You lot are good with words, please help me out!

[Freeekedout]

My manager has sent me a very nasty email this evening and copied in the Chair of Governors. It was a bit of a character assassination 🥲 I need to acknowledge her message but I don't want to reply properly until I have spoken to my union. In the past she has accused me of being childish and rude when I've taken time to consider my response to her missives. So I need to send a holding email so she knows I've received her message and I'm seeking advice.

I have drafted "Thank you for your email. I will contact my union before sending my reply to your message."

It sounds really abrupt and I know it's going to rub her up the wrong way. I am keen to avoid making the situation worse. I will hit reply all so the Chair of Governors will also see my reply, therefore I want to sound bright and breezy, pleasant and professional even though my manager has really upset me with the hurtful comments in her email and I've spent all night being royally pissed off

Anyone got any suggestions for me? Please?! I will send the reply really tomorrow morning so that she doesn't think she's ruined my evening. Bitch Thank you

I actually sent the reply this morning rather than last night so that she didn't think I'd been pondering it all evening. Thank you for all your suggestions. I went with:

"I acknowledge receipt of your email and confirm that I have read it. I appreciate you have raised a number of points, which I will need to reflect on before I give you a reply. I will come back to you once I have had a chance to take appropriate advice."

My life is now going to be made hell for the foreseeable future, but this is something I am not prepared to back down on because I'm right and she's wrong. I have the backing of the union. Keeping my head down trying to avoid her now. I expect she's drafting another reply as I write...

Poor you, this is literally my worst nightmare.
Do get full protection from your union and keep all interactions with a witness. Don’t be on your own with her. Why do people get thrills from making people’s lives hell?
Hand hold.
Let us know how it goes.

@Hotwaterbottlelove

How about- Thank you for the views that you have shared below. I am going to take some time to reflect on the options and next steps.

This is a good response

I don't know. One minute she's really nice and the next she's gunning for you. I'm lucky that it's been a year since her last flare up. She's always got it in for somebody. My turn again now 😡

Yes this is exactly how bullies work. It’s how they discharge their toxicity. It’s awful.
I would recommend you write down EVERY thing that she does/ says to you that makes you feel small/ nervous with dates next to them.
Calmly Collect these examples over the course of several weeks. Bullies operate in a coded way which makes one off examples look innocuous but when presented at tribunal with many many examples of demoralising behaviour it is very very hard for the them to justify/ explain away their behaviour because it paints them out to be persistently unkind.

Thank you for being so kind. That's really good advice, I will do that.