Have you ever been in a situation where you cut someone out of your life (and your thinking was that it was going to be for good), then months (maybe, years) later you gave them another chance?

im in the middle of doing that RIGHT now. lol, just do be clear though, do you mean another chance for a relationship, or just a friendship, or something more specific?

Not yet. Gone is gone, that’s the way I do it.

Yes. I dated a guy in my early 20’s that I had gone to high school with. He just ended it without a reason and disappeared. I ran into him again in my 40’s and started dating again. It was a big mistake. He had a lot of issues that he had back then and never let go of. He was also a controlling jealous ego maniac. I remembered after a few months why it didn’t work out the first time.

No. 31 years of crap is 31 years of crap. Stick a fork in it, etc., etc.

You can understand why someone did what they did, put yourself in their shoes and realize that they’re probably upset about what transpired, forgive them and yet decide that it’s not safe to have that person or those people in your life.

I have no indication that the issues that made certain people treat me the way they did have changed for the better, so I’ve decided I’m better off not communicating with those people. My safety and emotional health comes first.

@futurelaker88 Relationship, friendship.. doesn’t matter. You decided to cut them out of your life (altogether), thinking that you’d never want to have anything to do with them ever again, but, after some time (months/years), you have them another chance.

As far as I know, they’re all still waiting

Yes.

The first was my first husband after 6 or so years of divorce. I thought he had worked through some things and grown up a bit. I knew I had, so I thought it might work. Wrong! Same problems, different millennium.

The second was the maid of honor at my second wedding. She was out of control. I had done everything I knew to help and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. We reconnected through Facebook a few months ago. She had some major life-altering experiences and seems to have her shit together. I’m taking it very slowly, though. We’re still at the occasional chit-chat stage.

Yes and no.
I haven’t talked to a friend for 25 years, following an insult he said about my bride. I have just allowed him to be a friend on Facebook. We will probably meet and catch up, but I doubt he will ever be the friend he once was.

Yes. I constantly try to “let go” of my former best friend because she is high drama, self-centered, and generally annoying. It’s very hard, as we have known each other since 1st grade (21 years). But for some reason I always give her another chance. It’s not like I don’t want to have her in my life anymore, it’s more that I keep hoping that she’ll change so I can have my real bff back.

I had a friend that I was tied to from 7th grade until she ran away from home in our junior year of high school. We did everything together. After she ran away with this guy for several months she came back and we started hanging out again. She married this guy she ran off with and he ended up going to prison for burglary. She and I continued our friendship and I kind of helped her raise the baby she’d had. After the guy got out of prison he was in about 2 years and was just an nutjob, I couldn’t deal with their situation anymore. I know it wasn’t a good or friendly way to handle the situation. I just quit talking to her, wouldn’t answer the phone or the door. I didn’t see her or anything for 10 years.

I ran into her step mom one day about a year ago and asked whatever happened to her. Step mom said that she lived in Washington state and was married to a fabulous guy. I’d missed her so much over the years that I looked her up on facebook and we’ve been talking to each other daily ever since. She was here in April and we spent a lot of time together that week. It was like we were never apart and we just dropped right back in to our friendship. She is such a good, loving person that she forgives me and I’m thankful to have my friend back.

“cut” would be too strong.

There was this girl I had 11 years ago, and then both of us moved and got on with our lives. She was still in love with me though and for years tried to get a second chance, but I steered clear, mainly because I didn’t want to give her false hopes (and couldn’t do the long-distance thing). About a year ago, after both of us ended up back in the same town, and seeing as she’s now completely over me, we started hanging out as friends, and have been bumping into each other, watched a movie and so on. It’s nice.

yes I cut some people when I am mad then fix it later :).

I think it depends on the actual reasons for cutting them out of your life in the first place.

I’ve done it with a couple of really good friends who thought I was lying about something. Despite one of them offering an olive branch over a year later, they still wouldn’t accept that i hadn’t lied and i didn’t see the need to renew any attempt of friendship!

However, I recently got back in touch with an old boyfriend that I had left in a bad way over 20 years ago… time’s a great healer as they say! There is still a spark of something… though i don’t think either of us wants to rekindle anything soon!

yes and we are still together.

