Do they read our texts even though they say they don't?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Mine will tell me he won't read my replies to his texts, you know... .the ones where I tell him to never contact me or sometimes I can't help but bite the bait when he tells me how horrible I am to him and lies to back it up.  My fault there, I know.  But he will come back and say "I won't read anything you just sent me".  or "don't respond because I won't read it anyway"... .

Do you think their ego/curiosity gets the better of them and they read what we send?  Just wondering.  Because I've heard those phrases over and over through my 3 years of marriage and never have known if he did.  Seems sometimes he would say something to let it slip he did read them and other times, I think maybe he didn't. 

Thoughts?

Oh, I finally blocked him today.  It is the anniversary of my mom's death and he chooses today to be self righteous that I gave his son a birthday present by his mom bringing him by my house.  She contacted me and since she was out and about, I told her to swing by so I could give it to their son directly.  I knew if I gave it to my ex to give to him, he would claim it as his own gift since he didn't even get his son a gift.  So, I held on to it till I could do it directly.  The ex contacts me this morning, from his mom's house phone, acting like he never read my text for him to leave me the hell alone last night because this was not the time to mess with me, and asks how his son got his gift.  As I start to tell him, he hangs up on me. He hates his ex because she wants him drug tested before visits with their son.  Considering he's been doing crack and meth for 3 years, admittedly, I don't see an issue with that... .but hey, we aren't supposed to hold it against him, right?

[wishfulthinking]

Mine will tell me he won't read my replies to his texts, you know... .the ones where I tell him to never contact me or sometimes I can't help but bite the bait when he tells me how horrible I am to him and lies to back it up.  My fault there, I know.  But he will come back and say "I won't read anything you just sent me".  or "don't respond because I won't read it anyway"... .

Do you think their ego/curiosity gets the better of them and they read what we send?  Just wondering.  Because I've heard those phrases over and over through my 3 years of marriage and never have known if he did.  Seems sometimes he would say something to let it slip he did read them and other times, I think maybe he didn't. 

Thoughts?

Oh, I finally blocked him today.  It is the anniversary of my mom's death and he chooses today to be self righteous that I gave his son a birthday present by his mom bringing him by my house.  She contacted me and since she was out and about, I told her to swing by so I could give it to their son directly.  I knew if I gave it to my ex to give to him, he would claim it as his own gift since he didn't even get his son a gift.  So, I held on to it till I could do it directly.  The ex contacts me this morning, from his mom's house phone, acting like he never read my text for him to leave me the hell alone last night because this was not the time to mess with me, and asks how his son got his gift.  As I start to tell him, he hangs up on me. He hates his ex because she wants him drug tested before visits with their son.  Considering he's been doing crack and meth for 3 years, admittedly, I don't see an issue with that... .but hey, we aren't supposed to hold it against him, right?

[hurting300]

Yes I do think they do. Most normal people do.

[GreenEyedMonster]

I don't think mine does.  He is too afraid of narcissistic injury.

[Lonely_Astro]

I know for a fact mine did.  We have iPhones, so when she read my text I would get the notification that she did.  I always loved the "I never got your text" replies she would give me later after she had chosen to ignore them.  I could see not only was the text delivered but she read them!  But, she would often deny that and say I never replied or she never got it.  Classic lie for her.

Really, seeing they read the text and then CHOOSING to ignore you is more painful than not knowing if they did or didn't read it.  Ignoring someone, especially if it was an emotional text, is a form of abuse.  Plain and simple.  J excelled at that toward the end.  One of the most striking in person conversations we had was she said to me that I had ignored her for x number of days because I hadn't text her (mind you, she had not text me either).  I told her reasons why I hadn't.  Her response was "I get why you haven't.  If I don't reply, you'll be hurt that I didn't.  If I do, it gives you false hope."   I didn't understand the comment, so I asked her to clarify what she meant.  She couldn't.  Of course, later, I found out she was in a full blown r/s with my replacement.  I get now what she meant about 'false hope', seeing as how she was leading me along when we did talk about possibly getting back together even though she was "head over heels in love" with my replacement. 

It's just best to not even be in contact with them simply because you have no idea what they're up to.  I understand not all BPDs are like J is, but they all have similar behavior.  Ultimately, what I'm saying is unless you have found a unicorn, no good will come of trying to engage them after they discard you.   

[Dutched]

Back then exw once came at my door and DEMANDING… some stuff (which I declined). As a BTW-remark exw said that she blocked my mail.

I mailed her to tell her that if my son would be involved in an accident she of course couldn’t be notified as exw as changed her phone number too.

Of course… it was not blocked, later even got hold of that phone number.

Later, still concerning my son, I confronted her by mail in a very harsh way with her immense cruelty towards my son of not hugging/saying goodbye at the airport, as she dropped her daughter.

