Dear Petalinthewind:

You are welcome! “He always had this knack of making me feel I was in the wrong” – it’s a knack that many people have, a skill one person has to make another person feel in the wrong. It is easy to achieve when the other person already has a strong tendency to feel guilty, that is, to feel responsible for whatever is wrong.

“I had always ended up apologising to him for… when I called him out on things when I felt he was unfair” – his motivation was to let you know that calling him out on being unfair was wrong… so the right thing for you to do would be to accept his unfair behavior quietly, to submit?

“My friend who knows about this said I’m still hurting and grieving the loss of someone I thought was a real friend because I opened up to him about everything” – when we open up to someone, we invite the person in, giving a person access to our insides. The person given access can respect and honor this access or disrespect it and misuse it.

“In hindsight he opened up to me about practically nothing” – he gave you no access to his insides.

“She said because I felt close to him it will take me time to feel happy again” – you opened up to him, he used the access you gave him to hurt you, creating a wound, so it will take time for the wound to heal and to no longer hurt.

“I knew at the time I should never have to apologise for telling someone how I felt” – for the wound to heal, you must not give him any more access to you, such as sharing with him anything personal, including how you feel. How you feel is none of his business, he doesn’t deserve to know.

anita