Worried about friend - would appreciate objective POV

[Sunshine]

Hello everyone.

I am very, very worried about a friend, and I cannot quite make up my mind whether I am overreacting or whether my concerns are valid. Here's the situation:

There is a girl I have known every since grade school. I am closer to her sister than to her (she is two years younger than us), but I would definitely call her a good friend (I do not have very many of those). Until a few months ago, this girl always said she does not want a relationship. She showed no interest in either men or women and had never had sex nor seemed to want it. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, she has a boyfriend. I would like to be happy for her, but there are a few things that have set my inner alarm off, and I am very worried that the guy may be abusive and she could actually be in danger.

Here are the things that bug me:

- He does not want to meet either her friends or her family. I have tried several times to invite him to spend time with us, like go to a movie together, go out for ice cream, things like this, but he has always refused. He has visited her parents with her exactly once, after three failed attempts to get him there. Her family's impression of him when he finally did come was not favorable.
- He has lied to her about both his age and his religion.
- They do not use condoms and he refuses to get tested for STIs
- He has openly admitted to being prejudiced against black people
- My friend once called the police because of a domestic violence case in her apartment building. Her boyfriend objected to this on the grounds that it "was none of her business", even though the woman was being beaten and screaming for help
- He has admitted to having been violent himself, against people of all genders
- He has admitted to being prejudiced against gay people

I did not learn any of the last points from herself. It is all information I got second-hand from her family, so has to be taken with a grain of salt. I have no reason not the believe them, though, and I have known them for a long time. They are not quick to exaggerate or dramaticize.

What I do know is that she is not happy. She has violent mood swings and seems depressed at times. Her family feels estranged from her, she hasn't spoken to any of them in weeks. She is even neglecting her dog. When I text and ask about her, she says she's not very well, but won't go into details.

I feel very helpless. I am seriously worried that this guy is abusing her in some way, mentally and / or physically. She is deeply in love and won't listen to anybody who dares to say anything against him. I seem to be the last person whom she has not gotten into a serious fight with since she met this guy, and I feel responsible for her in a way. But what can I do? So far, I have not tried to talk to her about him because I don't want her to get mad at me, push me away too and loose her last outside support person. All I have done is text her regularly, harmless stuff like "how are you doing?", "what's up?" "Wanna talk? I'm always there for you." Things like that.

Am I overreacting? Is there anything else I could or should do?

[Heather]

You know, Sunshine, from your posts here, I know you to be pretty amazing at these kinds of conversations, so my guess is that you could find a way to have some with her where she would be unlikely to push you away. You clearly want to talk with her, and given your, IMO, formidable skills in this department, I think it'd be a shame if you didn't.

I'd suggest just grounding those conversations in support for her versus talk about how much this guy seems to be bad news. In other words, talk, for instance, about how you have noticed she doesn't seem to be happy, how she seems to be getting isolated, pushing others in her life she values away, how you don't get why this guy won't go just have ice cream with y'all so you can get to know him, as partners will often WANT to do with people in their partner's lives, and anything else she has said to you or you, yourself, have noticed (rather than talking about things she hasn't told you, and you haven't observed, but others have told you about).

Where to go from there will obviously depend on how that kind of start even goes, but again, I really think you can do this and do it well if you just go with your instincts, which I've observed to be pretty fantastic.

[Sunshine]

Wow - um. I don't quite know what to say, Heather. Thank you!

I will definitely try talking to her again. The last time I said I was under the impression that she was unhappy, she said yes, she was, but didn't want to talk about it further. Which is her right, of course.

It's so maddening, to get all this bad news indirectly and not getting the chance to verify. I would really like to meet with him and her and observe them together, but well, he's sort of making sure that won't happen. And it's difficult to ask her for a meeting again, because I feel dishonest and fake saying "hey, I'd really love to meet him!" - as if he was just any old guy she was seeing and my alarms had not all gone off. The same goes for asking "hey, how's it going with the boyfriend?" in a normal, cheery way.

All I can do I guess is demonstrate ongoing support. I'll keep up the texts and I will continue to point out that if she ever wants to talk, I am there.

