Help and empathy needed please feeling fragile.

[NChangenowp]

I have messed up very badly. Please be kind. I'm devastated. I sent some very rude messages about my daughter's best friend to my daughter privately. She dropped her friends phone so lent her friend her own phone. Friend and family have seen my messages. Daughter also did some. And husband. Mine were the worst. I cannot excuse it. I'm not in good place. I have apologised deeply. I am extremely ashamed. I never did this as a teen. I can't believe I've done now. I think I've destroyed her friendships and mine with the mothers. I cannot believe this. I have had the menopause. It's no excuse. I said the girl was vile. And I do t actually mean it. I was annoyed by the teen rebellion the time on small things. And she made some unpleasant comments. But vile is very strong. Has anyone forgiven anyone that's done anything like this? I'm devastated. I've written an extensive and honest deep apology. Please help. I'm destroyed. I can't believe I've been sucked into teen angst.

OP your level of distress is really a bit odd. What are you getting out of all this self flaggelation?

It's not ok to call your daughter's best friend vile.
You can say, she's obviously very stressed or in a bad place right now. Try and see some other friends until she is felling a bit better.

It's a head scratcher. I'm guessing that what the OP said was far far worse than 'vile'. That's the only explanation for the major fall out and self loathing.

OP, beating yourself up and catastrophising over this won't help. Just accept what happened and remember your daughter's friend was snooping on your private texts.
You were entitled to your opinion at the time and that this was how you felt 4 months ago because her behaviour was awful. No doubt things will blow over between the girls and soon they will be on to the next drama!

I said she's vile. I said she has no friends for long. It's horrible.

It's is a bad situation.
I am also seeing the worst and I'm beating myself up continuously.
She was snooping. But if I hadn't written it there would be nothing to snoop on.

That's true. But you can't be that mean. Vile is just so horrible.

Nothing but I can't stop.

We were finally over 5 years of teen moods. 2 of Covid. 3 of teens. And now I hurl a hand grenade in. WTF. This is just years of more stress ahead.

You're allowed to feel this way, and you're allowed to say it. People call other people vile all the time. You insist that it's not ok; what rules are you living by? If you're talking about it being disrespectful, then she's been more disrespectful by reading private messages.

You need to put down your phone and seek help in real life. That probably sounds harsh, but I don't mean it to be. If I'm understanding correctly, you've had a long and difficlt road with your DD so that is probably impacting your view here.

Can you seek outside spport - can you access therapy? I really feel you woul dbenefit.

Behave yourself. They were bitching in private about someone!! It happens.

Is vile really all you said? That's not as catastrophic as you're making it out to be, teenage girls CAN be vile. I'm sure some of my pals mums said far worse about me when I was 16!

You're reacting as if you've said something really awful when in actuality you've just expressed a fairly mild (and from the sounds of it at least a little true) opinion about this girl. She shouldn't have been nosing through months of private messages to find it in the first place!

Now if you, your husband and daughter had a group chat where you spent hours slagging this girl off, you'd maybe be justified in feeling so upset at having been caught out. But one instance of calling a girl vile and saying she doesn't keep friends for long? It's not nice but it's hardly the world ending catastrophe you're making it out to be.

It seems odd to me that your dd lent her friend her operational phone and not the spare one.

No sixteen year old likes being parted from their phone so easily.

Was all of this a deliberate plan on behalf of your dd to embarrass you, do you think op?

It was certainly unwise to confide in your dd about her friend as if she was a fellow adult. Surely your dd has loyalty to this friend?

Whether it was deliberate or not op, I understand how awful you must be feeling. Your privacy has been breached which is a betrayal and also your poor judgement has been exposed. I understand when you say about menopause having a negative influence on our patience, thoughts and behaviour though.

I think you need to talk to your dd about this very carefully.

Edited to say: if this girl behaves in a vile way in public, it’s a fair bet that she behaves this way at home too. Not always but usually. So while no parents like their dc being criticised, they may be more understanding of your comment than you realise.

Enough with the hyperbolic language, no one died.
If you wouldn't forgive the other way round then I don't know why you'd expect any different from them.
You've apologised, what else can you do? I would, however, stay out of your daughter's friendships in future. It's odd you were so involved and even weirder that your DH joined in.

You need to model how to cope with upset and problems for your daughter's sake. If you catastrophise and berate yourself for years over this then you will be showing your DD inappropriate ways to handle things like this.

I mean I think the word vile isn’t that bad tbh, and perhaps she was being vile.

it was intended as a private conversation between you and your daughter.

If you’ve apologised that’s all you can do, but you have to accept it’s up to the recipient if they accept it or not.

Definitely wouldn’t keep tormenting yourself though.

Agree with this but if your teens have been spikey for a while and you have been through Covid with them, which was an extremely challenging period, and things have recently improved, you don’t want to be doing anything to cause more upset.

It was five messages between Nov and april. It wasn't just one message. It wasn't a full on huge bitch fest. But equally it wasn't just 1 message.

Daughter has 2 phones. Her one and a spare. In case she drops it. It's an old one of ours. She gave her current one to her friend. Without wiping it. She's 16. She just didn't think it through.

You were indiscreet but someone reading private messages between a mother and daughter is also incredibly rude.

I think the old adage that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves is true.

Everyone involved has learned a harsh lesson.

Forget it.
In my circle dd's friends mum was caught in the toilet with another of dd's friends df at a pta ball.
That was indiscreet and led to divorce.

Eh? Why didn't she lend her friend the old spare phone? Why would she give her her own phone with all her stuff still on it.

Ok, so five messages. It's still not the end of the world unless you're leaving out something really horrible. If "vile" is the worst thing you called her it's mean but it doesn't make you an irredeemable monster and you do seem to be overreacting. They're teenagers, this will either blow over in a few months, or they'll move on and never see eachother again as they grow up which likely would have happened anyway as most teenage friendships don't survive the transition to adulthood. Relax.

I would say most of us have probably sent private messages about someone we wouldn't want them to see. It doesn't make you a shitty person.

You haven’t hurled a hand grenade in, the friend has by snooping. She should have been grateful for the phone rather than snooping. You could have said very private personal information in your private messages - she didn’t care. She was probably looking for something juicy and it backfired on her, because the dirt was actually on her.