Roughly five years ago I was looking to contact a friend I knew from college. Long story short I didn’t go about it the right way and her parents got mad at me.
Fast forward five years and I feel incredibly remorseful about what I did. I’ve been told I should just forget about the whole ordeal, but the whole situation lives rent-free in my head no matter how hard I try not to think about it. I don’t want to risk disturbing her again, but I also don’t want to pull a Matthew Broderick and never apologize/admit responsibility for a grave mistake. Any thoughts?
I can’t tell you which to do. The comments so far seem pretty adamant in saying don’t bring it up. So what I can offer is my experience for having done exactly what you think you want to do. Unfortunately, I don’t have any real feedback from the other side.
I had a girlfriend for most of high school. Things weren’t great, but I didn’t know better. We broke up abruptly somewhat shortly after graduation and I was an asshole without remorse. Both of us dated quickly and ended up marrying our next dates (though several years down the line). A few years after the breakup, I started feeling deeply upset about it probably monthly. I had avoided all the high school group meetups because I felt she was entitled to those friends more. But at that point, I was alone and didn’t have my own friends - just my girlfriend’s. I feel this was part of an overall feeling of failure. Low paying job, untapped career path, living with my parents, college dropout, and alone. I still thought about the high school girlfriend often. Not in a luatful or coveting way, just in a caring way? Is she OK, does she hate me, did I cause long term pain, does her family hate me, etc.
So one day, probably 7 years after the breakup, I messaged her. I said I was sorry for the way I acted and for hurting her. I said I was glad she moved on. It felt long on a phone by FB messenger, but it was probably just 6 sentences.
She said none of what happened mattered. We were kids. We didn’t know better and it wasn’t a serious relationship anyway and that it wasn’t a big deal. She then asked if I was OK. Twice. I think she thought I was at risk of harming myself. That was the end of the conversation.
I imagine appearing out of the blue and going straight to a painful period brought back some pain. It hurt me to hear her say years together weren’t important. I can hypothesize she was lying a little bit, either now to downplay it to me or earlier to herself. I can hypothesize I put depressing thoughts of us into her head for a while. I don’t know what effect I had on her from that moment.
But I stopped thinking about her.
I hate to promote causing your friend pain to release yourself, but I don’t know how else to do it. I can guess that was a symptom of my overall mental health rather than the cause of my pain in that time period. So before you do this to free yourself, I ask, are you feeling OK otherwise? Are you dwelling on other mistakes? Are you content with your trajectory?