What I Wish My Friends Knew — How to help a friend in an emotionally abusive relationship
By Bailey Jacob
I have been blessed with the same group of best friends since I was ten years old. For almost four decades we have managed to keep our friendship a priority. We talk, text, and see one another on a regular basis. We have created a lifetime of laughter and memories together.
My best friends were there for me when I met my first boyfriend at 16. They were there when we broke up, and they were there when I met my ex-husband when I was 19. They know all my secrets, all my happiness, and all my heartbreak when it comes to these relationships.
Oh, the heartbreak.
You see, neither of these relationships were healthy. Being married to a remarkable man now and in a healthy, loving, happy relationship for the first time, it’s difficult to look back and not feel so very sad for the younger version of myself. She just didn’t know any better.
She didn’t know that healthy love doesn’t feel and act like a rollercoaster. That it’s not up and down, left and right, back and forth.
She didn’t know that it’s not normal to get the silent treatment or broken up with repeatedly only to be reeled back in the moment she got the strength to heal and move on.
My younger self didn’t know lust isn’t love and that being intensely sexually wanted by a man is not the same thing as being intensely truly loved by a man.
She didn’t know that trusting someone is so much more than being secure that they won’t cheat on you. It’s trusting them with your heart, your dreams, your money, your time, your career, your family, your friends, your body, your future, and well…everything.
Younger me didn’t know all of this and so much more. And unfortunately, neither did most of my friends, it seemed. Hardly any of them ever said anything about it during the more than two decade debacle.
Surprisingly though, since the divorce, a few of my friends have confessed they actually did know these things. They just didn’t know what to say. And to be fair, one in particular, who happens to be a social worker, bluntly told me on several occasions that his behavior was abusive.
“That’s abuse,” she would say matter-of-factly without hesitation.
She didn’t say it with judgment or in a way that ever made me feel ashamed. In fact, it landed in the opposite way, like she was speaking clinically about a stranger. I would always agree with her, not realizing what she was really saying, and continue talking as if that hadn’t just been said.
“Like water on a raincoat,” I once heard a family member say. That’s how her words would hit me.
I wish she knew that although I heard her words, I wasn’t absorbing what she was saying. I wish she had grabbed me and shook me and made me say the words back to her, “I am being abused.” (Admittedly, who knows if I would have believed it?)
I wish this and so much more. Because although I absolutely know that my friends were not in any way responsible for saving me (nor could they), they were also in a ridiculously tricky spot trying to help me navigate through it.
Should they say something? If so, what? What if it backfired? Would it compromise the friendship? Would it hurt me?
I don’t pretend to know how it felt to be them. Thankfully, there is no one else in the group who suffered this fate. I know they love me with all their hearts, and I know that this was hard for them too.
And I also know that even though the social worker among us had a clear idea of what was going on, most of the others didn’t. They were like me. Raised to believe that abuse was physical, not really knowing how to gauge or understand the other forms it could take. They too simply didn’t know.
I have often thought about how differently my life may have turned out if we had. I’d like to think that learning from a young age that healthy relationships are not hard, or roller coasters, or on again-off again, over and over again, that I would have made different choices.
So if you’re a friend of someone in an emotionally abusive or otherwise toxic relationship, I would like you to consider the following. These are the things I wish my best friends would have known or done or said while I was going through it. These are the things that would have helped me, if only it helped explain my experience.
(Disclaimer: I am writing it from my own perspective as a woman. Anyone can be abused.)
- I had no idea I was being abused.
Do not assume your friend knows she is being abused. If she saw unhealthy relationships modeled for her growing up, this may seem and feel normal to her. And especially if she is not being physically abused, she may genuinely not be familiar with what other forms of abuse look like, sound like, and act like (financial, spiritual, verbal, emotional, sexual, mental, etc.).
2. I was trauma-bonded to my abuser. I had no idea about that either.
Your friend is physically addicted to her abuser. She very likely doesn’t know this, as recognition of the trauma bond has only recently made its way to the mainstream. She goes back to her abuser because of the havoc intermittent reinforcement has wreaked on her brain.
Like a gambler, she is addicted to the potential for a win. She is addicted to the high she receives — the flood of oxytocin and serotonin and dopamine — when she believes she has “won”.
In this case, “winning” means finally feeling loved and cared for, finally feeling like everything will be okay, and that the pain and suffering she experienced to get there, while not welcome, has been worth it.
It’s the payoff. The reconciliation. The sigh of relief that she doesn’t have to get a divorce. That she can keep her family together. That it wasn’t all for nothing. That she really can have everything she ever wanted. That she wasn’t wrong to believe in him.
