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

[TheIvyRestaurant]

I had a friend, let’s call her Kate - she met a man about 12 years ago and got pregnant very quickly, after 3 months. They decided to make a go of it, and from about mid-way through her pregnancy I noticed his red flag behaviour. Then things got worse when she had the baby and he moved in. They then had another DD about 2 years later and they got married a few years after that. I could give hundreds of examples of how he was emotionally abusive but here are a few:

• Kate was “allowed” to come out for drinks with me (I eventually was her only friend as he alienated her from so many people) but only during the day - she had to be back at 6pm so she could do bedtime as he couldn’t cope apparently. I’m not talking babies - this is when their DDs were 6 and 8. One night we were having so much fun we lost track of time and realised it was 6.15pm. She had 9 texts from him saying she had “failed at her task” and “failed as a parent” because “you know that I can’t do bedtimes so the girls are now going to be up really late thanks to you putting yourself first”.
• She had to go term time only at work because he can’t look after his own children for full days while she works, it triggers his PTSD. Meaning she had a lot less money. He also insisted on keeping their finances seperate, so whilst he stayed full time and would buy £900 TVs and an e scooter, she would have to forgo buying lunch at work because her salary dropped so much.
• During lockdown, things ramped up - he was beyond nasty and would text her from other rooms of the house saying “Tell those kids to STFU before lose my shit at you all” and “Can you put some clothes on, it makes me want to vomit seeing you in pyjamas during the day” and “You’d better be doing home schooling with them, if they’re then out to be thick kids it will be your fault”. He couldn’t home schooling apparently, it triggered his PTAD. She would text me these screenshots on a daily basis.
• One time we went to a local concert, and she decided she’d stay out for a drink after and stand up to him. He wasn’t happy and was demanding she come home but she put her phone in her bag. A few hours later, she checked her phone to find 67 missed calls and the ring doorbell showed paramedics at their door. He called 999 saying he thinks he has sepsis. He didn’t, and they soon left. But he spent months saying the stress she caused by staying out brought on sepsis like symptoms.
• He’d really have a go at her parenting. All the time. She’s an AMAZING mum, but if she didn’t have things 100% organised (like literally every mum on the planet) he’d go nuts. I was round once and he said “The girls want to go in the garden where are their hats?”. Because she didn’t instantly know and had to look in various cupboards and coat pockets, he really went at her saying “Smart mother you are - don’t even know where their clothes are”. I pointed out “Well neither do you” and the look her gave me terrified me to the point I left after that.
• Me and her went away with all our kids to a theme park hotel for the night and he was texting her having a go about her parenting - the kids weren’t even there! He’s obsessed with her “failing”. “I gave you a new routine and you failed at it. You left the house 15 minutes after we agreed. FAILED”.
• Her DDs eventually started treating her like shit. If they wanted her from another room they’d shout “Kate! Get here RIGHT NOW”. She said it’s because that’s how her DH speaks to her and they were copying

I spent a lot of personal time and energy worrying about my friend. I told her from early on to leave him, not to marry him, that’s she can do better and she’s a shell of her former self. Eventually, after another text simply saying “Guess what your latest fail has been? Go on take a guess.” (she forgot to turn the dishwasher on and he had nothing to eat his food on which apparently triggered his PTSD) she told me she wants to leave him. I supported her for the next 3 months. I did all sorts - looked around rentals on her behalf (he was NEVER gonna leave the house of his own accord and she didn’t want police involvement). Researched cheap items to but for a new kitchen. Researched women’s groups and charities that support single mums. Spent hours pouring over her rights and how to claim maintenance and the pitfalls she might encounter. Researching the cheapest forms of divorce. None of this she could do herself in case he checked her phone or caught her.

I did it to the detriment of spending time with my own kids and DH. My DH at this point was supportive but said i was too involved and it’s not my job, and pointed out my friend would post “we are such a happy family” type posts on social media and he assured me “she’s never gonna leave him you’re wasting your time”. We once fell out about it. But I persevered and was determined to get her out of there.

My uncle is a landlord and I asked him a favour to rent her a 2 bed property for a while at a cheap rate until she could find something more suitable. He agreed, letting down the person he promised it to. I was grateful and my friend was delighted she had a place to escape to.

A week before she was due to move in (she’d signed a tenancy agreement) she asked to meet me for lunch. She told me that I had been encouraging her to leave her husband for too long, pushing her into doing it and she didn’t like it and I was to stop. Because she loved him and wasn’t leaving. I asked her if her DH was making her say these things and she said “no”. I’m not sure if this is true. She said we can still be friends but I have to stop this “vendetta” against her DH.

A few days later, still heartbroken, I decided I’d had enough and her marriage had imposed too much on my own life. With DH’s support I texted her to say I couldn’t be her friend anymore. She had gaslighted me, and taken me for granted and she was on her own. I then blocked her on everything and haven’t seen her since. Luckily my uncle was v understanding and didn’t pursue her for her contractual obligations.

