When emails go awry

An acquaintance of mine has both:

a) a common name, and
b) an old gmail account, so he actually got to used his first initial and last name as his address, unlike the rest of us who had to append random characters to ours until it took. Stupid early adopters.

Anyway, as a result of this, he gets misdirected emails on a fairly regular basis, intended for someone with the same name or a similar name. Usually, he just clicks "delete," but this one was too good not to respond to. The regular text is the original email, I wrote the italicized text. I'm not sure at what point, if any, she picked up on the fact that it wasn't her significant other responding, and the irony of her actions may escape her entirely.


I’ve put my responses in italics below. Thanks for listening.

Look Tim, we have a lot to sort out between the two of us to make things work. I see them all as seperate issues but they probably wouldn't be issues at all if we both learned to communicate effectively and worked together on them. Granted mostly I know I need to learn to communicate better, but I'm sure we both could work on this area. I feel that it's really how each of us handles the information recieved from each other that seems to be the problem, if we could somehow work on that then maybe we would feel more comfortable about sharing how we feel about things. So, overall I know we both need to work on communicating and working together and if we could somehow pull that off than all the other issues we have probably would be solved or at least managable.

I completely agree. Communication is the cornerstone of any relationship. I can understand just how important the details are – it’s so easy to send the wrong message, or even inadvertently send the wrong message by not saying anything. Even things as basic as misspelling and poor grammar can undermine a message. Sometimes, it’s even as if we’re talking to a totally different person than we thought we were.

#1 being the budget and our financial situation: so, I'm assuming (because I asked and you never responded) that that was what you were annoyed about with me today.?. I'm trying to stick to the budget this month, but it's very difficult with christmas and my check being short and not having cash (because I suck at keeping track of my spending otherwise). But I'm trying. I know you're discouraged but please give me a chance....starting in Jan. it will be much easier and I will be strict and abide by the budget plan we've decided upon. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to go on a spending spree this month either (unneccessarily). Ok? so we should talk about this because I can change, I can save, and I'm excited about the budget too.

I think this is the communication issue rearing its head again. I know you say you’re committed to a budget, but everything you say is about how certain expenses are outside the budget. When you say one thing and do another, it’s hard to give what you say any weight. I know I can be guilty of the same thing – I’m sure you feel sometimes like you are talking to a whole other person than you had the initial discussions with.

#2 We definitely need to sit down and discuss; work together on how we are going to enforce certain rules that Sophia needs to learn to follow and just in general how we are going to handle situations involving her and later Kai just so we're both on the same page. .....and I don't mean that I'm going to make the rules, I mean that we both share our ideas and come to some sort of agreement on them, so Sophia isn't guessing. Because she's def. at the age where she's trying to see what she can get away with and with whom she can get away with certain things, which if we don't figure this out now she will try and turn us against each other. Ok, so realistically I know all these things are situational....but I think getting her on more of a set routine without bending the rules would help and not talking about things in front of her may be a good place to start. So, what do you think??

Boundaries are important. And again, it goes back to the communication issue. I don’t really see how we can be successful at any of this if you can’t address me directly, and I can’t address you, even by email.

Of course we're hardly alone without the kids but anyway maybe after they go to sleep.... (just so you know, I'm not putting blame on you, I'm speaking in terms of both of us, I'm just as guilty of all of these things). It's just I know neither one of us want our kids to grow up as spoiled, snobby kids.

I think that if we can really find a way to talk about this – where I’m really communicating with you, and you with me, I think it will sort itself out.

I think at the moment these are the most pressing issues for me, feel free to add to the list though I love you, and I love our family. So, sorry about today (or yesterday)....

Just so you know, I have no reason to question your commitment to the relationship. It’s just a communication barrier – sometimes I think that even with all the additional ways to communicate that modern technology creates, there’s even more potential for things like emails to go awry.