Truth Challenge: Day 3

Day 3: Something you have to forgive yourself for.

I tend to try to let go of regrets. I make my mistakes, do the best I can to correct them if I can, and then I move on. I don’t like having things haunt me so I do my best to let things go. Than being said, I had a situation last year that I didn’t handle the right way. It was a really complicated situation, but basically a friend did something really wrong, and I called him out on it, but not to his face. I went above his head because at the time I didn’t think I had another choice, and it ended with mediation. It destroyed our friendship.

This guy was once one of my best friends. We worked together (I hate working with friends for this reason) and we knew each other pretty well. He went through a bad breakup and turned into this big jerk and started acting differently and became extremely degrading to women. I called him out on it several times, but never made a big stink about it. One day he crossed the line, and not by just a little bit. He brought my sister into it, and made a few personal attacks on me, and I used the work thing against him.

I wish I had the courage to talk to him about it at the time. I wish I could have called him and told him that we needed to talk, just the two of us. I wish I had told him just how hurt I was by his actions instead of covering up that pain in front of my other (guy) friends. I wish I had the courage to stand up to my other friends and tell them just how hurt I was. I had never told them about some of the crap that happened to me in high school which made me much more sensitive than maybe they realized.

It still upsets me that this friend de-friended me on Facebook, won’t return my texts or phone calls when I try to reach out, or have anything to do with me. He won’t talk to my boyfriend either, someone who was another good friend of his. All in all, I feel like I destroyed a friendship that didn’t need to be destroyed. I have a tendency to blow up friendships over small things. I burn bridges, something I need to work on. I need to forgive myself for burning this bridge, but it’s going to take me a while.