Constantly offending Mum by text

[Ginger1982]

I don't know. It must be me. I'm in my mid 30s, Mum in her mid 60s and we generally communicate by text daily. For whatever reason, I always seem to say something that she takes completely the wrong way and half the time I don't even realise until I ask if everything's ok and she says that, actually, she thought my last text was a bit out of order. So I'll read said text back and she's taken something out of it that just isn't what I meant!

Is it a generational thing or am I just a very poor texter? Do other people find this??

It’s difficult to convey tone via text. What sort of things is she taking offence at?

Just don’t text her then! Some people do just take a negative slant - DH always says ‘what’s wrong??’ when I answer the phone.

Well texts do tend to be shorthand, and they are received without any body language, facial expression, or tone of voice.

That said, if someone close were texting me, I would expect them not to be being offensive, so, if I read something as such, I'd take another look and see if it could be read another way. If it still sounded odd, I'd ask them what they meant.

If this happens regularly though, just phone her, not text.

My DH can seem very off during texts and I usually don’t text him because of it, would it be better if you just called her?

Can you give an example?

Are you quite blunt/direct in your communications? A lot of people are very affectionate when texting with people they are close to, using pet names/being a bit OTT basically to convey familiarity and warmth.

I think it can be generational for some people, my mum does not get on with social media, she gets so offended by everything and reads into things waaaay too much. I'm not exaggerating, if I posted pictures of my children she would take a mental note of who hasn't liked it and take it as a snub! Thankfully she recognised this and come off it! She's better in text but I'd bet she'd struggle in a group whatsapp or the like.

I think it's more my tone that she misreads. Like if I was to put an exclamation mark she would think I was shouting at her or she wouldn't get if I was being sarcastic. It's obviously an easy way to communicate but just sometimes I end up having to explain myself and apologise for the way she's taken things.

Voice note her instead, then there can be no confusion about your tone of voice, buts it’s just as easy as texting and without the time commitment of a phone call.

Unless you send her messages with vast amounts of hearts and smiley emojis, it sounds like reading intent behind text isn't her forte.

It's very frustrating when somebody seems almost compelled to misread everything you write (or say), but the only way to do it is be 100% clear, no jokes, no sarcasm, absolutely polite/voicecall them.

If you use WhatsApp send a voice message instead

Do you use emojis? I think they help soften the tone a lot.
I think sarcasm is best avoided. Even light irony can go wrong in a text.