How to help a friend

[yougotafriend]

My friend had a fairly disfunctional marriage - both nice people but completely incompatible. In December she met someone else, although all contact was "virtual", and this proved the catalyst for her to make a break. she has 2 DC's 16 & 10

She told her husband in March this year and they have now seperated and she has started to see the OM properly. He lives 40 miles away and has left his wife and DD 15.

All would seem to be working out exactly as she wanted it to apart fromt he logistical and financial headaches that were expected.

But....she is absolutely miserable, I feel so helpless as I just don't know what to say. She says she can't stand not being part of a family and no matter how I try to tell her she is still part of a family, just a different one - she can't seem to accept this and is fading away before my eyes. I think she is riddled with guilt as it was her decision, but just because she took control of the split, it doesn't mean she is responsible for the marriage breakdown!

She has always been very close to her sister, but she has taken her husbands side and is nto supportive at all. I think she should seek professional help but she suffered with severe PND after her first DC so is scared to go back there.

Any advice I can pass on?????

Advice is only any use when it's requested. She sounds like she's stuck in a miserable place, probably depressed and suffering with very low confidence and a lot of insecurity However justified it is ending a marriage, there's going to be remorse but, rather than deal with that and find her feet independently, she's rushed off and found someone new to prop up her low self-esteem. Means she's got not only the guilt of ending her own marriage but she must have some big question marks about a new partner prepared to drop a DW and DD on the strength of - what? - some instant messaging?

The words 'frying pan' and 'fire' are hovering in the air. Always a danger when leaving an unhappy relationship and desperate to fill the vacancy.... anyone even remotely kind is going to seem like a good idea.

Yes she should probably do a lot of things. Not rush into a new relationship, talk to the GP, consider some therapy... amongst others. But until she asks for your advice, you're going to be talking to a brick wall. Just be ready with the tissues.

Thanks Cogito. She did know OM from when they were much younger but they were only ever friends then so I think it came as a surprise to both of them that there was something more all these years later.

When I first met her (before she was married) she was such a feisty independant woman it's so sad to see her now almost a shadow of who she was. I knew that PND and years of an unhappy marriage had sapped her self-confidence so imagined her breaking free and becoming a butterfly again - but it just hasn't happened.

I agree though, she needs to be happy on her own before she can be happy with anyone else - but that's easy to say from the sidelines!!