How to respond to negative text messages

[Anitalyn]

HI,
I have a 50 year old daughter with borderline personality disorder.  She lives with her husband in an other town.  She has disowned her father, sister and brother and now she is disowning me. She started out by saying I" failed her as a mother."  I called her husband this morning to she how she was doing because she didn't answer the last couple of text I sent.  She said "neither of us want anything to do with a backstabbing hypocrite liar."  The text went on to use some foul language ...  I am not sure if I should respond or just not engage.
If I do respond how?
Thank you

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[FaithHopeLove]

Hi Anitalyn
Welcome to the group. I am glad you found us. Getting nasty messages from children of any age is very painful
 Many of us parents, myself included, have been the recipients of them. Maybe others will weigh in with their ideas
 As for me I would not respond.

[Blueskyday]

Hey, so sad to hear at 50 she hasn't mellowed.

My advice is do nothing, say nothing.
You need time to heal.
Let the dust settle for a while

[Anitalyn]

Thank you for your support.  It is very painful and I appreciate the advice.  I have not responded.  I don't want to get into a war of words or reward bad behavior.  It helps hearing from others that have experienced the nasty text.
Again thank you for your support

[Huat]

Hello Anitalyn and welcome

For many years I, too, have been the recipient of hurtful letters/emails from my daughter who is now 53.  I used to respond, try to make sense out of what she would write but that just made the threads get longer and longer...no resolve.  No more!

I have come a long, long way since I sent in my first post to this forum.  No longer is my happiness dependent on what is happening with my daughter.  I have a life.  Many lessons have I learned while participating here and one of the most important has been not to...JADE.  That is...not to Justify - Argue - Deny  - Explain...when the arrows fly.  I will not add fuel to her fire.

Our problems with her started when she was just 12 and it was about that time that she decided to use the written word to hurl her abuse.   Her letters would be pages and pages long...her emails now need scrolling and scrolling (if I want to read them). My husband and I have shared a rocky relationship with her over the years.  I have lost track at how many times she has cut us out of her life...the lives of our grandchildren.   This current period of estrangement has reached the 3-year mark.  Sadly she lives within a mile of us and we live in a smaller community so always the possibility our paths will cross.  Even that I can handle now.

So, Anitalyn, I know your hurt.  My advice to you is not to respond to this kind of correspondence.   Perhaps a cooling off period followed, after whatever period of time, a card...something light...nothing to let her think you are wanting a reply.  Don't set yourself up for disappointment by expecting one.

Always nice to connect with someone who walks in similar shoes.  Hope you continue on...sharing as much or as little as you like as you start to make the changes needed for your better tomorrows.  I don't cry anymore.

Huat

[Resiliant]

Thanks to everyone on this post.  I was waiting to see what the responses would be as I was curious to see what everyone had to say because I deal with this all the time, and like Huat used to do I keep trying to respond and trying not to JADE.   I did at one point last year block my son for awhile but I have unblocked him and decided to "let him vent".   After reading the advice from all of you I think that I will only respond to nice texts from now on.  I can't heal his old hurts that he is obsessing over.  I wish I could but it's impossible.  And I agree that I don't want to reward bad behaviour.    I will say though that one thing that has helped me "hear" my son in a much better way is to listen to his texts from my vehicle. When I get over 30 texts at once it's like UGH!  I want to lay on the floor ! I don't want to read this!  But it is amazing and refreshing how much better everything sounds coming from the neutral voice tone reading them out and I can get what he is saying.  The best part is at the end when she says in a sing-song voice "do you want to respond?"  LOL