I thought gone is gone.. for a long while. But in reality, if months/years pass, people change (maybe learnt from past mistakes) and if suddenly that person comes on your path again and is just as friendly as ever, there is no way for you to ignore that. Chances are great friendship or relationships wil restore. Never in the same way but maybe better!

I have a different perspective. My uncle left the family without explanation 20 years ago. My dad was hurt very deeply by this and has tried to stay in touch with him for a long long time. My uncle didn’t even show up when (my grandfather) his dad was dying in the hospital. Didn’t send a card of condolences to his mother (grandma for me) when he passed away. Nothing. If someone called him, he’d hang up. My mom sent my cousins (his children) Christmas gifts for years, only last New Years did we find out that they never got them.

Last November he moved back into town. My grandmother gets a phone call from Sheila (my uncle’s wife) saying they like to meet for coffee. And slowly I begin to hear more and more about them. It was decided that the whole family is going to get together at New Years at a restaurant. I cried a lot, it hurt me to see the people around me hurt.

To fill you in on a little more, I’m young. I’m 18 and I was 18 when I met my mysterious uncle, his wife, and my two cousins and one of their spouses. Generally speaking I am warm hearted and understanding, but I must admit, I was not happy about seeing my uncle. He didn’t seem genuine to me, he refused to shake my hand, he got my name wrong and didn’t listen when I tried to correct him, and turned his back on me when I tried to start even the smallest of talk with him. You are asking if people have ever cut someone out of their life, and I desperately try to understand why some one would want to. I look around and I see a family hurt and torn apart by one uncle who didn’t have the guts to just tell the people in his life what it was that he hated some much about them. I see people who don’t try to fix problems they walk away from them. Is it really worth it to cut some one out just because they said something stupid, just because they think you’re lying about one event, just because a friend’s situation seemed like too much for you to handle?

Maybe there’s some event out there that’s bigger than my young brain can understand, but as far as I am concerned you should never cut anybody out of your life. If your relationship gets rougher than the fires of hell, then go get help. If they want to call you and reconcile, then let them call to reconcile. If they mess up the phone call and you’re still angry with them, then you’re not any worse off. If you’re living together and you can’t stand it, leave. If you’re busy with life, find some one else to help them. Keep your distance I can understand, but to never forgive someone or to never even give the person a chance at forgiveness…seems ridiculous to me.

You’re question is have I ever cut someone out of my life, and the answer is no. I absolutely fail to understand why people hate each other so much that they give up all hope, especially if they are family or good friends. How do you do it? Tell me, I’d be intrigued to know how you can be so cold as to just walk out on the people around you.

sorry for the my passionate outburst, but as I said, I just don’t understand

yes.
i had a really close friend, and things got really really bad with her. there was no trust in the friendship anymore, and it got to the point that i couldn’t even think about my own life because i was so involved in trying to help her see the good in hers. it was a daily feeling of betrayal and hopelessness, and even my – and other friends – attempts to fix things failed every time. i was the only one of our original ‘group’ of friends who was still sticking through things, but then she began to involve other people in it, and made it into an ‘us against them’, when there was no ‘us’, or ‘them’ to speak of.

she ended up going to another school, and i’ve recently started hanging out with her again. it’s interesting. she was the only friend i’ve ever had that i’d even think of ‘cutting’ out of my life. even when i wasn’t talking to her anymore, i was still respectful and whatnot to her, but i just no longer wanted her in my life, because it was proving to be negative for both of us. but hanging out now, i think we’ve both put the past – even though it was just a year ago – behind us. the big thing is not trying to blame someone in the back of your mind. there’s still a small part of my brain that won’t let go of what happened – i am rarely in nonsense ‘high school drama’ bullshit, if ever, so it’s still surreal – but i’m past it. people screw up. we all did stupid things.

Well depends on whats he/she did. Like for me My ex girlfriend who I was going out with for 3½ yrs ago and who I truly loved b4 ended up braking my heart, was dating one of my best friends be hide my back. I cut my friend out of my life since then +fucked him up that time I found out. As well as my ex(slut) I did the same and she kinda called yesterday asked if we can see each other today. All I did was told her to stfu and never call me again. In my case that would be a big no no

@WS_Edge89 welcome to fluther. Lurve.

