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

It is easy to get over involved in relationships, especially if your own life lacks something (I don’t necessarily mean that this is the case here, just a general observation.)

It is also easy for a woman who has been told what to do to extend this to friendships. Ultimately the saviour role is never a comfortable one because it again highlights power imbalances. Healthy relationships, whether friendships or intimate relationships , are based around mutual respect, not bestowing charity.

If the children gave the game plan away, there's no earthly reason why Kate couldn't have just said that to OP over lunch.

Kate was pretty horrible to OP, who had done everything she could to help her. Just because someone is experiencing DV doesn't automatically make them a great person. I can't believe that Kate was so awful to someone who'd done so much to help her.

My cousin, a victim of DV, was so horrible to me. I supported her for ten years and then finally cracked by telling her family what he was doing to her. There was no excuse for the way she treated me. I subsequently went through complete hell with both my parents getting cancer and dying and my marriage breaking up, and she could not have cared less. I'll never forgive her for ignoring me during the darkest times of my life after I listened to her without judgement for ten years. Someone can be a victim of DV and still be a shitty person outside of that.

None of this is your fault. You tried your best to help her, and had it thrown back in your face. You can’t save her, you can only save yourself. It’s likely that her suddenly turning things round on you as she did was very much his doing. It’s awful for her I’m sure, but you cannot sacrifice yourself own wellbeing trying to help her. You really went above and beyond as a friend, but you can’t keep on doing that indefinitely, especially not when she then gaslights you about it (and I do agree it was gaslighting). I don’t think it was conscious gaslighting in that I think she probably did believe it to some degree, because he’s gaslit her so well she’s essentially his puppet. It’s very very sad, but it’s not in any way your fault. I wouldn’t get back in touch personally. You can’t help her and she’ll drag you down with her. Maybe she will eventually get out, and maybe someone else will be able to do that, but it won’t be you because she’ll be prejudiced against you from now on. Try not to blame her for the way she treated you, she clearly has diminished responsibility. You absolutely did not deserve what she did, but try to make your peace with it and move on. Don’t risk getting dragged back in though.

I think you have done so much for her there is only so much you can do, id agree time to step away x

In your place I'd like to think I'd have let her know I was pulling back, but would always be there if she needed me - but can't be sure I would.
It can be exhausting supporting someone repeatedly when they keep going back to the same old destructive behaviours.

What a sad thread. I’m sorry op that it sounds like you went through so much in your own life and this friend only had the time and headspace for her own problems. I don’t think you can help friends or family leave abusive relationships tbh, you just help them deal with the stress enough so they can cope with their abusive partner for a bit longer.

I wish we could do more to nip these relationships in the bud but so much poor behaviour in men is hand waved away and so much pressure is put on women to give them another chance that it feels like such a big mountain to climb.

and it was me, not her, hell bent on breaking the marriage up and “the time had come” to “finally” let me know i’d gone too far.

I very much doubt that anyone criticising you, could have sat there and taken that after eight years of total support for a friend in this position.

A lot of people here are answering as if this was some kind of academic moral question, rather than a real, human situation.

You are not an emotional support animal, for your friend or for your mother.

Women are often conditioned to be so, and other women often have an easier time spotting this and pointing it out when that is weaponised by men than when it is weaponised by other women (however subconsciouslyin both cases).

You are a human being - as well as your friend - with your own physical and emotional needs. Your friend - horrendous situation though she is in - is an adult with agency, just as you are, and is not a child; certainly not one to whom you owe more of yourself than to your own children.

Do not set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, OP, and please not at the expense of your own family. They are your first duty, after making sure you yourself stay in an even keel.

Your mother is either deflecting a deep-seated guilt about what she allowed her own children to ensure by telling herself that other people owed a greater responsibility to her and her children than she did herself, or she genuinely takes no responsibility for her own life and genuinely can't see that she had any agency at all in her own life. Neither are correct and you would be wise to see her comments as a greater reflection on her and her own choices than on you and yours.

