Anita,

Glad to read that you agree with what I come up with. I sometimes need to have more time to understand what happened, I do not have immediate reaction to abuse and maltreatment. I know why is that and probably most victims of abuse have it, but how to overcome this, how to know right now: I do not feel comfortable, this is not right, someone is hurting me. I have to say I have those feelings but I do not trust them I guess, not enough to act.

Mostly he asked if I want to be friends with him, if we can work together – Truth is I would probably never reach out to him if it wasn’t for the job offer I got. Now we work together in a team of 5 people. That’s what worries me. Seems to me some people in the office do not like him because of his anger and talking. But still I need to make it work, so to speak. At least right now when I am still working here, not sure what the future holds but I would prefer not to switch jobs at the moment.

So the question if I want to be friends with him is tricky. I think we indeed grew apart and it is not possible anymore. For the past year he wanted to meet every Saturday (plus Sundays – I declined but he used to ask every week) he wanted very frequent meetings, called sometimes everyday. He wanted to drop by during a week but I also did not have time usually. I do not have that much place for him in my life anymore.  I don’t think anyone has, for a friend, that much place and I do not think it is healthy and normal to be that needy and clingy. He has a girlfriend and he lives with her, I should mention.

What I see best it would be us staying as colleagues that see each other once in a few weeks, months, with a group of other people, not talking day to day basis about each other’s everyday problems (what has been the issue here). Not sure how to maintain this. I guess I could just say this to him.