Advice sought on touchy email

Poststructural Pub
1

Here’s the situation: I have a sister who lives very far away (a bit over 1400 miles).

For years now her husband has filled my inbox with the most offensive kinds of drek. He knows me well enough to know what irritates me and he seems to take great delight in forwarding me (and several other folks as well) anything he thinks might irritate, anger, or offend me.

This has gone on for years.

I tried to talk with him about this several years ago but his take was “I’ve just got you on my distribution list; if you don’t want to read it, then just ignore it.”

A couple of months ago he sent enough of this junk to my wife that she sent him a very polite and nicely worded email requesting that he please not do that anymore. And he didn’t…for about three days. Then it’s back to glurge city for her as well.

We both use Outlook. Outlook has a “blocked senders list”–essentially, a kill list. Any email from an address on that list is automatically deleted before you ever lay your innocent eyes on it.

What I would really like to do is block his email.

During the last ten years or so, he has sent me literally hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of junk emails, and about two or three that were real emails…but those 2 or 3 were important.

And, complicating this, my sister isn’t in the best of health and I don’t want to hurt or offend her.

This has grown from a minor irritation to a real annoyance.

So my question: should I block his email? He has our phone numbers and address; it’s not like they can’t contact us if they want to. But I have a feeling that if I do this, I would lose all contact with my sister.

Any thoughts are welcome.

And thanks for letting me vent.

–James

2

I dunno, James…if I were in your shoes, I’d have already answered my own question with the details above.

Just keep on patiently deleting the glurge. Don’t even bother reading it. When you DO get substantive emails from that sender, you’ll be glad you didn’t block it.

3

So, your sister doesn’t do email I take it.
My first gut response was block’im. They’ll call you if they need anything.

OTOH, do you also get useful info from him in email form, or news pertaining to your sister? If not, if it’s all the crappy stuff, why not block?

If there’s a smattering of useful info mixed in, I guess I wouldn’t. I’d just be quick with the delete key.

4

James,

Doesn’t your sister have her own email account? A hotmail, yahoo or Gmail account? Set one up for her. Accept hers, and not his. Once she has her own account, you can block him without a qualm.

But I’m betting it’s a family account and she is not tech-lit. In that case:

Either set up a folder in Outlook to load your BiL’s emails automatically - it’s in “Setting up a rule”, or mark them to be sent to the Junk Mail folder.

You still need to cast an eye over them, but it’s marked junk, you know it’s junk and you’ll feel better about it.

5

In that case, you may want to inform them that for what ever reasons blocked, wacky spam filter, etc. that his Emails are no longer being received and that in case of an emergency, call.

6

Maybe you could click the “Reply” button and type in “Junk: Not read”
and send it back. Maybe he’d get tired of having to filter out all the crap you send back. I’ve done that when people don’t get the hint.

7

Difficult situation because you said the few real emails where important. I guess Nano an Emm are right: bear and delete.

Silvano

8

James - my father in law, who resides on the polar opposite side of the religious and political spectrum from my wife and I, sends us a weekly barrage of emails that are infuriating (about 10-20 per week). We’ve also talked with him to no avail several times. Like you, he does send the rare, important email (maybe 2-3 times per year).

We tend to delete nearly everything he sends with FW: in the subject line. These days we only read about 1 in 4 or 5 emails because they look like they may have real content.

He is who is is and nothing we say will change him.

Eric

9

One of my first thoughts I then abolished for two reasons. First, repeating a bad manner takes you down to the same (childish) level. Second, this might give the attention seeked and the situation could escalate, i. e. more emails etc.

Silvano

[edited to eliminate typo]

10

Why not just dredge up some of your own dreck and send it to him? . Just bulk copy some of the threads in here and send them his way. He might get the message. Then again, he might not. Since he has been doing this for ten years, it is probable that he just flat doesn’t like you, and thinks he can get away with it. Has he always seen you as a whipping boy? If so, be prepared to live with whatever he throws at you, or stand up to him. Unlike some here, standing up to a bully isn’t bad manners, and doesn’t lower you to their level. If he hasn’t stopped in ten years, then whatever you decide to do on your own behalf won’t make you the lesser person.

Or, get a real email program. Outlook is a pain. Other email programs have good filtering programs that let you dump mail from a designated source into pretty much any mailbox that you want, without all of the nonsense that Inlook wants to make you go through.

That way you can go in and desludge that particular mailbox anytime you want. the valuable emails will still be there, and you don’t have to deal with his stuff every day. He still thinks he is getting your goat, and all you have to do is delete a bunch of crap on a regular basis. You sleep better, and he is no wiser.

11

Let him know that your ISP has started filtering his messages as spam, and then block him. If he needs to contact you, he’ll have to find another means. Email is a privilege he’s been violating for years. You need to set a boundary and enforce it.

12

I’m in this same situation. We open the e mail, see there is nothing important, and usually delete the e mail. Sometimes, I get lucky and it’s an e mail that I find fault with and I send a response.

Here are the two pieces of advice I give to newlyweds:

  1. The marriage is more important than the wedding.
  2. You marry the whole family.

One of my friends married an only child orphan, lucky SOB.

13

If the junk email usually have FW: in front of them then you can set up a rule to delete anything just from him that contains “FW:”

Otherwise I’d filter to a folder where you can forget about it and just check it occasionally for important stuff

14

Wow. I must be a lot more intolerant. I tell people like that that I do not want their crap, and that if they refuse to stop sending it to me, I will block everything they send. And then I do it. Life is WAY too short to deal with that kind of passive aggressive behavior.

I tried to talk with him about this several years ago but his take was “I’ve just got you on my distribution list; if you don’t want to read it, then just ignore it.”

I’d have stopped him right here, and said “I have no interest in being on any distribution list that contains this kind of material, and it is far simpler for you to delete my name ONCE from your list, than for me to delete your messages over and over and over. If you cannot use my email address responsibly, I will take steps to ensure that you cannot abuse my patience any further.”

15

yep!

once we’ve decided that we’re gonna be rude…

16

I’m impressed.

17

One would almost think, James, from reading your post, that you do not want to know that Jesus loves you, and that if your forward that prayer, good things will happen to you, and that when there was only one set of footprints, Jesus was carrying you.

Post the guy’s email here for all the spam bots to find. And maybe someone can find the time to sign the fellow up for some interesting websites.

18

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

That’s pretty mild by comparison to most of the stuff he sends…he’s more of a “Clinton is the Antichrist and Hilary is his Pitchfork” kind of guy.

I took s1m0n’s good advice, sent him an email to let him know he’s setting off our new ISP’s spam filters and that he’s about to get blocked, and added him to the blocked senders’ list.

And it felt good. :smiling_imp: :party:

–James

19

Classic!

:laughing:


I would have blocked him long ago.

Oh, and I don’t by that “you marry the family” slosh. If someone is an a-hole they get treated accordingly.

Life is way too short to suck it up and take it.

Oh… and if Jesus wants to love me he’ll have to ask me out for an expensive meal give me flowers first.

:astonished:

20

not cheap…but reasonable!