I hope your friend gets out of her situation but it is absolutely not your responsibility to see to it that she does so. You have done more than most would have attempted already and enough is enough when it starts to seriously negatively affect your own life and wellbeing.

Wishing you peace.

So you supported this friend for eight years, your life revolved around her situation to the detriment of your own family, you did all the research, you found her a way out, and she threw it all in your face on the cruelest way.

I'm amazed that anyone can think that you could have done anything other than completely walk away. Just standing back wouldn't have worked. There's no way that she'd have stopped dumping this on you, and that you could have refused to respond and help.

You couldn't continue with her though, not without real detriment to your own health. As it is you've probably been living on high alert, with all the physical and emotional impact that has on a person. Living with chronic stress that's outwith your control is so bad for your health.

That. I've been in a friendship where the friend's problems and emotions took over my life. The friend had no-one else, as they kept telling me. So I felt I had to always be available, to the detriment of my family. I should have walked away. I look back and am horrified that I missed family stuff to support this person whose situation had me so stressed. Again, it was for years.
It took a a person on the end of a helpline to make me realise that I wasn't responsible for them, and gain some perspective.

Please don't listen to those on this thread who are telling you that you did the wrong thing. You were/are not responsible for her. After all that time, and after her own cruelty to you, you were right to drop the rope completely and put yourself and your family first.

Or maybe it was her children who gave her away. At some point she would've had to involve them in the plan and OP said they had taken to aping their father's abusive way of talking to her. Maybe they refused to leave him and Kate (wrongly) let rip at OP at lunch to save face. I think that's why I would've left the door ajar rather than blocked her for good – it wasn't just about Kate escaping her abuser, it was them too.

Well described, @C152.

That is astoundingly ignorant on every level.

1. The first hit is still abuse.
2. The first hit is rarely the first element of abuse; it is usually vastly more subtle than that and builds up over time.
3. Women stay for many reasons, often because they are in more immediate danger leaving. Here are the thoughts that go through some people's minds when they weigh the risk of staying against the risk of leaving -

• he has people watching me when he leaves, to check what I'm up to. How can I mislead them all and get me and my children away safely without any of the watchers realising?
• where can I go when I have no money?
• where can I go where he will not find me and kill me?
• will he kill me in front of the children when he finds us?
• how can I get a job when he keeps showing up and causing a scene to deliberately get me fired?
• how can I stop him kidnapping our daughter and selling her to sex traffickers?
• he has convinced the children he is wonderful and they won't come with me willingly. How can I leave them to a life of what will eventually become abuse?
• he only hurts me but has so far left the children alone. Given my limited resources, staying is a better option that us living on the street.
• he has isolated me from friends and family and I have no one to turn to.
• he doesn't allow me access to the phone or internet and I can't go anywhere unaccompanied
• he has convinced the children to spy on me and report back my every move. How can I get help?

I'd have done the same as you OP. It's not that she didn't leave. Or even that she could have caused bad feeling between you and your uncle. It was the point she accused you if having a vendetta against her H, the man she was always bitching about and who was treating her appallingly. That's the bit that would have made me say goodbye.

As for all those saying couldn't OP have stayed friends and backed off unless her friend asked her for help, that was exactly what happened this time! OP did nothing except listen and sympathise and point out her friend didn't have to put up with this behaviour, up until the point her friend contacted OP and said she wanted to leave him.

It was a toxic friendship OP. You were her emotional dumping ground, she was using you and you putting up with that was enabling her to remain in an abusive marriage. You weren't helping her or yourself. Getting yourself out if that situation was the right thing to do.

Your mum is wrong to have guilt tripped you. You never did have responsibility for your friend's situation. Just as her friends never held responsibility for her. It wasn't your mum's friend's jobs to stick around listening to distressing stories of DA and risk ruining their own mental health, just because your mum didn't want to face taking responsibility for herself. We all are responsible for our own lives.

