Friend in abusive marriage

[mocochops]

NC however have asked for advice before here about school mum friend.
She is in an abusive marriage. Financially, emotionally, sexually. Her ds have witnessed their father name calling, throwing things etc.
She has been unhappy since I met her, around 7 years ago. Countless coffee shop rants, walks etc and I think I'm the only person who gets most of the true picture.
Recently her H upped his game, truly awful behaviour and she did seek legal advice. It seemed like she finally had the courage to get out, she looked at houses etc.
Yesterday I had a text saying they are trying again. I really don't know how to respond and have a lot going on myself. I feel I am there to offload to and the friendship isn't 2 way. I've already backed off. I can't help feel angry and frustrated and it's not through lack of understanding of an abusive relationship as I have been there myself. What do I say to her? I'm tired of it and tbh I feel like I've got to the stage of being past caring almost.. 7 years later

You cant force her to leave, and there are no magic words. Until she sees sense (or more likely, until he hurts her or one of the kids so catastrophically that it stops being her choice), you can't do anything. If you're a "fixer" personality, this situation is immensely frustrating. I am very sorry, this isn't nice for you to go through.

Thanks for your reply @funny.

I know it is so hard to do, it defies logic. My issue is, how do I respond to the message? After sending links, giving phone number for my solicitor, plus basically calling her H an idiot after one distressing incident. How do I respond? I don't feel I can support her?

I would wish her the best of luck and then step away and leave her to get on with it

#chilling. I feel quite responsible to be there for her and know her too well to just say 'good luck' it seems quite heartless but equally I need to look after myself too and have taken a lot of time out. Perhaps I'm too soft

"I feel quite responsible to be there for her" - in all honesty, your strategy of being there for her so she can gather the strength to leave clearly isn't working. She is an adult and she's made her decision, however wrong that decision seems to you. "if you think that's the right thing to do then best of luck and I hope it goes well".

Ok. If that's the general consensus. It's such a shame she is wasting her time with him, they're incompatible but like you say it's her decision. I can't do it anymore though, listen to the same stuff over and over. It's not going to change. I'll send her the good luck message

You are doing your best to be good friend. I know it feels harsh to step away but I have had to do this on two different occasions with friends because I was drained by it all. One saw the light and we reconnected after they split up. The other is still putting up with it. I hope the former happens for you.

Try to look at it from her standpoint.
Will the State TRULY support her leaving?

If the husband is like this now, what will he be like if she leaves? He'll have unsupervised access to the children - possibly 50% of the time. He may use his abuse of her and her resulting mental state to attempt to take the children away. He will starve her of money for bills. She will struggle to pay solicitors and may end up in court pro se.

This is the reality of a "child's best interests" focused system which ignores ongoing abuse of the mother and ironically largely ignores the impact of that ongoing abuse on the children.

Perhaps your friend knows what she's in for if she leaves and hopes to wait until the children are older. Of course, by that time, many women decide this is their lot and no longer have the strength (or economic recovery time) to leave.

It's a tragedy and, in my opinion, a scandal.

You could say something like "If you decide to leave, I'll be there for you. But I need to take a step back for a while."