Apology and Forgiveness Complexity

Are there certain rules and guidelines by which to go when it comes to apologizing, accepting an apology, and forgiving when another comes forward and apologizes? Are there events that one shouldn't even confront another about or be willing to be confronted about?

I haven't seen my abuser since I was eight years old. Is it wrong of me to want to see him straighten his life out, to stand up to him face to face, receive an honest apology, and walk away from the situation on a more positive note? Most people I know just say to forget about it, to put it behind me, that it'd be crazy of me to confront him about it. Wouldn't that provide closure, though? Wouldn't it be more likely for me to move past the situation once I received that closure as opposed to trying to deny it ever happened?

If a girlfriend just up and left me without any notice, wouldn't that linger in the back of my mind until I found out what really happened? I may block it out after a while, but if she up and called, everything I had been blocking would come back to life. Why's it such a crime to confront one's past demons to try and close the chapter, as opposed to leaving a bookmark in the page for the rest of their life?

I just don't believe how one can move past a situation until they've dealt with it. If I had an addiction to alcohol, I couldn't just pretend that it didn't exist and expect it to vanish, right? How are the before-mentioned situations any different? For every chapter in our lives that we've put a bookmark in and skipped ahead, we'll eventually have to go back to the bookmarked page(s) and attempt to close the chapter. One cannot fully move on to chapter 8, until they've finished the first second chapters. That's how I look at things. I just wish I could further understand why many others I've spoken to believe it's best to leave chapters of one's life unfinished and pretend that the chapter didn't exist in the first place.