Submitted by floreality t3_yts9yc in tifu
My SO and I don't live together, and we both have a lengthy commute to work in different directions. It's become routine that we text each other when we leave work and when we arrive home.
Today, I forgot to let SO know that I had left work. When I got home, I had an unread message: "How's work?"
I replied with 3 messages:
"im home"
"i thought i texted when i left work"
"as it turns out i did not"
I could see that only the first one sent, but I got caught up in a conversation with my roommate and wasn't paying much attention to my phone.
About 10 minutes passed before my phone rang. I had no idea why my SO needed to call me--I didn't think there was anything urgent going on.
I picked up, and IMMEDIATELY my SO was asking "Are you okay? Are you safe??"
As it turns out, those last two messages took some time to send, and my SO apparently had this conversation:
-How's work?
---im home
---i thought i texted when i left work
-It's okay, I'm glad you made it home safe
---as it turns out i did not
-Wait what?!
-Are you okay?
-Babe
-Babe??
-Hello?!
I had failed to respond, caught up in conversation, leaving my SO to fret over me possibly dying in a ditch somewhere.
TLDR: delayed texts informed my SO that I did not get home safely, and I didn't look at my phone enough to realize.
EDIT: I promise this isn't a controlling or toxic relationship! Sometimes I do forget to text, or SO does, and both of us tend to assume the other forgot/is busy/something came up. We fully trust each other to go about our lives and take care of ourselves. The texts are just a peace of mind type thing :) The only reason SO got so anxious/worried was because I apparently explicitly said I wasn't okay. Thanks for the concern, I understand where it's coming from! But I can't depict the extent of our relationship in a short Reddit post, lol.
palegate t1_iw6l8rd wrote
"-It's okay, I'm glad you made it home safe
---as it turns out i did not"
If a person had the wits about them to come out with that answer, I'd be more amused than worried.