I emailed my ex-girlfriend as a courtesy thing, asking her feelings about something so she didn't get blindsided by it later. In return I got the sort of knee-jerk anger-hurt reaction that I couldn't deal with while we were dating, and I'm having trouble dealing with now. I really, really want to respond, but I won't, for a while yet, because I'm angry, and as annoyed and tired as I am at having to be the one who can stay calm and navigate the situation...that's what I do. It can be done, so it must. Fortunately, our old friend Shantideva had similar problems (chapter 5, verse 48):
When the urge arises in the mindRight. "If all you can do is lose it, shut the hell up." (Shantideva repeats the "like a log of wood" instruction for a dozen or so different states of mind.)
To feelings of desire or wrathful hate,
Do not act! Be silent, do not speak!
And like a log of wood be sure to stay.
I dunno. When you look into it, it turns out that communication is largely a myth: even with people in the same room, we're telling stories back and forth with the versions of people we keep in our heads, and it's really, really hard to talk in a way that gets around that. So we never really know what's going on, and maybe I'm just overreacting to my perception of her overreacting.