I’m really concerned about my long term childhood best friend.
In 2023 she broke up with her long term (of seven years) partner and straight away jumped into an intense relationship with someone she claims she had been friends with for for years but I had never heard of him.
Her ex was completely normal, quiet and to be honest a bit boring. Just a completely ordinary man to be honest. Within a few weeks she was living with her new partner and after 6 months together they were engaged. After ten months together they eloped abroad. Her husband is the complete opposite to her ex and they do appear to have much more in common.
Their relationship has always appeared very intense but I never really thought anything of it. She has mentioned before that they can have come bad arguments but who doesn’t argue. Met her for coffee today and she said some really alarming things to me.
The topic of arguing came up as I had been arguing with my partner and she flippantly mentioned how they ‘batter’ each other when they fight. I dug a little further and she mentioned they will hit each other, spit in each other faces, he’s dragged her down the stairs by her hair etc. How casually she said this really shocked me as she seemed to just laugh it off. I said if my partner ever raised his hand to me I would leave as it’s abusive. She said it’s not abuse because they’re as bad as each other. She then showed me scratch marks on her neck where he had apparently strangled her a few nights ago. She also said that the house regularly gets smashed up. She said she didn’t think it was that bad as they would have a screaming match and then make up straight away. She said she preferred it to her ex as fights would drag out for days with him.
I didn’t really prey anymore as I was a bit shocked but I can’t stop thinking about it. She has always been a fiery personality but I’ve never known of her to be like this. As I mentioned her ex was very quiet and I don’t think they argued at all. I am also very aware of the statistics between men strangling their partners and killing them. She may hit him back but realistically she is very slim and he probably has 4 stone on her. He could kill her if he wanted to.
I will admit I haven’t been the closest of friends recently (4 kids, muddling through life) so I have been distant to the goings on. But now I think about it I think there are some huge red flags she is being abused. She quit her job around 6 months ago claiming she doesn’t need to work now that they’re married. She does have passive income so not totally reliant on him but again this could be him. She also has a couple of other friends from college who she was very close to who she has fallen out with so she doesn’t go out anywhere near as much anymore, although she has never mentioned him stopping her.
I’m worried there’s more to this but I’m not sure how to approach it as she seems to be totally in denial and just describes their marriage as toxic not abusive.