Supporting a friend in an abusive relationship - advice please?

[WyrdByrd]

I have a very dear and longstanding friend who, for reasons of very different lifestyles, I haven't seen much of over the last 10 years.

We have finally been getting together more often over the last few months and over the course of our last couple of get togethers she has confided in me that her partner has abused her physically on a number of occasions. There was also a sexual element to a couple of the incidents.

These outbursts are not overly frequent/regular but there is a specific trigger for them so she feels she is walking on eggshells, but that so long as she doesn't mention the trigger subject it is manageable.

I think she realises that this is no way to live in the long term, but she is simply not in a strong enough place mentally to make the move at the moment. She suffered a significant bereavement earlier in the year and has no family who are in a position to support her although there is potentially somewhere she can go.

She is a truly amazing woman and deserves so much better than this, but she has never been single and suffers with anxiety and low self esteem.

How can I support her and help her grow strong enough to make a new life for herself?

If your friend is directly asking you for help to get out of the relationship you might get somewhere. She's doing better than some if she has acknowledged that the behaviour is abusive. The barriers keeping her trapped, however, will be significant and they will be b oth mental and practical. Fear of him and fear of the unknown.

What she probably needs most, therefore is confidence. Someone to say 'I believe you and I can support you'. Take it from there.

That's more or less what I was thinking.

She was just crying and saying 'It's not right is it?' She sort of acknowledged that it couldn't continue in the long term, and actually thinking about it she did manage to break off her last relationship after several years, but... she had family around then and I think had met her current partner although they hadn't actually got together.

There are no children and my gut feeling from what she told me and what I've seen of him is that she's not in any immediate danger. He's never actually hit her but has been very physical with her in other ways (that have left marks), accused her of being mad/psychotic and the 'sexual' stuff was just weird.

I've offered to help her with some practical/legal stuff which will hopefully ensure she is financially secure and has a place to go, or the money to find something if she does want to leave at some point. Have also told her that if she needs me any time I'm here for her and she needn't ever think she has nowhere to go if she needs to leave quickly.

I'm not sure there's anything more I can do at this point. I did wonder about mentioning the Freedom Programme but I'm not convinced she's quite at that stage yet.

I'm not great at advice, so the only thing I can say is that you will have to have the patience of a saint with her.

It is important for her to build up her safety network again and she will need you to be part of that. But it can be very frustrating trying to help someone is a situation like that as it takes a lot to leave.

I'm not expecting anything to happen imminently at all.

Just want to make sure that she protects her interests and builds up her confidence so that if/when she decides to leave, or if he oversteps the mark and she had to do it suddenly she has the strength to go through with it.

I think she is terrified of being on her own, although she is one of the loveliest people I know and everyone who meets her thinks she's brilliant in a matter of minutes.