Be Honest with me

I wrote about lies recently. I was talking to someone when she said, "I finally told them how it really made me feel." I got to thinking about that and about how I seem to lie sometimes by what I don't do or say.

If we go to everyone but the one that we think is hurting us and say we are hurt by them, telling others what a hurtful thing the other person did, what are we showing the third person about ourselves? What have we told them about a friend?

It wasn't a very pretty thought but I seem to do it easily. It's much easier to go to an uninvolved person and say you are upset than it is to say some things to those we love if we think it might hurt them - or hurt us to say it.

But have we hurt that friendship by not giving it all the truth as we see it? By not saying. "you have upset me", have I created a weak place between us; like thin ice under thick snow? You are not going to see it until it gives way under you. Did trying to not hurt you by not saying how I really felt create a flaw between us?

What good is done by holding a hurt inside ourselves that we feel was given to us by another? "I didn't want to hurt them", seems like a good reason to keep it to ourselves. But that hurt grows inside us and we add more as they come along. When the whole thing blows up on us we wonder what went wrong.

Was it that someone we spoke to told our friend we were upset? Were they hurt that we were afraid to tell them there was a problem? They can't bring it to us or they betray the one that told them.

My, that got complicated. But that is the way it seems it goes. One little bit of dishonesty just grows and becomes a wedge in between us. Then we end up short a good friend.

Maybe it doesn't get said to anyone. We just hold that small hurt to ourselves. It seems we always wonder then why the other person can't see we have a problem. They are supposed to notice we are upset - but NOT telling them - about it. Then we hurt more because they don't notice we hurt and that hurt grows inside us. Don't they care?

We start seeing the other as uncaring and unloving when they just can't read minds! They may not be able to see the subtle clues that say we have a problem. They may see them but because we have said nothing they think it's just work or stress from something else. They might even try to be nicer to us not knowing we are upset with them.

It's not easy to say to a friend, "that hurts me". They may not understand why it does but if you don't tell them they can't help you see all the way around the hurt to understand it.

If you are willing to see it from their side you might find out that not only did they not mean to hurt you but there isn't any problem because you see why they did or said what they did. It doesn't hurt when you understand it, at least, I don't think it hurts as much.

I learn you were disappointed in me because I left without saying good bye - because you told me - I can say I looked for you but couldn't find you, I'm sorry. Then you can remember you were in the bathroom and go -"Oh, darn, it was just timing!"

You know I didn't do it to hurt you. I couldn't tell you I cared enough to look for you if you didn't tell me it bothered you. It really was just the timing of your need to go and mine...so to speak. No harm meant on either side.

Maybe I had the thought you were avoiding me. If I didn't tell you I felt like that I might go on thinking you were upset with me for days. I was thinking you were mad about something and you were just in the bathroom at the time.

It can go either way in any situation. To keep the love between us always working for us we have to trust each other enough to be honest. We have to know that, in our love for each other, we will both try to understand how the other sees it.

You might hurt me saying something to me but I can deal with pain. At my age I have gotten kind of used to screwing up things in life.

What I can't bear is the thought I did something that would make you not be my friend. Please bring it to me so we can look at it together and see if it can be fixed. Maybe you can see it differently or maybe I can do it different next time.

But if we never tell each other of it then it just hurts the "us" of our friendship invisibly. It's one more reason I see to believe that because something is invisible does not mean it is not "real".

Of course this is only the way I see it. You may see it another way.