Moving on and forgiving…
July 4, 2013
I have thought long and hard about how to handle things with my ex friend who I feel hurt me so badly. I thought about sending her an e-mail, from what I have heard from others, that is what she expects. She even ended her e-mail to with “And I know you, I know you will respond to this by attacking me but I don’t care.”
Well, I didn’t. I told her to take care and have a great day and left it alone. Since then, she has been bad mouthing me to other friends and trying to stir up trouble. My guess is that she is trying to draw me out so that I will either “Attack” her and show everyone that she was right, or that she feels guilty and wants to talk but has too much pride to apologize. Even if she did apologize, I would forgive her but our friendship is over, she burned that bridge and then blew up the remains of it with dynamite lol.
For this reason, I have decided that I will not send her an e-mail; I will not play into her hands and allow myself to be dragged into her drama and fall victim to her head games. I know how this scenario would play out; I have done it many times. She turns on me, tells me that I am the one to blame, then I end up begging for forgiveness and have to spend my time graveling and being her whipping boy in order to get back into her good graces, which is something I have never achieved. AS I lay in bed last night and thought about everything, I have come to realize that she was long gone before this last fight ever happened, she was just looking for an excuse and the incident with my son was the last nail in the proverbial coffin. Still, I have so much that I want to say to her, to let her know how I feel. I don’t think I can move on until I get it off my chest. I decided though instead of telling her directly and possibly just adding fuel to the fire, that I would write it out in my blog. She will never see it, but I will feel better for having gotten it out and off my chest. Therefore, if she was standing right in front of me and I had the chance to tell her what I want to say, this is what I would say to her:
“You have no idea how badly you have hurt me. You told me that we were best friends and that you loved me. You said that you would stand by me through anything, even through my depression and mental problems; you said that was what friends do. I gave you the chance to leave early on, I explained to you how my depression affects me, how I can have rocky days and then great days but that it’s so unpredictable. Still, you assured me that you would be there. I asked you once to come to me if you had any doubts about me. If someone told you something about me that was upsetting, come to me first before you jumped to conclusions. I told you that I would never lie to you but you lied to me. I did nothing to you, you took the word of a 14 year old boy and ended our friendship on something that was based on lies and anger. You never came to me, never asked me for my side of the story, never told me that you were angry and what’s worse, you told a bunch of our mutual friends about my personal business when I wanted it to be private. How do you think it made me feel to have people come to me and ask me what happened, when I had no idea that you even knew anything about it to begin with. I was told by these other people why you were upset with me, why you deleted and blocked me and that you no longer wanted me in your life. You didn’t e-mail me until after I had found out about it through our friends. I think the only reason that you did e-mail me was because you were angry that I told someone that what happened was none of your business and that you had no right to talk about it with other people without coming to me first. I was shocked when you told me it was your business when my son comes to you and tells you about what happened. What made you even think you had a right to give advice to MY teenage son? You crossed the line there and I hope you realize that. You told me that I had a hard time believing that there were people that cared about me, you said that my suspicions were all in my head and that you didn’t know what to do or say to make me see that you cared. Then you distanced yourself from me. You talked about me behind my back and you constantly criticized me and made me feel like shit. I was so blind to think that this was a healthy relationship because now I see that all the problems I had that you complained about, you directly contributed to, and you were the one that caused my depression and my distress. You made me not trust you by not being trust worthy. You told me that if I was deep in a dark whole that you would throw down a rope and all I had to do was reach for it, but that rope never came. Instead, you just started shoveling dirt on top of my head then walked away because I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself up out of my own grave. You told me that this was my fault because I push people away and I refuse to try to get better. Unfortunately, you never saw how good I was really doing. All you did was dwell on the negativity, you couldn’t see the forest for the trees. When I tried to distance myself from your negativity and explained to you why, and what it was that was upsetting me, you turned your back on me and claimed that I offended you and really hurt you. Maybe it did hurt for me to say that, but at least I spoke the truth. I don’t feel angry with you now though, I feel sorry for you actually. I am able to turn now, walk away, and only feel the smallest bit of pity for you because I realize now that you are the one who pushes people away from you. Through your controlling personality, your suspicions, your anger and your inability to see the good in people, you have pushed away the ones that really care about you. This is sad because I know how you have told me repeatedly that you were in an abusive marriage for 17 years and this has caused you to be untrusting of people. I can understand the pain you feel but the problem with this is that because of your past relationship, you won’t allow yourself to see the good in anyone and instead you only see the bad in everyone. I’ve tried to help you, I tried to boost your self esteem but you are so draining as a friend. You want to be the center of attention, you want everything to be about you, you want people to crawl on their bellies and beg for your love. You expect absolute loyalty but give nothing in return. It was exhausting having to keep complimenting you all the time, assuring you that you were beautiful, kind, generous, and caring. Then the next day you would be right back to where you were before, feeling worthless and I would have to spend the day trying to boost your confidence again. If I was having a bad day and couldn’t be there for you then you told me I wasn’t a good friend. So, I just can’t do it anymore, being your friend is too stressful and too hard. The worst thing is that I really don’t feel that bad about it, I feel more relieved than anything else. I guess that in itself speaks volumes. You told one of our mutual friends that you couldn’t understand why I was acting like nothing happened. You made it sound as though there were something wrong with me. In all honesty, I think that I just made peace with the fact that you weren’t around anymore, because really, you were never there to begin with. I thought that I needed you but I don’t, I am doing so much better without you around me. I felt obligated to be there for you, to be available and when I wasn’t around you would get angry with me, you expected too much from me when I actually have a family and a life outside of facebook and your chat room. I thought that being a moderator in your room made me special but it just made me your servant in some strange way. It gave you more power over me and it gave you a way to control me. Threatening to remove me as a host if I didn’t do what you wanted, deleting me every time I disagreed with you and only giving me my host status back when I apologized to you. I guess you learned that behavior from your ex husband.
Well, this is the last straw. I can’t keep playing your games. When you walked away from me this time, it was the last time, so I hope that it was really what you wanted because I will not give in and come back. I do forgive you and I wish you all the best, but I have to move on. I have to find a more healthy relationship with friends who actually respect me. I think in the long run you were the one that refused to help herself and pushed everyone way. I have people that do care about me, that love me and want me around and I don’t have to lie to them, talk about them, control them or make threats just to keep them around. Maybe one day you can get over the abuse that you suffered from while married, but if you never do, I guess you will continue to abuse your friends in the same way and I won’t be the last to walk away from you.”
I know that sounds harsh but as I said, I won’t actually send it to her and she doesn’t know I am on this site so there is little chance of her finding this blog. I wrote this for myself, because I needed to say these things in order to move on and forget the past. I have a much brighter future to worry about and finally I am starting to feel a little better.
