I have recently lost my best friend. Here's the short story:

Me and my friend have been best friends for about 7 years. She's had a boyfriend for 4 years. A few months ago, me and her boyfriend (at his initiation) fooled around. We didn't have sex nor did we kiss.. inappropriate touching. We kept it from her for a while, but eventually I forced him to tell her because I didn't trust that he wouldn't do something like that again (he has a history of cheating).

When he told her, she was of course devastated and angry. She has not spoken to me about it, she has banished me from her life, and she stayed with him. To this day I have not gotten the chance to tell her my side of things, and have not apologised to her properly (I have only sent sms, she won't take my calls or see me).

It was completely out of character for me to do what I did, and I am so sorry for betraying her trust like that. It was a terrible, awful mistake. I don't even know why I did it - I did NOT like him, I never thought of him in that way. I suppose we just felt comfortable around each other, but that is by no means an excuse.

I have accepted responsibility for my actions; regardless of him I know that I have let myself down, and of course my friend. I have even changed workplaces because doesn't want to see me ever again (we worked at the same place).

It has been almost two months since the fallout, and I am having such a hard time letting go of her. I have stopped trying to contact her, but she is constantly on my mind. I know I have to move on with my life and have tried to do so, but it's so hard. We were very close and I suppose I couldn't imagine my life without her.

I have thought of getting counselling for this as it's affected me much more than I thought it would. I have gone through relationship breakups before, and this feels even worse than that. So how do you let someone go?

I think its more guilt driving you, but part of accepting responsibility for your actions is accepting the consequences including the guilt. Yes it hurts, but instead of wallowing, forgive yourself, and do better for yourself.

Then you can let others into your life, and hold your head up enough to look around and explore your new world.

Do you have friends and family to support you while you adjust to filling that 7 year hole in your soul? That would surely help, even a professional to talk to would be better than no one at all.

Realize it will be a very long healing process for you, as it will be hard to recover from this kind of trauma.

I think counseling's a good idea-look at which part of you

Thought betraying your best friend was a good idea

Then insisting he tell her rather than doing so yourself.

Man that is terrible.
You probably shouldn't have told her because some things just hurt, and if there wasn't any emotion behind it it wasn't necessary for her to know.
You need to write a letter saying everything you feel and send it to her
And telll her you'd like to talk but understand if she cant, but if someday she wants to, she should contact you.
Then try and make new friends
And volunteer
And read great novels
And do yoga, dance classes, pilates, running-- things that make you feel better, make you loook better and expose you to new groups of people.
Discover new music and new movies so that you can develop likes for things that are outside of your relationship with her