At arrival (surpise... ., not really for me), exw was present to welcome him, no, no hugs… To anxious as she already had to drag herself to come. Trying to keep up appearances in front of me, my son and her daughter. Exw couldn't fool me with that face. 

Make believe, Disney stories to protect themselves for that evil (split black) ex., their coping, the hurt child in optima forma.

Any kind of confrontation causes tremendous turmoil in that brain.

It is easer to deflect in order to avoid pain then to face it and work on it.

That is why Cluster B’s  hardly accept treatment.

[Sluggo]

We have iPhones, so when she read my text I would get the notification that she did.

Is that a particular app you have to get the 'read' notification on text messages.  If so what is the name.  Or is it an Iphone thing.  I have an Android. 

[anothercasualty]

Ultimately, what I'm saying is unless you have found a unicorn, no good will come of trying to engage them after they discard you.   

Therein lies the rub... .Don't we all start with the idea that our situation is somehow different from everyone else's? I know I sure did. And guess what? It's not different at it's core. Same story, different players.

[Mr. Magnet]

I sure as hell know she was doing it while we together.  Very suspicious and paranoid.  I don't recall ever looking at her phone.

What a psycho.

[Lonely_Astro]

Is that a particular app you have to get the 'read' notification on text messages.  If so what is the name.  Or is it an Iphone thing.  I have an Android. 

It's baked into iOS.  Basically, it's called iMessages.  When I text someone that is also using an iPhone, their 'bubble' is blue, other users are 'green'.  An iMessage is data sent, so the software shows that it was 'delivered' and if the receiving user has the option turned on, you can see "read 00:00" (00:00 is the time they read it.  That then becomes 'yesterday' or the date it was read if it's beyond that).  So, you not only know they've read it, you know what time they read it too.  None of this helps your cause when you're on the receiving end of ST from your pwBPD.  You know they got the message, they read it, they chose to ignore you. 

As I said, J would often claim to have messaged me and I ignored her.  When I pointed out that you can see messages delivered (even if you have read receipts turned off, you can still see it was delivered), she simply ignored  that and still insisted that I ignored her response.  The true truth is that she never sent a response (maybe she did in her head), so she would hold it against me that I didnt reply... .even though no reply every actually was sent.  See how circular that is?

Ultimately, what I'm saying is unless you have found a unicorn, no good will come of trying to engage them after they discard you.   

Therein lies the rub... .Don't we all start with the idea that our situation is somehow different from everyone else's? I know I sure did. And guess what? It's not different at it's core. Same story, different players.

Yes, we start with that idea.  Some of us find ourselves in a r/s with someone afflicted and don't know it.  So, they don't have a frame of reference from the beginning.  I, however, took a second bite of the apple.  Did I expect to be successful?  Yes.  I didnt expect it to be easy, but I expected to be able to make it work.  Ultimately, it didnt.  There was a thread on here once asking what % you took blame for the failure of the r/s.  There were a lot of 50%'s in there... .I'm not one of them.  Given everything, I accept 10% of our failure on myself.  That's being generous, too.  I know I wasn't perfect to J (even if I was acting with her best intentions in mind), but at the same time, she was doing a tremendously large amount of bad $hit to me.  A lot (and I mean A LOT) of our r/s was carried out under a false flag.  I was dedicated to her and trying my hardest to make it work, she wasn't.  Some of that was her BPD, but a lot of it is simply summed up that she's not a nice person.  I get we started under morally wrong terms, I get that.  But that doesnt give her an excuse to do most of what she did to me (unbeknownst to me) over the course of our "r/s".

As I have said, she replaced me before we officially ended.  She strung me along afterward, pushing and pulling me, all the while being fully enveloped in the new r/s with L.  She still sees it as she hasn't done anything wrong to L.  Maybe she has, maybe she hasn't, I don't know their arrangement.  But, once again, I got the short end of the deal, didnt I?  L's time is coming... .he's just to blind right now to see it.

[hurting300]

We have iPhones, so when she read my text I would get the notification that she did.

Is that a particular app you have to get the 'read' notification on text messages.  If so what is the name.  Or is it an Iphone thing.  I have an Android. 

No it's just iPhone

[wanttoknowmore]

OF COURSE  THEY DO READ your texts. One pwBPD confided in me that she hides the texts by certain tech way but she reads all the texts quickly. She added that she sits and does not respond if she is angry with the lover... .she expects him to keep texting more... still does not respond on purpose... .when he gets angry and texts something nasty ... .she responds saying things like "why are you doing this to me" Why you are so angry"  etc.  pwBPD told me that she is fully aware of what she is doing by playing this irregular texting back and she called it "the Game" to test his devotion to her . If he does not give up she feels powerful and in control. 

She said if she is happy and have positive feelings, she responds to texts rather quickly. But , she still wants him to approach her first so that

"I don't come across desperate"  Strange !

[wishfulthinking]

thank you all for your input.  Don't know why I even let it get to me.  I know it'll never bring truth to him, anyway, just more blame to me.