It's getting a little difficult to keep my fear and anger down in front of her. I'm not mad at her, of course, but at the situation and potentially at the guy. And yes, you are right, it's definitely unusual, to say the least, for a new partner to have zero interest in their girlfriend's friends and family. He doesn't have to like any of us, of course, but isn't he at least curious?

There's this giant alarm bell in my brain ringing all the time. It is so unfair and unfortunate that things have to be like this. Why can't the people I love meet nice people and be happy.

[Mo]

Hi Sunshine,

I have some thoughts based on my experiences with a close friend of mine. She's just now in the planning states of leaving an abusive relationship and I'm hoping I can celebrate the actual leaving with my own private "take that you jerk!!!" aimed at the abuser pretty soon. Her abuser is maybe less horrible to the world in general (if he's horribly racist he is at least quiet about it) but definitely emotionally abusive.

I think what Heather's said is spot-on - focusing on her and the worries you have about how she seems to be feeling, her withdrawal from friends, etc. is likely to be more helpful than focusing on him and his behavior. I found that I had to take a very different approach to sympathy than I was used to. I found this really hard at first - if my friend said "I don't know why he's so mean to me" or "he did [x] and I'm so upset," my natural instinct was so say "what a jerk!" or even "hey, what you've described lately sounds like abuse, here are some resources" and the result was that she got defensive and would backtrack a bit, talk about how she did bad things too, or mention the good things that happened in the relationship. Abusers love to isolate and to set up a "no one understands our love/it's us against the world" type of situation, and attacking him directly can strengthen that. You mention other people getting into fights with her lately; is that directly connected to this relationship? As horrible as this guy is, if you can avoid a confrontation with her on this level, that leaves you more likely to be someone she might trust to turn to for help if she feels ready to leave.

Giving ongoing support sounds like a great idea. Extending invitations to hang out, or just reaching out periodically to say hi, share a funny video or cute cat picture, etc can let her know you're thinking about her, and even little things like that can make a big difference. It's awesome to ask how she's doing an offer support but adding some lightheartedness to her day is good too. I totally hear you on feeling helpless, and in some ways you are - you can't get rid of him for her, or make her dump him, and having to watch your words to avoid pushing her away can add another layer of frustration. But being there for her is a positive thing! I'm glad she has a friend looking out for her.

[Sunshine]

Abusers love to isolate and to set up a "no one understands our love/it's us against the world" type of situation, and attacking him directly can strengthen that. You mention other people getting into fights with her lately; is that directly connected to this relationship? As horrible as this guy is, if you can avoid a confrontation with her on this level, that leaves you more likely to be someone she might trust to turn to for help if she feels ready to leave.

I do have a bad feeling that this isolation mechanism is at work here. The fights I mentioned were all about this guy and their relationship, yes. I definitely do not want to fall into that trap, and I am trying to be very non-confrontational. This leaves me feeling guilty, as if I was pretending things are okay when they are most probably not, or as if I was closing my eyes to the truth, or being dishonest with her. But I don't see any good alternatives right now. And if some day, she does need support to get away and finds it easier to approach me because of this, then it would have been worth it.

Thank you very much for your advice, Mo. I appreciate it. And I hope your friend will really get out of her relationship. Good for you for having stuck by her.

[Heather]

You know, I think that simply continuing to be there for her is pretty good aikido here to counter any of what he is doing -- and any of that she is collaborating with -- to isolate her.

In other words, if you're just still there, she's not isolated from you, and there's a limit to how much of that he can do.

I wonder if this might be someone you could give a book or two to who might accept those gifts? I'm thinking anti-abuse books are the wrong way to go here, but something that helps a person figure out what they WANT in sexual relationships, that also includes some address of what isn't healthy without that being the main focus, might be a good call? As in, you give her a book with something like, "I know you're new to sexual relationships, and they can be awfully confusing, so I thought you might like this book."

I'm actually thinking, specifically, that Jaclyn Friedman's "What You Really, Really Want" (she's a close friend of mine, but I feel bias-free about the value of this book) might be a good fit.