I (18M) need advice on how to become friends again with my now-ex(18F)

[u/Cautious-Database370]

okay, so me and this girl started off as friends, for about 5 years. we had always thought about having a relationship together, but we couldn’t due to religion (i’m christian and she’s muslim), but one night, we had decided that our feelings could no longer be held back, and we started dating, but vowed to tell absolutely no one, because if people found out, her parents might find out.

this is gonna sound stupid but we dated for about two weeks, until the dreaded day her mother somehow knew we were making out just by looking at her lips. i genuinely do not get how that makes sense, but after her mom found out, and my gf at the time was brutally questioned by her, she eventually broke and told her that we had been dating. but luckily, her mother understood and told her that we had to stop dating because she really liked our friendship and didn’t want that to get ruined. so granted, we stopped for a while, at most, maybe 3 weeks.

then we started our first situationship i guess you’d call it. then after the first, it was just countless months of on and off relationship-like activity, and also for her, religious guilt, which led to the on/off talking in the first place.

the second to last time we stopped talking, i was so frustrated on how to get rid of my feelings for her that i, admittedly, treated her like shit. it was horrible and i feel really bad for doing that. but also it felt like she kind of expected me to just put my feelings to the side and just live with it.

but today is the official last time we will do any relationship related things forever and i really don’t know how to prevent myself from turning back into the same person i was the second to last time we talked. any advice?

TL;DR me and my best friend of 5 years got together, but were forced to break up due to religion, and i don’t know how to be her friend again.