Some of it was fun! It really was! We did a lot of cool stuff together! We had a lot of laughs & enjoyed a lot of the same things.
But it was costly.
Maybe that's another reason I can't let go & move on. I have never invested more effort into ANY relationship than I did this one. Whatever we did have cost me so much in emotional damage, & it's hard to let go of anything you paid dearly for, even if it's not very good.
The Christian framing of our relationship meant that "forgiveness" was simply a must. So I didn't have much of a choice.
I kept praying "Lord, let me stop reacting so much. Give me patience. Help me hold my tongue & contain my anger."
Every time I "failed" & expressed my anger at her, I felt so guilty.
I am carrying guilt for something I really *could not* have tried *any* harder to make work. I was putting in maximum effort. It doesn't matter that I wasn't literally 100% perfect.
The belief that the person who reacts with anger to someone's cruelty is just as bad as the person being cruel is just straight up abuse culture.
I believed I had to nurture this relationship no matter how much it hurt me, & I did not believe I was allowed to do anything in response to being hurt.
So every time I reacted to being hurt, it was yet another failure to be a good sister & daughter, & I believed myself to blame.
I want out of this guilt & shame. It's so fucking unfair that I still blame myself because I was not *literally* a perfect human being with absolutely infinite patience.
I think of myself as "resentful" now, because I still don't accept that I did everything I could as best as I could & that's all I could ever do.
I still have this narrative that "we fought a lot", not "I tried really hard to be nice & get along with her, & no matter how hard I tried, she wouldn't do the same."
@artemis It's just a completely different value-system. One is tempted to say "they're equally valid, just incompatible" but the thing is that one of them ultimately destroys all creativity and joy while the other one allows the first one to exist as long as it doesn't destroy all creativity and joy.
(Is this the "paradox of tolerance"? 
)
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