It is the empty promise he makes that THIS time everything will be different. THIS time it will all work out. “This time” is her addiction. Hope is her drug, and her abuser is her dealer.
3. It will take me an average of 7 times to finally be able to leave.
I made it out after 5, but your friend may need more than 7. There’s a good reason for that. Breaking a trauma-bond is (supposedly) harder to break than an addiction to heroin.
Even worse, there are no rehabs for trauma-bonded addicts (something that desperately needs to change). She not only doesn’t know she’s addicted, but she also has almost zero medical or in-person therapeutic intervention support available even if she does.
At best, she can read books and blogs about it on the internet, or possibly find a few good podcasts to validate her experience. She may even make an appointment with a therapist who knows what a trauma bond is, but not necessarily how to help someone break it.
She is confused, internally terrorized, and slowly losing her grip on her sanity as she tries to understand why she cannot quit this person who causes her so much pain. It is not love that is keeping her there, even if she thinks it is. It is addiction, fear, money, her children (if she has them), and possibly her vow and pressure from family.
4. I need you more than ever. Do not give up on me.
I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to watch someone go through this. Over and over she tells you how hurt and mistreated she is, and over and over you console her and tell her how she deserves better.
You listen lovingly and respond cautiously, trying to simultaneously support her while not saying what you think of her partner because it’s likely they will reconcile. Then you’ll have to worry about what you said impacting your future friendship.
Make no mistake. You are in a tough spot. But she needs you, her best friend(s), to stand by her. She will come around. And she will come around in part with your love and knowledge. It is so important you know what this abuse is even if she doesn’t.
5. I am embarrassed and ashamed.
She called you for the millionth time two months ago crying and heartbroken once again. She’s positive he cheated on her, or broke a law, or humiliated her, or gambled all her money away, or whatever abusive behavior you want to insert here.
You listen and console her and encourage her to try counseling, hoping a professional can say what you can’t. But things go radio silent after that, and the next thing you know, a few months have passed. She doesn’t come to girl’s night, or if she does, she doesn’t say anything. Her eye contact is weak, and she’s strangely quiet.
Your friend is ashamed.
She took him back. Or she let this incident just pass by without doing anything about it like last time. She’s embarrassed. She knows what she’s tolerating is wrong. You know it’s wrong. She knows you know it’s wrong. There’s no cognitive mystery between you.
But going back to the beginning, she, A, likely doesn’t know she’s actually being abused, and B, even if she does, has no idea how to get out of this.
And it’s starting to kill her.
6. Emotional abuse can kill.
If your friend has been suffering in this relationship for a long time, she’s becoming suicidal. It is not a matter of if, but only when, she will experience suicidal ideation. Her mind is being messed with on a level that is hard for someone outside of it to comprehend. Her ability to trust herself has been destroyed. Years of lying and gaslighting will do this by design.
Worse, if other people have been recruited by her abuser to triangulate her, she may now be convinced she is the problem. She has twisted herself into a pretzel to please her partner and everyone else to no avail for years (decades in my case), and she is now exhausted, depressed, anxious, and brainwashed that she is a selfish failure who brought this on herself.
If she’s also suffering from hormonal imbalances or autoimmunity (a consequence of persistent, pervasive, chronic abuse), stress at work, financial issues, and raising children, she’s beginning to think maybe it’s time to check out. The pain is overwhelming. The confusion is unbearable, the disconnect between her conscious mind, which knows what is happening is not okay, and the compulsion her addicted brain has to stay.
She may also develop phobias, especially claustrophobia, that mimic being trapped. That is exactly how she feels. Trapped in a life she can’t seem to get out of and is ashamed to be living.
By this point, she has entered the dangerous state of feeling powerless. Suicide begins to look like the only possibility to stop the pain.
7. I need help.
Please know, if she knew how to get out of this by now, she would have. If she knew what was happening to her, she would do something about it. You know your friend. She’s not stupid or weak or a glutton for punishment.
She’s sick.
If your best friend were on drugs or addicted to alcohol, you likely wouldn’t hesitate to confront her. For example, when one of our best friends became anorexic in high school, we said something to her parents. We agreed, “I’d rather have a mad friend than a dead one.”
This situation is no different. Speak up. Learn about covert emotional abuse. Find ways to have these difficult conversations. Host an intervention. Stand up to and for your friend. It could be life or death.
8. I wish you could see how I feel.
She wishes the emotional abuse manifested physically. She wishes you could see the metaphoric bruises and broken bones she carries. She so desperately wants you to see her. This abuse is so hard to explain, and as twisted as it sounds, she has sometimes wished he would just hit her.
