Anonymous wrote:Good for Jane. I'm so happy for her that she escaped an abusive relationship.

If you weren't very close friends, I would let it go. She didn't reach out to any of you - she made a clean break because that's what she wanted and needed to do.

I don't think you need to feel guilty - if you had known, obviously you would have reacted much differently.
Like Jane, you were also fooled into believing this guy was a decent human being.

Has he gotten into rehab or worked his issues out? I don't think I could continue to be friends with him.

ThatBetch wrote:Definitely message her. All the PPs saying "it's in the past" are jerks. Yes, it's in the past, but it still happened, and you were still part of the suck.

Own your part of the suck.

Don't put any kind of expectation on her (you may want to lead with "I want you to know that I don't expect any sort of reply..."), but definitely take responsibility for being a judgmental jerk who believed a (bullshit) one-sided account and shunned someone without even bothering to check facts.

She may never reply. Don't poke at her, don't pester her. But there is no wrong time to apologize, without strings, for having screwed up.

Anonymous wrote:If I were Jane I would really appreciate the apology, even though it's years late.

Anonymous wrote:I would let sleeping dogs lie. She has moved on and she's happy, that's what matters. Chalk this up as a lesson to consider the source and not take everything your friends say at face value.

Anonymous wrote:As the victim in an abusive relationship, I would appreciate an apology all these years later. Just don't try a sob story on me that tries to paint yourself as if only you had known you would have been supportive of me.

Acknowledge that you made a conscious choice to throw our friendship away and choose you friend without finding out my side of the story.

One of the most corrosive things about abuse is the secrecy of it and the gas lighting (when the abuser makes you try to feel as if it is your fault the relationship isn't working and that what he is doing is not abusive). If you came to me and said you had just found out about the abuse, and you are so sorry that you didn't support me and sorrier still that you didn't even bother to ask how I was, I would appreciate it, even all these years later.

I wouldn't be friends with you because your track record of friendship judgment sucks, but it would help me in some small way to know that another person knows the reality of the situation. I certainly will never get that acknowledgement from my abuser.