The 7 texts EVERYONE regrets sending: TRACEY COX reveals the roll call of shame – including the 3am message to an ex and the ‘petty screenshot’ to prove your point – and how to undo the damage

Our phones provide great enjoyment but also get us in a hell of a lot of trouble. Who hasn’t fired off a text at midnight that felt like a great idea at the time, then broke out into a cold sweat re-reading it the next morning?

Drunk texting, angry texting, ex texting and inappropriate sexting, some texts are so universally regretted, they deserve their own wall of shame. Here’s seven we can ALL relate to… 

THE 3AM EX TEXT

It’s sent in the early hours because you’ve spent the last three looking at old photos, re-reading texts and reliving the relationship. 

Fuelled by alcohol and loneliness, it says things like ‘Remember how good we were?’, ‘I miss you’ and ‘Do you ever think about us?’.

I had an on-off boyfriend that I’d get back with every single time I was single and drunk. I’d open one eye every time I had a hangover, look at my phone and, yep, there it was. The text that started up a sweet but never-going-to-work relationship.

Ex texts are long, emotional and rambling, sent to either reignite the relationship or get a satisfying closure.

The result? Often a ‘read’ tick and nothing. If they’re kind and you’re lucky, you might get, ‘That was unexpected. Thanks. Hope you’re doing OK.’

Far, far worse, though, is an overexcited reply sent seconds after you passed out saying, ‘Yes, yes, I think about you all the time! Call me!!!!!’ from someone you really hurt and don’t miss one iota in the cold hard light of day.

‘I’d spent years trying to get over a woman who really hurt me and seemed to take delight in it. It still irked me after all that time. One night, drunk, I decided to let her have it and told her how much I’d loved her and how much she hurt me. It was designed to make her feel bad but did the opposite.

My text was screens long. Her reply just said, ‘I’m so sorry you still can’t move on. I’m married with a child, what’s it going to take? She would have dined out on that for months.’

THE WRONG PERSON TEXT

It’s meant for your hot new girlfriend, but you send it to your boss. Or you’re bitching about your boss and send the text to them, rather than the workmate. That rant about your terrible mother-in-law sails off to her phone rather than your wife’s.

Is there anything worse than that moment when you hit send and then realise what you’ve done?

‘I was having an affair and having a quick coffee near the hotel where I was about to meet the woman. I sent two texts. One saying, ‘I’ll be there in five. Tell me you’re lying naked on the bed waiting for me.’ The other saying, ‘How did you get on with the dentist? Hope not too painful. Love you always darling’. Both went to the wrong person.

The first call I got was from my mistress shouting at me saying I’d lied. (I told her there was no love between me and my wife.) The second was from my wife saying, ‘There’s nothing you can say to explain this so don’t bother coming home’.

THE ANGRY TEXT

Some things should never be said out loud in a relationship – but written is even worse. Fired off when emotions are high, the angry text says the unsayable: insults their family, ridicules something they told you in a vulnerable moment, threatens something or someone who shouldn’t be. 

The idea is to hurt as much as you do in that moment – and boy does it work.

Trouble is, even if you resolve the argument, the text is still sitting there, screenshotted and ready for them to look at whenever they doubt you.

Thanks to the ‘delete sent text’ function, it can be possible to contain the damage, if the recipient isn’t looking at their phone when you send it. But seeing a long line of ‘deleted’ messages only ever means one thing: they were nasty or inappropriate.

‘My husband is a nice man but was no help at all with our first baby. I’d watch his life carry on, unchanged, while mine morphed into a sleep-deprived, over-whelming, stressful mess. 

‘One night, I sat by the bed watching him sleep, undisturbed, while I breastfed, exhausted after having had about four hours sleep in three days. 

‘I sent him a text that said ‘When and if you ever have to time or interest, I’d really appreciate some f****** help here. You were the one that wanted the baby. 

‘Get off your lazy a*** and act like a REAL father would.’ I was right to kick off but I’d never even told him I was unhappy or that I needed help. I woke up in the morning to find him confused and really upset. It worked but it wasn’t the right way to deal with it.’

THE TOO MUCH OR TOO SOON SEX TEXT

Sex is a funny thing: what people get aroused by in the moment is very different to how they feel about it sexually sober. 

Admiring his penis in person is one thing, getting a full screen photo of it texted at midday, when you’re showing your Mum something on your phone, is quite another.

I always advise people to keep sexting tame and tasteful at the start, until you know each other’s no-go zones. Ignore at your peril.

THE HAPPY DRUNK CONFESSION TEXT

Alcohol strips away all filters and suddenly you’re texting your boss to say how hot they are or telling your best friend’s ex you always fancied them. 

Declaring love, suggesting moving in together or hinting at marriage, drunk texts often leap way ahead of where the relationship is with the person you’re sending them to.

What feels like a bit of a laugh or ‘I should tell them this, it’s a nice thing’ six wines in, can backfire spectacularly when sober. ‘I was drunk and didn’t mean it’ doesn’t get you out of jail because everyone knows you did, at least a little bit. The truth always comes out when someone’s drunk, right?

‘I’d been dating this girl for a while but had no idea where I stood with her. Neither of us were letting on anything and we certainly hadn’t said ‘I love you’. 

‘I went out drinking with some mates and decided to speed things up a bit, so sent her a text that said, ‘I know it’s only been six months, but I know you’re the one. I want to marry you and have kids with you. I love you so much, it’s stupid. If this is weird, just ignore it but I wanted you to know.’ 

‘She read it immediately and did as instructed: ignored it. We had two more awkward dates before she ended things. I think of her often and wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t sent that’

THE PETTY ‘PROOF’ TEXT

Sending a screenshot of someone’s text – either back to the person to prove your point or to a friend to show what a terrible person they are – feels justified in the moment. Sometimes it is. Women do it all the time, especially if they’re getting mixed messages in a relationship.

Send one too many, once too often though, and it quickly tips over into making you look either obsessed or petty about something that really isn’t worth it.

‘I had one Whatsapp group with a large group of friends and another with my core friends. 

‘I really disliked one of the women on the large group and was always sending screenshots of her stupid comments to my close friend group. 

‘I thought I was being funny until my friends did an intervention and told me it ‘wasn’t a good look’ and ‘made them feel uncomfortable’. I’ve never felt such shame and embarrassment.’

THE HONEST TEXT

Whether it’s to your workmates, your boss, your partner, friends or in-laws, giving a totally honest reply when someone asks your opinion seems like the right thing to do. But it nearly always isn’t.

Just as ‘You know I always tell you the truth…’ always precedes someone about to be exceptionally rude, is it ever helpful to tell someone you like or love that their idea/hair-cut/clothes/book idea/speech isn’t very good? No-one really wants ‘honest feedback’ – they want praise.

‘My best friend was getting married and sending me lots of things she wanted my opinion on. She sent me a photo of a wedding dress that was, quite frankly, hideous. 

‘I sent back laughing emojis and a ‘vomit’ one with a text saying ‘Over my dead body’. She wrote back to say she’d bought it and was wearing it no matter what I thought. 

‘We smoothed it over, but I hate that I made her feel self-conscious in something she really loved on a day that she was meant to feel special.’

Visit traceycox.com for more info and advice from Tracey.