“You were friends first, so you can be friends again.”

Pretty rough breakup. My boyfriend (promise ring, talk of engagement) of almost 6 years broke up with me saying that he just needed to work on seeking help for his mental state and that being in a relationship just wasn’t working anymore. This I could respect; depression and anxiety are no joke and should be a persons TOP priority.

The day after he broke up with me, I learned that he had been lying to me about quite a few things. All the times he called me crazy for not trusting him even though he showed me time and time again that he would break my trust. Gaslighting, now that I see it. Hypocritical, because he would gripe and moan about his father doing it to his mother, and how he could see how hurt she was by those actions. Another way to gaslight me into believing him.

Anyway-

You can imagine how absolutely broken I am. I had abandonment and trust issues before (the main cause of my anxiety) that had been healing and I was FINALLY feeling secure. Learning this about the person who claimed to love me, to be my best friend, ripped all of those wounds back open. It’s been an extremely tough 3 months.

I’m trying to learn to trust others again, as well as trying to learn to trust my own judgement. Make no mistake. Getting over him, missing him and what I thought we had, was easy enough. The person I cared for was a lie, and it’s easy to see that he isn’t the one for me when he deliberately chose to do me wrong this way. It’s the wounds that need healing that are causing my pain- I’m so angry at him for choosing to make these decisions that would hurt me, to lie up until the very end (even when we were over and I confronted him about them) knowing that these were so extremely important things to me. When given the choice to be honest and kind, he chose to lie and gaslight.

We share a friend group, and the guy im talking to now mentioned that me having a friendly relationship with my ex is important to him. So that if we were to hang out, things wouldn’t be tense. And he keeps saying, “you were friends before so..” this feels... unfair? To me and my healing. To my feelings. I can wish him the best and move on with my life, but I do not have to forgive him. I have a right to heal however I need to, and part of that means accepting the anger against him, due to the pain and hurt that his deliberate actions caused.

I find myself extremely lucky that I WANT to move forward and at least have a tolerable relationship with him, as acquaintances. I don’t want to hate this person forever, but by no means do I think I can trust him, let alone go back to “being friends” like people keep telling me I should. Why should I be friends with someone who so blatantly chose to hurt me? I can move on, wish him the best in life, sort through the negative emotions in me, without completely disregarding the pain that he inflicted. I was not perfect by any means, and I did my best to make amends on my wrongdoings and genuinely grow from my mistakes. Whether it painted me in a good or bad light, I was truthful.

Is this selfish of me? I think maybe? But also, isn’t this little bit of selfishness something i owe myself? There is a huge difference between being friends, and being friendly. I can be friendly to someone who did me wrong. I will hold no ill will toward them, can have them in my presence and act friendly and nice. But to be friends like we were previously?

That isn’t another person’s decision to make. It comes on MY time. And it becomes whatever kind of relationship I WANT it to be. If I want to pretend nothing ever happened, that’s fine and we can be friends. But in order to grow, to give myself love, I have to realize that that just might not happen. It may forever stay just tolerating each other’s presence for the sake of our friends, putting on fake smiles and finding our happiness elsewhere.

Thanks for letting me rant. If you would like to drop advice, a question, relatable situation or would also like to rant, please feel free.