I used to have a really meaningful connection with a colleague who was a mentor to me—someone I admired a lot. She was a few steps ahead in her career and always made time to talk, offer advice, or just listen. Those moments meant more to me than I probably communicated at the time.
But at some point, I started blurring the lines. I didn’t realize it then, but I think I was asking too much of her time, maybe trying to build a connection that wasn’t mutual in the same way. When she started pulling back and setting boundaries, I didn’t respond well. I kept reaching out, hoping we could still talk like before, but I think I just made things worse.
Eventually, she asked me not to contact her outside of work-related stuff. I respected that—eventually. But I wish I’d had the clarity and maturity earlier. I later tried to send a message to apologize, but I was blocked. Now, I have no way of making amends, and it’s been eating at me. Not because I want to fix things between us—I know that ship has sailed—but because I don’t know how to forgive myself.
Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you find peace when you’ve unintentionally hurt someone and can’t undo it?
Comments
It sounds very painful and relatable.
I think it would be helpful if you provided more info. Why do you think you asked too much of her? What kind of boundaries did she express and what did you do to make you feel you overstepped them?
I honestly think contacting her when she’s asked you not to will make it worse. You need to put it down to a life lesson. We all make mistakes and no one is perfect. With time, you’ll move on from it. Try to focus on growing as a person and put it down to a life lesson.
Time. For things like this time is the only thing that is going to help after a while you’ll stop feeling embarrassed and look back on this as a learning experience. But for now just keep it professional. Only contact her through official channels and only about things directly related about work. Continuing to try to apologize will only make it worse just move on and keep it professional. And you never know since she fell overwhelmed maybe when she sees that you can respect boundaries she will be more receptive to a friendship /connection again, but that has to be up to her.
So sorry you had to go through this, but if it makes you feel any better, everyone goes through stuff like this and after a while, you’ll stop being embarrassed and look back on this as a learning experience that you can share with others on what not to do.
Finally I would say if it’s bothering you that much where going to work just feels awkward and you just don’t wanna be in that mindset, you could always move jobs. Put your resume out there and see what you can get, it’s going to be a bit harder in this market but you never know. Obviously if you do get an interview I would probably not put this mentor as a reference.
Take the lesson you learned and move on. Nothing more you can do.