I'll try to keep it short while avoiding drip-feeding but I really need some help and input.
I have a friend I've known for nearly three years.
When I first met her, her partner was working away during the week and only home on weekends.
After the birth of their second mutual child (they both have one child from former relatiosnhips) that changed, and he was here full time, first on paternal leave and afterwards on a new contract that allows him to work part-time from home and condensed hours in the office, so that he is only away for two nights a week.
Her partner seems friendly and nice enough, but I always thought some things in their relationship weird and not equal
- he does not contribute financially to the rent here, although they have two kids together, because he pays off a mortgage for a house in his name at the place where he works
- she does practically all the household chores
- he gets child-free time for sports every day, she never does
- if he does household stuff like grocery shopping, he does not take the kids
- Even when he was on paternal leave after the birth of their second child and she was working full-time, she still did basically all the household stuff and took care of the older kids
- He spends loads of money on his hobbies, she spends practically nothing on herself
- she would sometimes be all excited about a planned weekend trip with the kids, and after consulting with him there suddenly were multiple reasons why we culd not do that trip at all or not without him present
- Due to working and childcare and household, she was very exhausted in the year after the birth of the youngest and constantly ill.
Even when she had pneumonia she would do pick-ups and playground with the kids, although he was at home, because he "needed time for his sport"
- Since he lives here full time, it is rare to be able to meet her for a longer stretch of time on her own, at one point or the other he will always show up
When I spoke to her of the perceived unequalness, she would always be evasive, told me that that's just how men are, etc. When I disagreed, she said that my husband was just a rare exception and not the "normal" so I would not understand.
I still felt it was unfair but thought "well, there's always two to it" and "you can't really see the inside of a relationship" etc
2,5 months ago she sent me a text that they could not come to my sons birthday party in the afternoon because things were very complicated and not good in her life right now. I replied asking what was the matter and if she needed help or support. She did not answer. I called her several times the following days, she never picked up the phone. I asked two mutual friends if they heard from her, but they had not.
Since then, she has basically dropped contact to me and the other two friends. (Apart from us she has one more friend, which I don't really know)
Whenever we met her by chance during drop-off or pick-ups she looked really stressed. When asked she would smile falsely and say that "all is GREAT"
before all this
- She was adamant that she never wants to move to the city her partner works, never wants to leave the city we live in at all and where she was born and has family and even was very sceptial about maybe moving to a different part of this city due to the high rent here
- She never wanted to marry
- Never wanted to change her name
- She could not at all understand how some mothers (like me) chose to let the kids have the fathers surname
- Celebrations and rites-de-passage were incredibly important to her. Birthdays, anniversarys, first day in school, new job, etc, she would always organize lovely, well-thought little partys to mark the date; bring carefully picked presents and cards with lovely texts to any event she was invited to, etc
In the last two months she has
- decided to move to a city halfway to her partners work where none of them knows anybody
- married her partner
- took his name
- changed the surname of the two mutual kids to his name, leaving her first child to be the only one with her old name and not sharing the family name
- skipped the birthday partys of two of the 3 best friends of her daughter, and did nothing to celebrate or mark the great change in her and her kids life
- dropped contact to 3 from her 4 friends (the 4th I don't know about)
- moved to the new city without saying goodbye
We tried to organize a get-together. She was evavsive, never agreed on a date, so it did not happen.
While I'm really hurt that she dropped me so quickly after beeing friends for nearly 3 years, I have also started to be really really concerned that she is in an abusive relationship.
The other two mothers share my concern (they have known her for a year longer than me)
Do you think something is wrong, or am I being paranoid or misled?
Is there any way to help her, if she needs help?
Is there maybe a book I could read to understand the dynamics of abusive relationships better?
THANKS for reading!