[Femmadian]

Originally Posted by Medusa

[...]
They came back about a year later and sent me an amends email telling me they were working their program and wanted to let me know they were sorry for x, y, z and yadda yadda. I'll be honest, it felt like a violation of my boundaries all over again [...]

<snip>

Acknowledging them does not open the door to them to re-enter your life. But if you think they might see it that way, I could definitely understand why no response at all would be warranted.

Story time!

Once upon a time, I had a similar situation. I had someone in my life a few years ago who was a friend, not extremely close but close enough. When I first met them, they were sober and quite honest/blunt about some of the horrible things they did when they weren't, how it affected their life and the lives of the people they loved, and how difficult it was to regain their life after that. I admired them for their honesty and for the depth that their struggle added to their character. Things were going great for them... until they experienced the death of someone very close to them and it sent them spiralling back into drinking after several years of sobriety.

I tried to be supportive and a good friend to them for quite some time until they started hanging out with old drinking buddies and then suddenly started spewing some really hateful, racist shit from seemingly out of nowhere. I limited my time with them and tried to gently call them out when it felt safe to do so, but ultimately it fell on deaf ears and it was hard to both watch them come undone and also to hear the bullshit coming out of their mouth.

Without going into too much detail, it culminated in one particularly ugly incident where I didn't even recognize the monster spewing hate in front of me who had replaced the person I once knew.

While at first I was torn on whether to cut off all ties or to try to stand by and get through to them, at one point I realized "you know what, I've said a lot of ugly, nasty shit in my less-than-stellar moments and there are a lot of things I'm ashamed of, but I've never said anything like that." Everyone has their own line to be crossed. I would not expect other people to forgive me, much less keep me in their life if I said what they'd said, and I figured, if I wouldn't excuse it in myself, why would I excuse it in them?

Ultimately, like Medusa, I "ovaried up," confronted them directly, said what I felt needed to be said, the reasons I was cutting them out, told them not to contact me again, and then left it at that.

I felt guilty about it for a long time because I felt like I failed them as a friend in that I wasn't patient enough to have those hard conversations with them and engage them in what they said. Instead, I employed a scorched earth policy and let them have it and I assumed that was the end of it until I got one of those emails like you, pajama, claiming that they were in a program and getting their life together, the last time we spoke was a dark time for them, they were sorry for being such an ass, blah blah blah.

I sent what I felt was a fairly boiler plate response ("that's great to hear, glad you're making positive changes in your life, I appreciate the gesture, I know it's not easy but I wish you the best," etc etc.) and I thought it was done. They looked at it as an opening back into my life and to resume a friendship that, to me, was long gone. After several ignored attempts to meet up and a few somewhat passive aggressive emails, they finally sent me one which said things like "look, I said I was sorry, okay? What more do you want from me?" and "I thought this meant you forgave me" and "I hope you never are in a position where you have to ask for forgiveness" and finally "y'know, karma's only a bitch if you are..."

If my view of them and our once friendship wasn't already poisoned forever, it certainly was now.

I'll spare you the details of my blistering email to just note that one thing to keep in mind (and one thing I learned from this experience) is that with particularly manipulative, narcissistic, or otherwise toxic people, grand gestures in the way of apologies can also be a way of guilt tripping and weaselling their way back into your life (for whatever reason). Not saying that's what this is but something to keep in mind just generally.

I'd also like to echo what others have said about it not being your responsibility to give them any acknowledgment at all, no matter how much you respect the program. Making amends is on the person needing to make them, not on anyone else (especially those they have hurt), if "amends" are even possible, which, depending on the circumstances, they very well might not be. I would gently say that your respect for the program does not have to result in you opening yourself up to old wounds or potentially new ones.

Me, I'm okay with holding a grudge if it means protecting myself. Personally, I've learned I don't forgive so easily. I don't think admitting that is a bad thing either. It just means I'm honest and self-aware enough to know this about myself. My emotional borders are a bit more porous than those of others and I need to act accordingly as an act of self-care.

I really don't subscribe to the popular notion that this makes me or anyone else like me a bad person. We all have a duty to protect ourselves and our emotional well-being and to me, it would be foolish to not take into account previous behaviour when deciding how (or even whether) to go forward with someone.

Ultimately you have to do what's right for you, and that includes protecting yourself (in whatever form that may end up taking).

TL;DR: you're not a bad person if you don't reply. You're not a bad person if you do reply. Not all people are genuine in these attempts and even if they are, you owe them nothing. The only person you owe anything to is yourself, and only you know what that is.

Good luck!