So, can you forgive and reforge a friendship when forgiveness is asked for? Or do you close the door and lock it?
I'm not sure I can forgive significant dishonesty, but I
have had the experience of forgiving years of estrangement and reforging a friendship. I told this story on TORC not so long ago; I apologize to anyone for whom it is redundant. (Skip, skip!)
I made a friend in my last year of high school who was my roommate in college. She was smart and funny; wonderful company. We could make each other laugh like no one else could. We were the best of friends and constant companions. A lot of people were convinced we were lesbians. We just laughed about that and said, "If only it were true!"
She graduated a semester before I did and went off to take a job and begin her life. For a while we kept up our friendship at a distance - we lived in cities 3 hours drive apart. Then... she changed. In retrospect, I think she just had too much on her plate. She took up with a man who had an alcohol problem, and who was (at least) emotionally abusive. She was working full time and going to law school at night. She didn't have a lot of free time, but more than that, she didn't seem to have the emotional energy for friendship any more.
We kept making plans to get together. She would cancel them at the last minute. Or just stand me up. This went on for months, then years. I tried to be patient but it got harder and harder. She called me the night before my wedding to tell me she was "too busy" to come. Hurt isn't the word. How can you be too busy to come to your best friend's wedding?
I tried a few more times after that. I think we managed to have lunch together once. But it finally became clear that I wasn't important enough for her to find time to see me. That hurt, badly. The way I coped was by telling myself that she - the person who had been my friend - was dead.
Though we both lived in the Los Angeles area, years passed without us having any contact at all. Then one night, six or seven years after I married, my husband and I went to dinner with friends. And Mary walked into the restaurant with her brother and sister-in-law. She was delighted to see me; came over to my table eager to talk. But she had been dead to me so long that I was coldly polite; she quickly gave up. I sat in stony silence for a bit, but my husband and friends urged me to go talk to her. I decided they were right.
So I went to her table, sat down, and said, "Forgive me. I was rude just now. I was startled - but I
am glad to see you." The conversation was awkward at first, but it improved. I remembered why I had liked her so much. By the end of the evening we had drunk a lot and laughed a lot; we parted with promises of meeting again soon.
And we did. She made sincere efforts to repair the damage to our friendship. She called me often; she set up meetings and showed up for them; she came to visit. Though her 'abandonment' had felt like betrayal, in time I fully and freely forgave it. The things that had made us friends in the past helped us rebuild: our many shared tastes and interests, our senses of humor, our natural compatibility. That meeting in the restaurant was - oh, maybe 18 years ago now. She once again became my closest friend; she still is.
After my marriage broke up, when I was left with little except a traumatized child and a lot of debts, she was the first one to visit. We were eating off a plastic picnic table and sleeping on mattresses on the floor. The morning she left, she handed me a check for a thousand dollars. She said, "Buy a table. Buy a bed. Pay me back when you can." It still brings tears to my eyes to think of it.
So... yes, I can forgive a lot. But in the case where I did so, my forgiveness was actively sought and richly rewarded. I think that makes all the difference.