To have cut off my friend who stayed in an abusive marriage

I don't think this is awful at all, and I think you gave your absolute all to try and help your friend, like way above and beyond, to the detriment of your family and also I guess to the detriment of your existing friendship - her relationship with her DH has tainted your meet ups, holidays and experiences and you have given both your physical and mental time and energy to try and make her life better.
Yes, of course for your friend it possible isn't as simple as leaving, and she may be being controlled by him - but you have done as much as you can to be there for her and support her. You deserve happiness and good friendships too and it sounds like she has thrown everything you did back in your face.
I think taking yourself out of the situation was the right thing, in this case. Perhaps she will come back to you when she is ready to leave and seek a resolve with you. But you only get one life, you've spent enough years of your time on this, and what she did and said at your last meeting was cruel and hurtful - that is valid too.
She does have a choice, she's made it for now and if you don't feel you can support this choice then it's better the friendship ends. As PPs have said, her DH will probably poison her against you anyway so you'll always be the bad guy now.
Do you think you will ever un block her to see if she does ever reach out, or are you still totally done?

Your decision needs to be based on what's right for YOU, not your friend. Your mum can't see that so I do think she is being a little harsh. She may be right about it being hard to leave, but at what cost to you? Why should you keep doing it? It's someone else's turn now.

You know very well you did not have a vendetta against the husband of your friend. And your ex friend knows this.
Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
She offloaded an awful lot to you, to your cost. Your family suffered too.
Your ex friend is a fully grown adult.
Your mother guilt tripping you is not on.
Your mum was not being impartial here, at all. She was thinking about her own situation.

You had to leave your ex friend to it, as the cost was getting too much. You invested a lot of time and effort. And guess what?
She said she loved him. She didn’t leave.
There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
You have to look after yourself and your family. You were a good friend, and many can understand why you feel the way you do.
You cannot fix things for a lot of people.
I too had a friend who had a seriously abusive partner. She eventually left after having 5 children with him.
I had enough of her. I’d always been her rescuer. But I needed to look after my health, family and situations. She had to deal with it herself.
I really don’t miss her tbh. I realise I’d invested too much in her life. But I realised I was allowed to make my life a priority for once. It’s not selfish, seriously.
I can understand why you cut her off, completely. You did what you could. And it’s exhausting when nothing changes; you are allowed to protect your sanity and space for yourself.

For those asking why it had to be all or nothing…

I’d bet OP would have remained friends with her if she had turned around and said “it’s too hard, I can’t do it right now, thank you for everything you’ve done to support me”

Instead she completely gaslit OP and was extremely unkind about everything the OP had done to help her. I couldn’t stay friends with someone who did that to me when I had done so much to try to help them.

Your friend needed a mature person to help her. You tried but you weren't emotionally equipped to handle the situation. There is a book called "Under the influence" read it then you will understand what rock bottom means.

I am 95% sure her DH was behind the gaslighting

Just noticed this which just makes it even more sad.

Your poor ex friend and her DDs.

I think it would have been fine to have told her that you can't keep up that level of support, that it comes at a personal cost to you and that you'd given her an out and she's rejected it and you'd therefore taking a step back, but that ultimately you'd be there for her if she ever sees sense or ever really needed you. Instead, you've cut her off completely from the only person she had.

I'm afraid I can't help but agree with this, assuming she has also been a good friend to you over the years. I wouldn't have cut her off completely. But I know some people are quite absolute / black and white. When you listed your options of how to manage it, where was "distance yourself but still check in on your friend". I think you went for the nuclear option, maybe based on your own upset.

Perhaps backing well off rather than blocking her was the way to go. Maybe you could have told her that after all you did to help her and it being thrown back in your face, you did not feel able to be fully present anymore. I think i would have stepped back completely, tellling her why, but left the door open by not blocking, in case she genuinely needed to contact you in future. In some ways you have done her DH's bidding by separating her from her only friend. Sorry OP, but you did the right thing to put your own DH and DC first.

Some.peiple only know jow to be the victim. She's a victim of him and she had to paint herself as the victim of you as well. She isn't ready to change her narrative. It's not you.

I would, and have, done exactly the same as you. It sounds like a really one-sided friendship where she took far more than she ever gave, and you supported her to the detriment of your own family. It was an u healthy dynamic and you did the right thing to step back when she needed more than you could give.

Its not you. But ill bet your mum had a fantasy about being rescued. Like your friend, who actually realised she doesn't have the nerve.

She was in a shit situation and her way of coping was to draw you into it. It's a bit of a Kick The Dog syndrome. He makes her feel shit to make himself feel better and she draws you into the misery to cope and you then feel shit. As you saw, it also affected your husband. You're better off out of it all. You couldn't or shouldn't have done more.

I'm with your mum. I couldn't cut off a friend in that situation. It also feels like she had an element of being controlled by both you and her DH. You pushed her in to leaving before she was ready and when she didn't do what you wanted you cut her off.

I think you did the right thing for you and your family. Do not feel guilt. Some people will drain your energy and never move on, despite the amount of help offered. Your old friend has to make her decisions and you have to make yours.

