Scale and scope. If you snitched on him for weed, you suck. If he's messing with kids, fuck em.

Due to my job I was a mandatory reporter for suspected child abuse.

This means I was legally liable to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect. I could lose my job, face a fine, and/or face jail time.

I had to call CPS for a friend's kid.

The friend was not the problem, her ex husband was.

Long story short, the kid is fine, and the friend now has a different spouse and many more kids with the new spouse, lol.

It was the right thing to do, even though the friend didn't want to involve a government agency to handle it. Just caused a strained friendship for a while.

Feeling like shit for a shorter amount of time knowing I did the right thing, far outweighs the longer feeling of guilt for not speaking up. At least when you say something, it stops there, and you don’t go down the mindfuck of “what if”.

There's something to be said for putting the blame where it belongs, which is likely not on you.

If your friend did something illegal that could harm others, it needed to be handled. Period. It's a natural response that any decent person should take. The blame is not on the reporter, it's on your friend for doing something so bad you felt compelled to report it.

And a bonus fuck him for putting you in that position where you now have to wrestle with self-doubt. That's not a good friend, leaving you to bear the emotional burden of his actions.

You saw an injustice and felt called to speak up, so you took responsibility and stood up for what you believed in. You did so even knowing that it would be uncomfortable and might cost you a friendship. That was really courageous.

It's normal to feel like shit when you find yourself in a scenario when all the options seem terrible, but your actions show that you have real integrity, and it's okay to pat yourself on the back for that.

It's also okay to mourn the friendship, it's okay to recognize the effect this may have on this person and feel for them, and it's okay to take time to process your feelings about the whole thing; however, I will caution you to avoid delving into self-deprecating territory. Any consequences that they face for what they did will ultimately be because of their own choices--not yours.

Just to drive it home: you aren't getting them in trouble. They're getting in trouble for what they did. What you did was trust your gut and call out something harmful.

Know that everything you're feeling is totally valid, and please be kind to yourself and try to remember that you did the best thing you could in a difficult situation.

EDIT: I wrote this without knowing the details of what happened, then I read your comment about what happened and I am doubling-down hard on what I said. You def made the right call, you are brave as hell for pursuing that, and the person you reported needed to be stopped. It's understandable why your friend didn't press charges (though I personally believe that to be a mistake), but you did right by her and this dude's future victims. It's okay if she doesn't see that, and it's okay if she's upset with you--she's clearly in a very complicated situation right now and her feelings are valid, too--but please know that you absolutely did the right thing.

How did I get through it? I just felt like shit for a while. That's it. The only way out is through.

I felt like I caused a bad chain reaction in my IRL family. My sister was in a heated family court case against her ex-spouse and the custody battles for her son aka my nephew. I worked and voiced against her in the whole case which cast a black cloud of judgment over me by everyone else. She was just, doing every possible thing wrong in the whole case. Blaming her ex-spouse's daughter in baseless claims, fruitlessly attacking her ex-spouse for unrelated incidents. She was just not painting a good picture of a mother who cared about her children, it was just "I was in what I felt was a bad marriage and I want to make my ex husband pay!" rhetoric.

In the end, she lost. She not only lost custody of her son, but got to serve 10 days in jail as an example set by the judge of the court room. Similar circumstances almost repeated themselves years later when she stupidly had sex with former ex-spouse to try and win custody and alimony for their daughter aka my niece. She lost that case too and I stood my own ground.

I felt bad all around for the entirety of both cases. It didn't need to happen. It shouldn't have happened. If only she wasn't a dumbfuck with the outdated, feminist mindset of "MAN BAD!" which is ultimately what costed her both cases. So now, niece and nephew are just out there enduring the trials of being motherless and who knows what their futures will be when the day comes that they will reflect on this.

That feeling is how I know I did the right thing. Backing out of a fight or an argument for me always feels wrong for me, too.

I think the big thing is sometimes giving it time. In hindsight the other person may agree that you did the right thing.

Ultimately if you can justify it to yourself based off morals that make sense, time will heal the wound.

All the best.

It's always a tough thing to do, but if they're doing something fucked, you made the right decision. For me I've never been through something like this, but things tend to be similar, you're going to feel bad for awhile but it'll get better with time.

It's normal because of conflicting values. In your case probably because of loyalty vs social obligation. Do what's right, and time will often heal.

When I stopped listening to my overbearing parents. One of the best decisions of my life. Took me a long time to convince myself that I did the right thing

every morning when I have to wake up, yeah.