This happened to me very very recently. All through my school years I was very good friends with another girl but as she got older and made more friends she turned into a bit of a bitch to be frank. We never had a falling out as such but gradually I dtsnaced myself from her and on my last day at school she was the last person that I had in mind to keep in touch with. My last day at school was in 2002.

Last year I found out that she had had a baby and was going through slight baby blues. All of a sudden I had an urge to get in touch with her just to see how she was. Her sister is a friend of mine on Facebook so I dropped her a line and just asked if I could get th girls number and her sister was happy to and told me how much her sister would love to hear from me.

Anyway about a month ago, I sent her a text message to text the waters and got a very excited message back and last week we met for the first time since leaving school and I am happy to say it was lovely to see her. I went to see her again yesterday to make sure it wasn’t a fluke and luckily it wasn’t so we have now arranged to meet up every Wednesday evening seeing as I have a singing lesson on that day close to where she lives.

@Open, I see where you’re hurt and upset that your uncle seems to be taking something out on you that you had nothing to do with. Perhaps your uncle is mentally ill or has some sort of issue that you are not privy to. I’m sorry about what’s happened to you and your family.

However: if someone treats you badly for years and years, gets angry when you stand up for yourself, and demands that you cater to their every whim and the hell with you and your life? No, that’s not acceptable. Forgiveness and empathy are one thing, as I stated earlier in this thread. But if someone is intent on using you and treating you like a punching bag, emotional or otherwise, when life isn’t going their way? Then that person has to go. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they get to treat you in any way they please and you have to take it. That’s not love.

I and a couple of certain relatives are no longer in relationship. Their insistence on being able to treat me and abuse me as they were able to when I was a child is unacceptable, and if they can’t manage to relate to me as an adult, if they get angry when I assert myself, then I have no reason to subject myself to any more abuse. My safety and emotional health comes first.

Yes, I have done it. I cut a few relatives out of my life for over a year. During the course of that year I allowed myself to forget the very concrete reasons for that decision. I began to mentally and emotionally justify and mitigate what I knew to be the truth.

After a few more years in the situation and a few more battle scars I pulled the plug permanently. Things have never been better.

@Open – I’d say you are very fortunate if there have been no events in your life that can lead you to understand the self-preservation that becomes necessary when in a relationship with certain toxic people.

It is easy to think of the people who “walk away” as the cold ones but I ask you to think for a moment of all the love you obviously feel for your family. That same love, perhaps to an even greater degree because it has been tested against our love for ourselves, exists in the hearts of most all of us who have had to “walk away”.

It isn’t an easy decision. It isn’t one that most of us make without having exhausted all other options and ourselves.

Thing is you can’t make a relationship work all on your own. If you are in one with someone who isn’t the least concerned with taking care of you in the smallest degree you aren’t in a relationship you are in a victimization.

That it is relatives doing this to you just makes the pain that much greater.

You mistake leaving a sorry situation with no longer loving those people and nothing could be further from the truth.

I hope you never learn this first hand.

Yes, I got in a big fight with my besti friend. We were BFFs for about 10 or 11 years, and we sort of got sick of each other, and frustrated so we started fighting. About a month after I really regretted it. I didn’t have the guts to call her and ask for a second chance at friendship with her until a year later. She said she wanted to do the same for a long time too. We hung out, went shopping, and to a movie. We had a complete blast and it felt like we instantly were back where we started. She made it clear she wanted to hang out again, and we were both excited to have each other back in our lives. Ever since then we have been too busy with our work schedules, and school we havent talked. I got sick of always trying to make plans and she was always busy. There’s a limit to how many times to ask someone to hang out before it feels like nagging/stalking. So here we are seeing each other 2 classes a day, and we don’t even say a simple “hi” to each other. Its such a shame because we were sooo close before, and now she has new friends, I feel really left out. I would give anything to have my best friend back, especially with my life right now… I feel like the other half of me is missing, and I know she wants to be friends, but she is too timid to call.