As a friend, you were responsible for nothing more than helping your friend when she asked for help. This you did, going above and beyond, risking your own family relationships in the process. She threw it all back in your face with her vendetta accusation. You owe her nothing now. She was the one that killed the friendship, not you. If she'd said thanks for all your help but I just can't do it and I'd rather not talk about it again, that would be a different matter, but she didn't. She can't treat another person like she treated you and still expect that person to be friends with her.

I think you have to put your own well-being first. You can only support someone else if you’re first strong enough in yourself and have courage .

It’s fine for your mum to say that you should have stood by your friend BUT you can only do that if you’re resilient enough for the long game.

you can still be her friend, you don’t need to have all these plans & constantly encourage her to leave him. She will leave by herself & for herself & her children eventually. But it has to be her decision, she has been psychologically programmed by her abuser to trust him and only him. I know it’s hard to see it from the other side, and you were an amazing friend. Best advice is to just be there for her when she needs you.

And to the poster who said “if she’d have been wearing a wire she’d have let you know somehow”.
Possibly. Possibly not, esp not if she was living in fear of him and he’d said he would follow her/ have a staff member keep an eye on their table / “know” if she gave the game away.
Yes it may sound crazy but this can be life with an abuser.

I’m sorry you feel my contributions to your thread have been harsh. I certainly don’t have any harsh feelings! These situations are so complicated, and so difficult to judge, there’s no room really to be harsh to anyone or about any of it. Grace and forgiveness aren’t too much to ask of anyone either, on both sides.

And you certainly don’t owe anyone any answers, including me :) No aggression from me, passive or not. I’m not affected or vested enough to have thoughts that strong about this!

Good luck with whatever you decide. As I’ve got older, so my friendships have become increasingly important to me, especially ones of longstanding. They can be really precious.

@Wherearemymarbles sometimes the “first sign of trouble” is much much less easy to spot than an assault. And can come in the disguise of “caring so much about you”

I agree @kanaka and I think it’s abit shocking that her friend ignored the fact that the OP arranged a low rent property for her, it could’ve had legal consequences not to mention damaging the OP’s relationship with her uncle who owned the property. She clearly doesn’t give a toss about the OP.

I think that you had no choice but to protect yourself from her tbh. Obviously it would be good if she extricates herself from her relationship, but it doesn’t give her the right to gaslight you.

yes janfeb….
but if they left at the 1st sign of trouble none of your points, as valid as they, are would be relevant as the relationship would have ended before it had even started.

It seens to me you are potentially duplicating your relationship with your nother with that of your friend. You say that your mother was in a similar relationship and it would seem to me thqt this would have made you feel incredibly powerless as a child/young person. In your relationship with your friend is it possible you feel slightly more empowered ? It may be worth considering getting some counselling to address the impact of your mothers' choices on you as q child/young person.
That aside, you have gone over abd well above to the detriment of your own well being and relationships. Which isnt healthy and to the extent you are becoming easy to blame. Im not sure the relationship with your friend is salvagable, even if you do want this. I disagree with your mothers' view, you are not responsible for your friends choices think about what you want. There is no shame should you decide not to proceed further down thqt path

Eh? WTF does that mean? Victims cant be assholes? OP does not have to deplete herself for a person who only takes and does not give. And people need to understand that there are people in bad, controlling relationships who choose to stay - for the lifestyle, house, etc. In that case, it is not incumbent on everyone around them to provide them with endless support for their poor decisions. Abuse is a continuum, and while there are people who are in danger if they leave, there are others who could takes steps and do not. OP has done exactly the right thing.

Abused women have so much to weigh up when thinking of leaving:

• will the children be upset at losing Daddy?
• will he call social services on me as he keeps threatening (esp if they have any MH problems)?
• will he try and kill me like he’s threatened? (Statistically the most dangerous time for a victim is when or just after she leaves)
• how will I survive financially?
• will I cope (having been told for years she can’t cope with anything/ is stupid/ useless)?