Ask Amy: Celebrate, not mourn, end of bad friendship

Dear Amy: I recently ended an emotionally abusive relationship with my best friend of one year. We met when we were both very lonely. We are in a challenging graduate program together.

Our friendship progressed rapidly but turned toxic. She has high emotional needs, and I started to feel more like her therapist than her friend. I encouraged her to seek therapy, and she became incredibly angry.

Over time, she became increasingly controlling, and I decided to end our friendship. I decided to write a letter because I thought I could better convey my feelings and she often twists other people's words in conversation.

I dropped off the letter in her mailbox weeks ago, and we have not spoken since. I have had friends tell me that she only read the letter this week and is upset that I "decided to do this" right before final exams.

I just want this part of my life to be over, but now I feel guilty about how this played out. Was I responsible for making sure she read the letter? How do I finally get her out of my head for good?

Amy says: The only mistake you're making is continuing to believe on some level that you have some control over how your words or deeds are interpreted by others.

This belief is a reflection of the high-achieving side of you — that part of your intellect that led you into a challenging academic program. This quality might help you in some professional ways, but your desire to control the outcome — and guilt when you can't — will hold you back as a person.

Grab a glass of your favorite beverage. Raise it to your choice to let this go. Say, out loud: "Byyyeeeee." And start the next academic semester fresh.

Dear Amy: My spouse and I have been together since high school.

Over the years, he has hurt me in different ways, big and small. He thinks that I have not forgiven him for these harms because if he brings up one of them, I am not emotionally neutral.

Sometimes, I will get tearful or sometimes I will try to explain again why there was harm to begin with — because he still doesn't seem to get it.

He says that if I really forgave him, there should no longer be any sensitivity to reflecting on all this stuff. I say that I have forgiven, but I have not forgotten the hurts.

Amy says: Old wounds are still wounds. When these wounds are irritated, you feel pain.

It seems completely logical that bringing up past hurts also brings up some of the feelings these hurts originally brought forth.

Your husband seems to believe that you should no longer express strong feelings about old events. Why is he bringing up these incidents? Is he testing you? Or is he "poking" your wound in order to reinjure you and then relitigate the original incident, recasting it as your problem?

You should tell him that not feeling emotion is simply not an option for you. One of the things that makes us human is the ability to recall happiness or pain, and to actually feel those feelings.

The opposite of love is indifference. You should tell your husband that you feel these feelings because you still care.