Communication styles

[insideoutside]

So what we and my friend fell out over was his ever moving goalposts on how I could communicate with him.  

We reconnected via Facebook last August and chatted a bit on that for a few days when he gave me his number and said I was free to call him.  I chatted a bit more and he said 'take care' which surprised me so I gave him my number and said that he too was free to call me.  He later text me to say he doesn't like messaging and would rather talk on the phone.  The more we were in touch the more he opened up and would text me silly things, sometimes all day and whilst I was asleep.  This would go on for a few days when he'd suddenly get all funny about texting and be back to saying phone calls only which would last a few days then he would initiate texts again.  

This cycle has happened a fair few times and of course I didn't relate it to his illness, I just thought he was being a jerk and messing with my head.  So the last time it happened I blew up on him about it which led to the demise of our friendship.

Thinking about it he also behaved the same way towards his daughter when she emailed him instead of phoning which led to them no longer being in contact.

Has anybody else had experience of changing ways in which you could communicate with your pwBPD?  What coujd be the reasoning for this?  I thought it might be because he was scared he'd look vulnerable or say something inappropriate which obviously can be kept opposed to the spoken word. 

It did and still does confuse me.

[Mutt]

Hi izzybusy,



I can relate. I was with my exBPD for several years and she quickly attached herself to another man and left our marriage. She refused to talk to me on the phone or in person her reasoning was that there are 100 different ways to communicate other than talk.

I think that she may regret that choice today because I keep all of our communication strictly via email to keep track of our conversations in case I need for court sometime in the future. A pwBPD feel a lot of shame, guilt, low self worth and she has to be carrying a lot of shame for cheating on her husband and having a marriage fail. It's less emotional, detached to speak to each by email.

She's called for non emergencies but I refused to pick the phone and let the calls go to voicemail then if it's valid I'll correspond back by email, that's my boundary. It's upset her a couple of times that I won't pick up, it's sad that things got this way but I believe that it is more important to keep things business like and keep track of things in black, instead of he said she said.


Regards,

Mutt

[Sadly]

Hi

Mine is/was strange about emails, still is, he is very paranoid and won't commit anything much in writing as far as emails go. Deletes almost immediately any I send him. He doesn't talk much on phone either unless he really has to. His favourite is texts though the difference between using words in a text and words in an email is beyond me.