That was 3 years ago. I don’t talk about it because I feel so bruised emotionally from it and I tell people we drifted apart. We then moved away shortly after that (for different reasons) which made the cut-off easier.

Anyway caught up with my mum today and she said “You haven’t spoken about Kate in ages. You used to mention her all the time”. I told her the whole story.

I’ve come away feeling sick with guilt. My mum made me feel really awful - said I shouldn’t have given up on my friend and I should have bided my time before bringing it up again. That “That poor woman and those 2 girls are stuck with that vile man and you’re doing nothing about it”. My mum was in an abusive marriage (albeit a violent one as well) and said “so called friends like me” who bolted when her stories became too much are people she will never forgive or forget. That of you know bad things are happening it’s your obligation to stop them, and I gave up too soon.

FWIW. DH looks now and again on social media and Kate and her DH are still together.

I now feel so guilty and confused and second guessing my decision I was otherwise so sure about for 3 years. Please tell me MN honestly - WIBU to cut Kate off? Should I try and reach out to her? My mum gave me a new perspective and I honestly feel sick with what I did.

Well described, @C152.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

You went above and beyond, and tried to help and support your friend for years. I don’t think you could have done much more, and your uncle was kind too. Your mother is triggered because of her own experience and projecting on you. Try not to dwell on what she said.

I added a screenshot showing the dictionary definition. Gaslighting isn’t simply refusing to acknowledge the truth or insisting that the opposite is true.

As per the actual dictionary definition, gaslighting is deliberate psychological manipulation, usually carried out over an extended period of time, and often done to get the other person to become dependant on you. The dictionary goes on to describe how it’s often used by abusers to achieve control.

A scared woman who’s refusing to confront and accept reality is not manipulating you for her own gains. Quite literally that’s not what gaslighting is.

Gaslightjng isn’t just someone who won’t agree with your version of events, even if your version is true. It’s a very specific set of behaviours where you are being deliberately and wilfully manipulated to achieve control/dependency. Absolutely none of that applies here. She wasn’t trying to manipulate you for personal gain or to achieve control - she was just too scared/overwhelmed to face reality. Not the same thing at all.

It’s interesting that you’re so insistent that you were gaslit, despite multiple posters here telling you that isn’t what gaslighting is. I don’t know if it’s because you obviously carry some guilt over how it ended and maybe believing that you were being gaslit makes you feel vindicated somewhat in your actions….?

I do think you’re conflating different things with your insistence of gaslighting. Although you categorically weren’t gaslit, it must have been utterly frustrating and infuriating to have the truth batted away and denied. That’s incredibly hard to deal with and I can see why that made you draw a line. Even though there’s plenty of us trying to point out that what happened isn’t gaslighting, we can still agree that it was really shitty for you.

The reason I said you see things in black and white is your repeated denials of why she acted the way she did, and your inability to see it as anything other than gaslighting. You admitted yourself the man was terrifying; abuse survivors find it hard to take that step to walk away because it’s the psychological fear that also has to be overcome, not just the practicalities. And it often takes multiple attempts to even take that first step because it’s a huge thing to do. If you couldn’t cope with offering support then you were right to withdraw. If you do understand the nuances of abuse, you’re letting other emotions cloud your vision because you don’t seem to understand why your friend couldn’t acknowledge the truth, and you seem angry that she didn’t leave him when you’d lined up a place for her to stay.

Maybe it wasn’t the ideal way for the friendship to end but it doesn’t sound healthy for either of you so it was probably quite good that things came to a close. You - albeit unconsciously - had expectations that she would follow through and were angry when she couldn’t leave her abuser. And she couldn’t acknowledge the support you’d provided nor show any interest in your life.

It doesn’t sound as if it would be helpful for either of you to reconnect. I hope she has someone she can turn to now, and I’m glad you have other friends.

Christ op talk about no good deed left unpunished!

It was more than not acknowledging the truth, she falsely accused OP of having a vendetta against her husband. Despite her insistence that OP had a vendetta, she still wanted to maintain contact and keep the friendship, acting like she was doing OP a favour and giving her a second chance by doing so. So she could continue to offload on OP and use her for stress relief, I imagine. She never gave to the friendship, only took. I think that's all quite manipulative, myself.

I’m not quite sure where she gaslighted you

Clear gas lighting. Two people are involved in a situation and both see it the same way. Then one of them re writes history in their head and pretends they see it an entirely different way to suit their own agenda. Classic gas lighting. Don’t know why anyone is questioning that description.

A friendship where one is in that situation is never balanced anyway.

No idea. Sadly.
My OH has been worried about me. He can see the effect it’s had on me.
It is hard, isn’t it?

