I decided it was the nature of the technology. I think people feel chat and skype are more like working next to each other than actually relating directly with each other. As such, it is a lower order interaction, and they don’t even think about it as being something where the regular rules of interaction apply. It’s more like family or maybe not even that. More like work.

That’s my theory, anyway. What I’ve done is to expect it, and when people leave, I just do something else. Sometimes I’ll have out sort of waiting, and sometimes I’ll just hang up. I don’t take it personally, though. It doesn’t seem meant personally.

But I’m used to it now. It still is a bit annoying, but it doesn’t bother me so much. I just think it’s a different way of relating, and that people seem not to use the same rules for these technologies as they did for prior ways of interacting.

Maybe when YOU get up to do something while you’re chatting with her, take the time to type in brb in bold capital letters to get your point across.

If this doesn’t work, then maybe you have no choice but to stick the wait out until she comes home. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe revert to good old fashioned letter writing.

You could set a time limit to your visit and conclude it at that time. Make it short enough for her to be able to stay and focus. When time’s up, she can go do what she needs to and you don’t have to sit there waiting.