It's about forgiveness

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey all, got kind-of a quandry, need some help.

About three and a half years ago, I had a brief romantic stint with a good friend whom I’ve had romantic leanings towards for over a decade. I was really in heaven. The problem is, I saw a lot more in it than she did, and, to be frank, she was very damaged goods and had a psychological predeliction to total sabotage of relationships.
Long story short, the break-up happened after she decided to have sex with someone a few feet away from me while she thought I was asleep.

Fortunately / unfortunately, we’re both part of the exact same social circle, which is very tightly knit. We’ve hung out together ‘in group’, and even once or twice by ourselves. To the best of my knowledge, she’d gotten on with her life, I remained pretty devistated.

She’s started going out with another guy from the group, and they seem both pretty serious and pretty happy (I give the relationship another 2-3 months before he proposes). One part of me is glad they’re enjoying themselves. They are, after all, my friends. On the other side, a part of me wants her to suffer like I did.

I haven’t told her that in so many words, but I think she understands that. We’ve recently started an email dialogue (mainly because we’re both terrible with face-to-face ‘serious’ conversation). She has a self-blame thing over it, and I, being kind-of white-knight-ish, immediately colapse any resolve when she starts beating herself over it.

I told her today that I really -do- want to forgive her. Not for her, but for me. I want to move beyond this. I don’t want to feel uncomfortable whenever we’re hanging out together. I’m completely unsure how to do it, though. I really -want- to forgive her, but so far I just haven’t been able to.

Any advice would be helpful.

2

I am not very good at relationship stuff, but nobody else has tried so far…

Sometimes two people will just not be comfortable together, either because of natural differences, or because of their history.

SInce your relationship collapsed, she has recovered far more than you. Your natural reaction to her guilt is to be sympathetic, but you also rightly feel she hurt you badly.
I don’t think this is going to work well for the forseeable future, and perhaps you need to widen your social circle. In particular, you could easily fall out with her current boyfriend.

Hope this helps!

3

What glee said and I’d just like to add… you’ll probably find it easier to move on once you are involved in a serious relationship with someone. Until then, avoid her when you can and knock off the white night stuff. It doesnt’ help you and it only serves to help her overcome any guilt she may feel over her clearly questionable actions. And anyway, who says you have to forgive all transgressions against you?

4

Forgiveness: A stratgem to thow an offender off his guard and catch him red-handed in his next offense. Ambrose Bierce.
:slight_smile:
Seriously, you have have reached a critical couple of steps on the Path to Being a Big Person:

  1. Realizing that wishing shadefreude upon someone else is really never going to happen it never does. and if it does, it is never ever worth the wait. and wasting not only your time but taking up loads of free rent inside your brain.

  2. Searching for a way to let it go and even asking for assistance. It makes you a better person in some way. It take tremendous courage to ask for help in such personal matters. Opening yourself up like is a very vunerable position.

As the poet of our times, Will Smith said, “Hate in your heart will consume you.”
Hope this helps.

5

Yes! Now how the heck do I actually -do- it?!

Cool quote. Where’s it from?

6

ArrMatey! wrote

First thing is to end this email thread with her immediately.

The thing is, you don’t need to forgive her, in fact perhaps you shouldn’t. You just need to stop thinking about it and get it out of your life. Perhaps that means getting her out of your life. I mean, honestly why do you want her in your life?

7

His song, " Just the two of us." off a disney CD. :slight_smile:

8

Okay, well, the problem with just giving up is twofold. First of all, I -want- to mend fences. I don’t want to run away from this; I’d rather keep her as a friend. Secondly, she and I are both deeply imbedded in our social circle. To divorce myself from her (so to speak) would mean divorcing myself from pretty much -all- my other friends.

And I guess third: Hi Opal.

So I need advice for the psychological end of things: The ability to forgive, which it seems I’m having great difficulty summoning up.

9

It sounds like you still have some grieving to do at the loss of this relationship. You still sound really angry at her, and until you resolve this, you’ll never get over this.

To be frank, maybe you’ll never quite forgive her - and that’s reasonable to me. But what you do need to is accept it happened, accept that she does feel some regret, and move on.

Talk about it to people who you can trust, avoid her if that helps, remind yourself that a) it wasn’t you that drove her to this action, and b) you’ll find someone in the future that treats you the way you want to be treated. Remind yourself that it was in the past, and you are moving on - visualising this can help you move towards it.

Fill up your life with other people who can help you learn to trust again - she’s done a lot of damage here, and this is actually harder to deal with long term than the short term anger/hurt at her. Don’t let this relationship ruin future ones.

It’s always going to hurt a little bit - but don’t let it dictate your life.

10

Maybe this quote will help you understand why you want revenge instead of forgiveness:

So what you are doing is not rational. Your concern is not remaining in the group, but in getting back at her. Your email sessions are an attempt to maneuver her into being vulnerable. I’m not sure what her reasons are except maybe “catch me if you can.” Does her new SO know about the emailing?

11

Forgiveness or letting go will not happen overnight or in one big “om” moment .

It happens little by little and one day, you realize you haven’t thought about it 978 times that day and the next day only 375 times. Until you realize you went a week without voluntarily bringing up that blackspot in your life and it hasn’t hovered over your soul like a cloud of that is pissing down on you.

But it will rear it’s ugly head from time to time and it isn’t anything you really can control - the human brain and psyche - is a wonderfully complex thing. Just when you think it’s gone and you are oh-so-happy- BAMMMMM! a thought trickles in at the worst time possible making you go , “Why is that coming up now? I was so happy…now I am miserable and how could I let that happen to me and I was such a wuss/pussy about it all and why didn’t I do this or that?” etc, etc, etc.

It’s not that your brain hates you, it is testing you on your humaness and to see if you have learned whatever Life Lesson you needed to learn from this episode.
It probably hurts so bad because you had such dreams about this woman and how wonderful she was. Then you got to know her and the dream shattered. You just might be dealing with the hurt of your judgement being so far off about this person you thought you knew so well. In a way you were doubly back stabbed: one by her behavior and the other by your judgement failing you. (which in fairness was probably off since you were so deeply horn doggie/cow eyed after her for over 10 years.