Some people won't be helped. A friend of mine has just given up on a similar situation. She says it's so draining to repeatedly hear the tales of woe. Your instinct is 'I must help' but all suggestions that might help are ignored, leaving her feeling emotionally exhausted herself after a regular pity me session. So she's doing the same as you because nobody benefits from their meetings at all. It's sad. I feel very sorry for friend's friend but she can't or won't help herself.

You need to read on. OP is still doing it. Talking about how her friend made her feel like shit, how her friend made her feel stupid and humiliated. Read @Onlyonekenobe ’s response beneath yours to me for how OP interpreted their response wrongly, but tellingly took it as being about how it made OP feel.

The really striking thing is how OP is hyper focused on how her friend made her feel. There is a striking mind blindnesses in her posts to how her friend was feeling.

She insists her friend gaslight her even after people explain what would really have been going on for her friend.

And, unpleasantly and tellingly, when OP sent her final message to her friend cutting her off, she waits till she has seen her friend has read it before blocking her. This ensuring she herself gets a sense of finality and being heard, whilst denying her abuse victim friend this.

OP is behaving as if her friend asked her to arrange a holiday away for them both, then backed out at the last minute, rather than this was a friend who has spent years being destroyed.

OP is VERY clear that she sees her friend not leaving in terms of how her friend ‘made’ OP feel, rejected, stupid, humiliated, used. She is unable to see this incident in terms of how her friend was experiencing it.

OP is VERY clear that she sees her friend not leaving in terms of how her friend ‘made’ OP feel, rejected, stupid, humiliated, used. She is unable to see this incident in terms of how her friend was experiencing it

OP has had 8 years of knowing exactly how her friend feels- she's been sending her screen shot of her husbands texts and offloading on her whilst OP supported her for 8 YEARS.

Thats why she helped her when her friend asked by sorting reduced cost accommodation from her uncle. Note the friend hasnt offered OP any support for the trauma she has been through- that stuff never even gets mentioned when they meet up. Of course OP can only speak about her feelings now because the post is about her and how this interaction made her feel. FFS - some of you are acting like OP should be an emotionless support robot who isnt entitled to any feelings of her own- she apparently only exists to assist this friend and isnt allowed any complex feelings, or thoughts of her own, let alone her own trauma of which she has apparently had plenty. It's frankly really gross and misogynistic.

She absolutely could have given a kinder response, and I would have been much happier

She gave you the response that gave her what little sense of self, dignity and self-assertion she had left.

What did you want her to do? Tell you she was too frightened? Too weak? Too incapable? Did you want her to humiliate herself in front of you too? in her life full of humiliation and degradation?

It is surely not so surprising that in a life where her ‘incapability’ is constantly thrown in her face, that she reframed her ‘incapability’ to leave as her capability to assert herself against you? It was the only psychologically tolerable option her brain told her she had. All her strength goes on keeping her head coming up for water, just enough not to drown.

Look, you clearly started this post looking only for validation and not to hear a wide variety of views. For obvious reasons, you are very wedded to your interpretation of what happened and your justifications for it.
I would invite you though to consider, when you felt so utterly ground down by your friends behaviour that you had to be prepared to hurt her to protect yourself, how much more ground down, for much longer and much more severely, and with so many fewer resources to cope with it, you was friend was. Maybe that will help you to have a little bit more understanding and compassion for why your friend spoke to you that day over lunch, and how it wasn’t about hurting you, but about protecting her own psychological state.

But the friend being abused by her husband and having that as her only and sole topic of concern isn’t op’s fault is it. Op obviously was there for this friend for a very long time without reciprocation and went over and above for her and for what? To be told she’s an interfering cow who’s obsessed with breaking up her marriage because she hates her husband.

Yes it is very hard to leave abusive relationships but that doesn’t mean everyone around you who isn’t abusing you has a moral obligation to collude with you, take shit off you, support you regardless and never get anything like the same level of friendship back in return. From the replies op isn’t even unique - other posters have experienced similar treatment.

There is a psychological theory about certain relationships called the drama triangle. There are 3 roles - victim, persecutor and rescuer. When you’re in this dynamic you willingly or unwittingly become drawn into one of these roles. They can switch at any time, so for example, the rescuer can become the persecutor which is what happened to op. She became aware that she was being used, as when you’re in a role the people in the triangle are interacting with the role and not you as a full person.

Well yes, OP centering and exploring her feelings on a thread she has made doesn't seem wild- just because Kate 'had it worse' doesn't mean OP ceases to exist as a human with her own feelings. After nearly a decade of supporting her friend I'm sure she's all too familiar with what she was going through.

I have complex MH issues and have lost friends along the years as even though my behaviour isn't always my fault as such I understand that people don't have to be my metaphorical punching bag, that even the most supportive friends deserve to have their own boundaries, and that they are important too, even though at the time I couldn't see it due to my illness/situation.

Sadly being in these situations can make someone selfish even though they can't help it and don't intend to be, it's also emotionally draining on the other party.