How to support a friend in an abusive relationship

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A close friend of mine is in an abusive relationship. I don't think her husband is violent (although he is physically destructive to property and has smashed her things before) but he is controlling, angry and unkind, as well as lazy. My friend is the main breadwinner and runs the home and is the main carer for their DDs (both in nursery).

Last year, she felt ready to leave and even got to the point of seeing a solicitor and we talked together a lot about it all- I told her that she and her girls can stay at mine for as long as they want and also offered financial support if she needs it.

However, since then she has started saying she is going to stay as she is too worried about him having the girls 50-50 without her being there to mediate. She also says that he is better now sometimes, but it clearly isn't much better (she described it as "getting used to walking on eggshells"). She has also texted me a few times saying it's over and she's leaving and then the following day texts again to say that she was being silly and everything is fine, she was just drunk or whatever.

It is really worrying me and I don't know what to do. I have tried to talk to her about it all but she shuts down. I don't want to keep pushing and push her away but I'm really worried. Any advice would be appreciated.

Don't try to talk to her about it. She is clearly opening up to you already. She's having her wants and needs pushed back by him already, don't you try to be 'directing' her choice of conversation any further. Be there for her to talk to. Gen up on local points of contact who could support her, so that if she decides to talk to you again (and she will - you are already more valuable than you know as a means of support), you'll be able to let her know what's available in terms of professional help.

That's really all you can do, and it's not healthy for you to try to involve yourself any further. You're her friend; your responsibility is to care about her feelings, and you're already doing that. You're not responsible for anything more than that, and you're not even responsible for that if it pushes your boundaries at all.

Have you asked her if she's interested in getting professional support with this? She could contact Women's Aid for free, without him knowing, without taking any action at all, just for advice and support.

Feel for you OP, I supported a friend for near enough 8 years and went through it all with her multiple times. Every year she was going to leave. It ended up where I became a sounding board on every meet and was no longer getting anything from the friendship, it wasn't equal. Plus I felt a sense of jealousy as I had rebuilt my life after similar although not as extreme. I had to wall away for my own sanity. I no longer enjoyed spending time. I hope your friend does manage to make a decision, I wouldn't get too involved and make sure you look after yourself.

I recommend reading the book “Helping Her Break Free”. It’s aimed at people supporting women trapped in DV situations.

It’s a difficult and painful place for you to be (and exponentially more for her, of course) but sadly your friend isn’t wrong about the potential dangers to her DDs of alone time with their father, particularly if they’re still very small.

They will also be damaged by being brought up in a home with an abusive father but they do have her to mediate. It would be good for her to get away when she can but it should be easier when the children are a bit older and better able to let her know what’s going on when they are with their father.

Thanks all of you. It’s really hard, especially with the texts as I’m struggling to pretend that it’s all normal and fine (which is what she says next day) when it clearly isn’t.

I will read that book, thank you.

She’s lucky to have a friend like you, you know what’s really happening and she knows the support is there if she needs it. That’s all you can do.

Please look after yourself too, and set some boundaries to protect your mental health it must be really draining emotionally for you

What’s even harder is that you will need to be civil to the man himself otherwise you just give him an excuse to isolate her from you. In situations like this, it ceases to be about what’s just (ie why should you be civil to him when he hurts your friend?) and becomes about how do you best help your friend stay safe. Behaving in a way which allows her to retain contact with you and doesn’t give him an excuse to cut you off is part of that.

Keep her messages somewhere safe - they may be helpful as evidence one day and if you’re keeping them then she can delete them from her phone. In fact, better still if she can have a second phone he doesn’t know about because if he goes through her phone and finds deleted messages he may kick up a stink.

Btw - it often takes victims of abuse many, many attempts to leave before they finally manage it so don’t give up hope.

although he is physically destructive to property and has smashed her things before) but he is controlling, angry and unkind

She needs to log everything and seek legal help through women's aid or rights of women and see if she could acheive it supervised access in a split.

Anyway, abusive men always say they'll go for 50-5) to get out of child maintenance. they never do it. Too lazy avd don't want to look after their kids. He's already like that, so seriously why does she think he'll stick to 50-50.

Only if he gets a mum or new gf to do all the work.

But she should still seek advice on his behaviour and contact to the little girls.

*contact with

In general you need to stay on contact, not so it's stressing you but just enough so she knows you'll support her if abd when she leaves.

He might do something "too far" one of these days. My sister was friendly with (kids friends too) a lady who stayed through years and years of abuse. He eventually kicked off during a Christmas meal at home with her elderly mother there, the police were called, she finally left.