issues with a friend
i'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but i do have a lot of anxiety surrounding this situation so...
anyway, i was best friends with this guy for a few years. we ended up dating for a short time but i got too anxious for the relationship so i cut it off. fast forward to this past september and i found out he sexually assaulted two girls in the same manner and completely lied to me about it. i felt like an idiot. when i was reading about what constituted sexual assault, i found out he had been doing the same type of thing to me when we were dating. i confronted him about it and i cut off the friendship.
along with this, he tried to "apologize" to me twice but both times it ended up being more about him than me or the other girls. i told him to stop talking to me.
now i've been obsessing over this for the past 5/6 months which is how i tend to get when something is bothering me. i just have a few questions:
1. How can I forgive him? I realized recently that my forgiveness for other people usually constitutes me just not giving a shit anymore... i feel like this isn't healthy lol.
2. why do i still want to be friends with him? this is mind-boggling to me. obviously he is not a good person and our friendship is very complicated but i miss my friend. & i don't understand why.
any help is appreciated. ❤️
@lemurpatrol
I am sorry to hear you went through this. I can give you a bit of insight maybe from my personal experiences as well as close friends experiences.
1. It's not about forgiving. I think a lot of people get hung up on wanting to forgive someone's terrible actions so that it will bring peace to them, but, it won't. What he did to you is inexcusable and one can not be held accountable for actions like that if they are constantly forgiven. It's like tapping a child's hand and saying don't do that, they'll just be like well that didn't really hurt so I'll do it again because the consequence wasn't bad.
2. As strange as it seems, it sounds to me that you miss the person you thought he was. The person he wanted you to see and believe. Just remember to really keep your mind open to the facts that happened and not getting caught up in 'but he was a good person once'. Because that theory in of itself can only be broken down into two logical assumptions, either he has always been an abusive disturbed person that assaults girls. Or you have this magical gift that you turn every person you're friends with into this monster, which seems more likely to you?
I hope this helps you a bit. The best of luck!
- RosePetal