Dear Jolene:

Your thread shows how important honest, clear, straightforward communication is, or could be. Without such, you end up confused, not understanding what is happening or what happened.

He did not communicate with you honestly, clearly. So you were left with your assumptions, not knowing what was happening.

You wrote: “Then things shifted. He began to be a bit hostile with me. Blunt, rude…but I didn’t really think much of it”- his hostility was his communication with you, not clearly as in telling you something like: I am angry at you because…, but there it is, his aggression. You ignored it, didn’t think much of it. At this point we have his lack of honest, clear, straightforward communication to you and you ignoring his aggression and the slowing down of his contacting you.

You wrote: “Occasionally I would try and discuss friendship with him and the state of our friendship and that seemed to aggravate him. He would avoid the topic or say everything was great”- it was a good initiative, on your part, to talk about the state of your friendship. Consistent with his behavior throughout your share, he was not honest, clear and straightforward. He got angry. And so, you did not get information from him. Depending on how you define friendship, this may not have been a friendship at all.

You wrote: “He would tell me things like he cared about me, wanted me to reach out to him for comfort, that he wished he had known that we were home at the same time…”- this is most unfortunate. So far he was dishonest by avoiding topics, not sharing, that is, dishonest by omission. When he told you those things he was dishonest by commission.

I suppose you believed that he meant it when he said these things above, trusted him for telling you the truth, that he missed you and so on. You held on to these words of him and ignored his rudeness, and later, him avoiding you when you were back home.

He wasn’t clear with you, dishonest by omission and by commission and you ignored evidence that pointed out to his lack of honesty, his lack of being reliable or trustworthy.

When people do not communicate to us honestly and clearly, it does not mean we are stuck being confused until and if they make things clear for us. We can gather information from such people’s behavior regardless. When a person is rude to you, there is information in that. If a person does not share why they are rude, saying everything is great, like he did, doesn’t mean that everything is indeed great.

I hope you learn all you can learn from this experience and share what it is that you can learn.

anita