Dear Bella:

Regarding your previous post, you wrote: “When I said he lashed out, it was the remark he made about me finding a new boyfriend”. This remark is not lashing out. It is my understanding that you magnify a person’s anger, seeing a minimally expressed annoyance as an aggressive display, a lashing out. This alone, on your part, cannot allow a healthy relationship with a man, any man.

Regarding what his brother told you: if what he told you was true, it may mean that your ex boyfriend hold in a whole lot of anger, tries to not express it, until he does, in a final kind of goodbye way.

Basically the two of you have trouble with anger: you don’t allow him to express any of it and he doesn’t express it adequately. He doesn’t assert himself. He came into the relationship with you uncomfortable with his anger and you came into the relationship with him uncomfortable with his anger.

Now you feel angry at him, angry that he left you without expressing his anger beforehand, anger that you discouraged him from expressing all along.

anita