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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Very worried for friend in abusive situation

3 replies

MySqueeHasBeenSeverelyHarshed · 05/10/2015 22:19

I've namechanged for this but have been a regular for years (naice ham, pom bears, penis beaker) and I'm posting on behalf of a few of us who are very concerned for our friend.

Gordon (not his real name) has been with Emily (not her real name) for quite a while, most of us were friends with Emily before they got together and he became part of our group after a while. He's a lovely guy, absolute heart of gold, but has issues with women treating him badly before and he seems determined for things to work out this time.

Emily is a person we have all acknowledged has some issues that we put down to awkwardness. She could be very mean about people, but not in a clever manipulative way, so we just assumed she had no filter and wasn't really doing it on purpose. Issues have slowly started mounting up and we compared notes, so to be brief we realized:

  • You can't discuss anything in a normal way with her, she cries and sulks until she gets her way. She only chooses to do this with some people, rarely with me, but everyone has seen her do it.

  • She has possibly stolen money and objects from us (everyone has accounted for something going missing when she's been around) and has been witnessed stealing from a shop. She admitted she does it frequently.

  • Has made herself obtrusively at home in other people's houses. She did this when I lived nearby, would turn up at odd hours expecting me to feed her and give her a bed without warning. I usually kicked her out because I had work and was unwilling to leave her alone in my house. At present she is spending a lot of time in our mutual friends' shared house, eats their food and uses a lot of their power (like, to the point that the bills have gone up a lot) and refuses to pay into the house budget like the other visitors do. She also stays a lot longer. I will explain why below.

  • She has epilepsy, fits at night and demands anyone in the house to attend to her, up to and including bringing her to the bathroom and insisting they hold her hand there. She used to call for me but as I was on strong pain medication that made me sleep like the dead, she stopped and only started again when another girl (who also has seizures) lived with her. She didn't stop the fits, I mean, just the demands to be attended to.

  • If we are doing something as a group, she holds everyone up and we think she does it deliberately. She does things very slowly, forcing you to move and act at her pace. She also knows I'm partially deaf but refuses to speak up beyond a mumble or look up so I can lip read. She leaves lights on to keep people awake or makes noise late at night (when working people are trying to sleep) when she's mostly quiet during the day.

  • She talks down to people about things she knows nothing about and picks arguments for no real reason other than we're not paying enough attention to her. She has recently been very cruel about the physical appearance of one friend in particular, especially with regards to her weight (mostly because she herself is bigger but is convinced she is smaller.)

  • She dresses and acts in a deliberately provocative manner, wearing clothes much too small or clashing. Normally I wouldn't care what someone wears but she makes it clear she does it for notice.

I'm providing all of this so as not to drip feed, and build a picture of who we're dealing with. She has tried to play us off against each other, has bitched about me to the others and about the others to me. Now for all the below info, I was not aware of any of this until very recently as I've had a lot going on and Emily never intended me to find out.

So recently after a drunk conversation about polyamory, Emily decided that she wasn't wholly satisfied with Gordon and started a relationship with Dorothy (not her real name) under the poly banner. It's not polyamory in any sense of the word, what she is doing is openly cheating on Gordon with Dorothy and when anyone brings that up they are accused of being a bigot. Gordon wants nothing to do with Dorothy and vice-versa. To complicate matters, Dorothy is a trans woman in the early stages of transitioning and was going through a serious depressive bout and family troubles when they got together.

Gordon moved into Emily's house to be with her, and the first week she left him to stay for a week with Dorothy at the shared house mentioned above, where she annoyed the hell out of everyone else living there. Dorothy's behavior has deteriorated big time since they got together, she's become hostile, lazy and as selfish as Emily. Both Gordon and Dorothy give Emily money and buy her things, but Gordon is the only one with a job. Emily stays in the shared house at least once a week and usually for more than two days, leaving Gordon on his own.

Gordon has been isolated from his friends. He works during the day and he left his best friends and family in his home town to move to her place miles away. He has our group but we never see him on his own as Emily will make a fuss if he does something without her. She monitors his social media (and has spied on those in the shared house, hence why I'm posting as she has no access to mine). He has openly admitted to his friend when he saw him last that he's not happy. He has now proposed to her purely to get Dorothy to back off, and it hasn't worked.

We are all ready to cut Emily off, and Dorothy too if needs be, but we are very worried about Gordon. She will not let him be alone with any of us. I had suggested writing to his mother to inform her so she could try and pry it out of him, because I just don't know what else to do. Emily never intended me to know about any of this (she made me a bridesmaid, and is now telling the others that I'm trying to control the wedding) but I don't even see how she can marry this guy without it all coming out.

Any advice? (Anyfucker?)

OP posts:
RiceCrispieTreats · 05/10/2015 23:39

You have a friend with issues. Probably several friends with issues, counting Gordon (and possibly others: all this talk of "group" and shared houses and leaching off each other and romances with flatmates etc makes me think this is all a bit incestuous and unhealthy).

What you do with Emily, Gordon and Dorothy et al is your choice, but:

  • You are all grown-ups and responsible for yourselves.
  • This means that Emily is accountable for the shitty things she has done, and that Gordon can handle his own social life.
  • You are free to remain friends with Emily, or to swoop in and "save" Gordon if that is what you want to do, but you do not have any obligation to do either of those things.
  • If Gordon needs help from his mother or anyone else, he will ask for help from his mother or anyone else. Let the man rule his own life. You can only choose how you relate to him.
  • Choosing to cut people off is an individual decision and not a "group" decision: each of you can think for him or herself and come to their own decision about how they relate to any other individual.
ffffffedup · 06/10/2015 00:00

Wow what a long post - what Emily Dorothy and Gordon get up to within their relationships really isn't any of yours or anyone else's business, if Gordon isn't happy about a 3 way relationship then he should grow a pair and tell Emily to make her choice. If Emily is rude over powering and generally taking the piss out of your generosity then I suggest you also grow a pair and tell her to fuck off somewhere else. It all sounds very childish and in each others pockets to me.

RiceCrispieTreats · 06/10/2015 00:07

Now, looking at your own individual relationship with Gordon: it sounds like you want to haul him out of a relationship that you see as abusive. Sadly, that is something that is only in his own power to do. You say that "Emily won't let him be alone with any of us," which means that she lays down the law and he complies. He has even proposed to her and is prepared to go through with it. Gordon is doing what Gordon wants to do, here.

You have to let him make his own choices and his own mistakes.

BUT. You can be there for him. Non-judgementally open and available. Listen to him. Ask him open questions. Echo his feelings if he expresses any. And wait for him to be ready to leave, maybe someday.

If you openly criticise Emily, he will deny or minimise it, or shun you. You won't be able to help him much if he's the one who has cut you off for criticising the woman he still wants to be around. You have to wait for him to be ready, and accept that that moment may never come.

Watching a friend get sucked into and remain in an abusive relationship is the worst, and I feel for you. You are very kind-hearted to be concerned for him. So just show him your kind heart. But don't tell him what you think he should do, and don't try to fix things for him, because that just won't work and may well backfire.

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