I know this is off-topic for tech stuff, but I don't care.
I lost one of my dearest friends hours before finding out my mother is dying. My work is changing so much that I feel new and lost. The only bright spot was a romance rekindling. I had his support and confessed love. The place I felt safest in this world was when he would hold me, and his kisses made the hurt stop for a moment, especially the butterfly-soft ones.
Between 3am this morning and noon, he went from sending kisses on AIM to suddenly saying I am the reason for some of his problems, that I manipulated him and set brother against brother, son against father, this past weekend, and earned his trust through coersion and lies, that I would tell them different stories. His brother feels the same way.
Yet I can prove exactly the opposite using his own LiveJournal posts and replies, and his and his brother's IMs, which are autosaved with Trillian. I can prove I reinforced his brother's love and asked him to not cut his brother, that I defended his brother not understanding some things, supported the difficult decision he made to cut his father from his life, who he described as "toxic" (I can prove this), ultimately talked him into giving his father another chance as the reasons for the cut were third-degree heresay, and encouraged him to speak directly with his brother and father about his problems with them. I am dead-serious when I say I can prove this using their own words in the form of typed proof. And the one thing I can recall having told them different was telling one brother I thought he wwas right on something, but, after six whole weeks, came to view an incident differently and so told the other that I thought he was right. This was after six weeks and my thoughts on the matter changing, not telling one one thing, and telling the other another thing an hour later.
Someone manipulating someone doesn't want the manipulatee to increase contact and communication with those she wants to set him against. She wouldn't try to convince him to talk openly with those she'd tell lies about, the very ones who can confirm or deny the truth. She wouldn't constantly reinforce his brother's love for him, and tell him a gesture his father made was one of wanting to establish a relationship when he thought it was a sign of his father not caring enough to know him.
I believe that, if you make accusations, be prepared to back it up, and be certain of it enough to be willing to allow the accused one the right to defend herself. If you're sure enough of your stance on it, you'll be able to hold your end against her defense. But to make an accusation public, then to disallow her to defend herself - that's cowardly and shows a lack of certainty, and maybe even a cruel desire to hurt her to make yourself feel better and in control of something.
I can make an honest jusitifcation for why he and his brother are doing this. I was put in the middle of their complaints about each other, had to try to come to some middle ground in belief on my own because I didn't want to believe either when they were saying bad things abut each other, and because I was in the middle and it just wasn't working, they weren't communicating, it was easiest to blame me. Easier to blame me than to blame each other or themselves. I never tried to hurt them, always tried to be a good friend who listened when they needed it, who'd dry tears, hold a hand, let one talk for hours when he needed to, even when that need came the day after I found out my mom is dying. All caring and loving did was earn his distrust.
I love him still, have never stopped, even after he put me through hell emotionally, and I just don't know how to get him and his brother to revisit their own words and see the truth. He was the one bright spot on my bleak horizon.
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.