being friends with someone who doesn’t feel empathy as someone with moral ocd

i’m very close with this person and they do not feel things like emotional empathy for other people, besides a select two people (me and their best friend.) recently, they told me something when i was discussing morals with them and it just reminded me of how little they feel for other people. we were talking about if they would be friends with an abuser if they knew that the person had abused someone, and they agreed that if the victim was still upset at them they would not. then, they said that they didn’t really care as long as they weren’t hurt by the abuser. as soon as they said that, i said that they should probably delete that message but then i backtracked and told them not to because it looked like i was covering the behavior up. i clarified with them that this was just them saying how they felt mentally, but would still cut off that abuser if the victim was still mad, and they said that it was true. i feel absolutely terrible that my first instinct was to cover it up in a sense, and i also started questioning myself and my own moral standards. i don’t know what i should do and it’s destroying me.

Anonymous

Date posted: Yesterday

Your morals are very clear in this paragraph actually. I would create a boundary though, because you have every right to call them out on their behavior. At first of thought this sounds like maybe a disorder they have but I got worse as you explained lol. It’s empathy and lack of compassion and respect for others. It’s like Chris brown and Rihanna, he almost k*lled her the pictures of her face makes me so angry at any person that still actively supports him, the “he didn’t do it to me” or “she forgave him” it doesn’t matter Chris brown had/has multiple felonies against him from harming other women and yes SHE the victim forgave him and she talked about this already, Rihanna said in a interview in order for her to forgive him she had to forgive her father who also abused her mother. I understand you might have been scared like hey people will read these messages and I don’t think like this so them are not you. You have clear morals that you have more empathy than them. You just need clear boundaries and to call them out, you can use my example. I hate anybody and block anybody that actively supports Chris brown I will always defend Rihanna.

anon7336474864

Date posted: Yesterday

i understand your point, and i would use that as an example if it had the chance of working with this person. unfortunately, their mindset is just “if i don’t personally care about the situation, it doesn’t matter.” i genuinely don’t know what to do about it. i can’t change their lack of feeling of course, but i also love them and they’ve always cared about me as well. i don’t think i should get too into detail but this friendship isn’t able to be cut off and i could just move on with my life. this person will always be in my life. my moral ocd is just telling me that it’s bad to stay in a friendship with a person like this. recently i called them out on their wording (because i cannot change their lack of feeling) and they understood enough to be more respectful when talking about these subjects, but i just feel like i’m doing something wrong by staying friends somehow.

Anonymous

Date posted: Yesterday

@anon7336474864 I mean you can change a persons mindset sometimes. But honestly it just seems like they aren’t willing to be good person tbh. However if the same situation happened to you I’m hoping that mindset won’t be applied. Abuse can happen to anybody and supporting that person simply because it didn’t happen directly to you is such a conservative talking point.

anon7336474864

Date posted: Yesterday

@Anonymous - oh, sorry, my explanation came off wrong. this person is willing to cut off abusers if told that they should, but i personally don’t know what they would do if nobody told them… they avoid supporting problematic things for (what i assume to be) public perception. i understand that not caring because something happened to you is seen as a bad thing (and is a bad thing if you are able to have empathy) but i don’t know how much of it i can excuse with this person because i know that they’re not able to care emotionally about this stuff

anon7336474864

Date posted: Yesterday

@anon7336474864 - also, it is a disorder. i don’t remember fully but i know they have bpd and are a possible narcissist

Anonymous

Date posted: Yesterday

@anon7336474864 I see I knew it, I thought maybe autism but then you kept explaining and I’m like okay something else. But I should’ve guessed bpd it makes more sense. I really can’t say anything to help with that, if bpd isn’t treated correctly then you get people like that because not all people with bpd acts like that but the only way they’ll learn is if it happened to them or someone they love.

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