This type of situation is so tricky. One thing you should know though is that you really do sound like an amazing friend. You went above and beyond and it was really hurtful of her to turn things around on you like that to make it sound like you were forcing her into leaving her partner so in all honestly I don't blame you for cutting off the friendship because it can be utterly draining trying to help someone who won't help themselves despite constantly talking about how bad their partners are. I do think you could of told her the door was always open to her once she was sincerely ready to leave her partner instead of blocking and making it a permanent end to the friendship. She should of apologized to you for the way she spoke to you after all of the help you put in but you definitely went into savior mode and from experience it only ends up with you being upset so it's never worth it as much as you want to help someone. The real Grey area for me though is when there are children involved and it's really obvious how much the situation is affecting them. I understand that women are victims and can be completely brainwashed by abusive men but at the same time when it comes to the physical and mental safety of your own children how could you seriously not want to get out for their sakes? Imagine all of the children out there now who are stuck in abusive households learning toxic behavior that they will eventually start coping and inflicting on people themselves...this sort of thing is where I wonder how are more mothers not being held to account for allowing their children to be caught up in it especially if you do have full support networks willing to help you leave and start again. But like I said I know it's a very tricky situation it's not an overnight fix is it. Please don't carry the guilt over your friend though you really did everything you could for her.

no You did the right thing! She would have eventually cut ties either way, he would have demanded it as you knew what he was like and he would have made the friendship end.

as someone who was in an abusive relationship both mentally and physically I cut myself off from everyone to please him, or he cut them off directly and was verbally abusive to some friends at supermarkets etc, if I had stuck up for them I would have been for it.
They have to be strong enough to leave on their own, you arranged a flat for her, you have her the tools to get away she chose not to use them, you did all you could.

it's not your problem and you should not feel any guilt.

I suspect the reason you reacted like this and why it upset you so much was because the two of you were never really in an "equal" friendship. You were the in the role of therapist/saviour and she was in the role of victim - hence why you tried so hard to rescue/help her and why its been so devastating to realise that she rejected your help.

You even said you tried to help her to the detriment of your own family. I think you need to take a step back and really consider why you felt the need to do this from an objective, non-judgemental point of view. I say this without any judgement at all but think about why you felt the need to rescue so badly. Is that a childhood script? do you feel that it is actually you who are the one who has "failed" here because you were unable to get her out of this situation? I think thats worth exploring and it might be why your mother's unkind words triggered you in such an emotional way.

You have been a good friend but you arent responsible for her life - all you can ever do as a friend is support someone and take a step back when helping them is starting to affect you negatively. You never have to help someone to the detriment of your own family - that is not right and it's not appropriate. I would have a think about this before you make any decisions in the future regarding rekindling this friendship. It's always kind to support a friend but there have to be boundaries in place, otherwise this is the kind of aftermath that can happen.

I suspect if you hadn't felt such a need to rescue you wouldnt feel so utterly burnt out now.

For what it's worth OP, I think you made the right decision and were right to continue to think you did.

You were at peace with your decision until your DM made you feel bad about it, because she is deflecting her own inability to leave bad men onto you.

You had no obligation to do more for your friend than you did, you were caught up for too long in her situation and it drained you. You can only help people who are ready and who are helping themselves. That she couldn't leave this bad man for her children is not your burden.

You don't have the right tools or a professional obligation to help her or other DV victims, you were just trying to be a supportive friend. Posters scolding you for not enduring more of it, or saving her the way they think you should have, have no right to be scolding you.

Your instincts were right the first time. It's not your burden.

It's a tough one. Your mistake was actually getting so involved in the first place. And then cutting her off because you had done so much, it was impossible to continue the friendship.

I have a friend who seems to make really terrible decisions in men and seeing her is 50/50 whether it will be a horrible draining meet up or a fun one. So I see her a lot less. But I'm still there.

Ultimately people have to save themselves.

You offered help, she didn't / couldn't take it. It's not on you.

Sorry, but this isn’t true. I was her and I left, eventually, with the support of my friends who stuck by me. I literally legged it in the middle of the night with a suitcase. Coercive control and abuse are insidious, it becomes your new “normal”. But I did leave and I never looked back.
That said op, I don’t blame you at all for what you did. I get it, with hindsight I can absolutely see, to my friends, I was honestly a nightmare. I was so gaslit and controlled, I didn’t know which way was up. He was so convincing, so totally in control that, despite the fact that he was, frankly, an abusive, aggressive, pathetic tosser, I blamed myself. When I look back I can scarcely believe it.
Since I got out, I’ve recovered and I’ve reconnected with some of those friends who felt they needed to step away. I don’t blame them at all.
Would I cut off a friend in that situation? No. But only because I’ve been there.

“But but but you didn’t have to cut her off!”

No. This woman is not entitled to the OP. She is not entitled to her friendship, her time, her energy, nothing. Especially not after she took and took and took and then turned toxic and tried to gaslight her and rewrite history. Being a victim herself doesn’t excuse abuse towards someone that has done so much for her, and that’s exactly what the gaslighting and rewriting were.

I would have done the same thing, OP. The only difference is that I also would have refuted her gaslighting and delusional rewriting of events because I have a zero tolerance policy for that nastiness. I agree with the poster that said she didn’t deserve you. It’s sad that she has driven away her main support, but it was also her choice to do so. She could have backed out of the plans without the lying and gaslighting.

Yep. Sorry OP, I think so too.

You sound like a really good person and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Your mum’s reaction is disappointing but triggered by her own experience. That has nothing to do with you. If you want to reach out don’t do it out of guilt, do it because you think that friendship could enrich your life. If not, as sad as her situation is, you shouldn’t make contact in my view

you did everything that you could and more to help her so please try not to feel guilty. As I am sure you know how hard, it not almost impossible it can be to extricate oneself from an abusive relationship. Years of abuse erode and twist a person's sense of self and warps their world view so that they no longer know who they are and what they need and deserve. It is not in any way your fault that she was unable to take up your offers of support and help. You did the right thing in putting your family first, this horrible situation led to two families living in turmoil and you naturally chose to priotise yours. We can only do what we can do, if the other person for whatever reasons cannot accept the help we are offering there does come a time when we have to step back. I guess you will always think about her and hope that eventually she will find her way out.

I agree, but don't beat yourself up about blocking her, @TheIvyRestaurant - I totally get why you needed to protect yourself and focus on your own family.