How Do You Answer a Message Written to Hurt You?

The message arrives at 11.47 pm. It is about four hundred words long.

Ayesha reads it standing in the corridor so the light will not wake her son. It says she is a pathetic mother. It says everyone at the school knows what she is like. It asks whether she was “with him” last weekend. It says she has always been selfish and that her own family thinks so.

Buried in the ninth line there is a question. Manish’s cousin is getting married on Saturday, which is her weekend. Can he take Zain?

She types three replies and deletes all three. Each began with “How dare you”.

First, does it need an answer?

The lawyer and therapist Bill Eddy developed a method for exactly this moment, and it appears in the book he wrote with Randi Kreger, Splitting. It starts with a question most of us skip.

Much hostile mail, they say, needs no reply. It is venting. It has no power unless you give it some, and answering in kind only earns you another one. You reply when there is a real question inside it, or when untrue statements may be seen by other people and need correcting.

Ayesha’s message has a real question. So she answers that, and only that. The method is called BIFF.

Brief

The more you write, the more there is to attack. A short reply also signals that you are not opening a conversation. You do not defend yourself. The authors put it kindly: you do not have to prove anything to someone who has already decided against you.

Informative

Just the facts the other person needs. If something untrue must be corrected, state what is true and leave their version alone. No sarcasm. No remarks about their character or intelligence. A personal attack, they note, has never led a high-conflict person to insight.

Friendly

This is the hardest letter. It does not mean warm. It means a civil opening and a tone that gives no fresh reason to fight. “Thanks for letting me know about the wedding” is enough.

Firm

Say your answer and close the subject. Avoid phrases that invite another round, such as “I hope you will agree”. If more messages follow, the authors suggest ignoring them, or repeating the same information in the same words.

Three things to leave out

They add a short checklist of what to cut: admonishments, advice and apologies. Each one reopens the argument.

So Ayesha’s fourth draft reads like this. “Thanks for letting me know about the wedding. Zain can go. Please collect him at 10 on Saturday and bring him home by 8 that evening.”

Look at what is missing. There is nothing about the pathetic mother. There is nothing about last weekend. She has not corrected him, scolded him or explained herself. There is also nothing in it that could embarrass her if a stranger read it aloud, which the authors say you should always assume might happen.

And if he copies in the family?

Sometimes the hostile message goes to relatives or colleagues as well. Then, the authors say, a short note to the group is worth sending. It tells them this is a private matter, that they need not get involved, and that they are welcome to ask you directly if they have questions. Then you stop.

How long did the first three drafts take her? Forty minutes. The fourth took two.