Yes, I wished he would just hit me. Because I knew what that was. I knew that was abuse. I knew that was unacceptable.
I didn’t know what this was.
And it seemed like no one else did either. Without the bruises and broken bones, I didn’t feel believed. I desperately wanted proof so someone could help me. I desperately needed to be seen and believed.
9. I am afraid all the time.
Your friend has become a shell of herself. She has suffered from chronic PTSD and depression for so long, she now believes the manifested symptoms are just her personality. (Note: Chronic PTSD is not yet recognized as a condition.)
She can’t remember having fun. She may show her true self occasionally to you in the privacy of your friendship, but it is rare.
She has become serious, rigid, controlling, hypersensitive, and probably overthinks and overreacts quite a bit — which makes sense. Her nervous system is highly activated 24 hours a day. She can’t relax. She lives with a predator that she never knows when will strike.
Every single moment of every single day could be the day he betrays her, loses his job, bankrupts their family, takes something out verbally on the kids or the dog, ignores her, embarrasses or humiliates her or himself to people she respects and admires, or whatever.
And every single time she lets her guard down…every single time she allows herself to believe that THIS is the time everything will be okay…because he promised it would be ….and she promised to really forgive him last time (so she’s convinced herself that she has to ignore the pattern) ….it’s not.
As she approaches her bottom…because like any addict, she will hit bottom…her anxiety and depression will skyrocket. Exactly when she needs the most confidence and strength to leave and save herself is exactly when she will have the least of it.
That’s where you come in. Go and physically hold her up if you can. At a minimum, let her know you will be there for her in any way you can. Let her know you believe her. That you are proud of her. That she can do this, and you will do it with her.
10. Leaving is the hardest thing I will ever do in my life.
All divorces are tragic, but not all are dangerous.
Leaving an abusive spouse is dangerous. These are the women who end up dead. Emotional abusers may be less likely to engage in physical violence initially, but that is not always the case over the long term. Now may be the time he loses control over himself (because he is losing control over her).
Conversely, he may choose to hurt himself. Sophisticated covert abusers turn themselves into the victim of their abuse. She is well aware of his veiled or overt threats to kill himself, and is always on guard for if and when it happens. She is paralyzed by the idea that he would do that to himself and their children (if they have them).
In the absence of a physical threat, he may engage in financial, sexual, mental, or spiritual abuse to punish her. He may run up all the credit cards or drain the bank account. He may threaten to quit or actually lose his job. He may go out and sleep around, then pretend to want to reconcile only to pass along an STD.
He may suddenly start going to church all the time to appear like he’s genuinely invested in fixing things. He may start telling the kids their mother is crazy and selfish and to blame for their sadness. He may get his family members to turn on her and start gaslighting her.
The list of possibilities is endless. One thing for sure, while taking the step to file for divorce will be the first step to saving her life, it will only be the first step. The divorce journey will be long and difficult and yes, dangerous.
Harder still, this abuse will not end in the courtroom. In many instances, the abuse ramps up after the divorce. Hoovering (trying to win her back), stalking, parental alienation, failing to pay child support or alimony, making false allegations against her….all these things may be used as weapons against her for the rest of her life.
And God forbid she meet someone. This will usually cause an increase in manipulation and abuse, for abusers are typically not good losers. He will do everything he can to win her back or sabotage her new life. It was never about her happiness anyway. It is and was always only about him.
11. I am almost incapable of making good decisions for a while after I leave.
Your friend’s nervous system has been hijacked. Leaving her abuser is the scariest, most difficult thing she has ever done. She is in a 24/7 battle between head and “heart” (aka, the compulsion to stay).
One part of her brain is telling her she must leave in order to save her life. The other is telling her she must stay or she will die if she doesn’t. The brain hates abuse, but it also hates change. And you can’t leave abuse without suffering through change.
She’s also spent years (or decades) being talked out of her own reality. She’s been gaslit, lied to, and triangulated. Fear, obligation, guilt, and shame (the hallmarks of all abusers) have been weaponized incessantly to control her. She can no longer figure out the difference between her instinct and fear. (A post for another day.)
She feels legitimately crazy.
The battle for clarity is fierce and relentless, and if her soon-to-be ex is hoovering and attempting to win her back while she’s trying to move forward, the strength it will take to stay the course is astounding. It will not only deplete her energy, it will deplete her ability to think straight about much else. And horrifically, this is precisely when she has to think very clearly.
She has to figure out where to live, where to work, and how to manage children on her own. She may be losing her home, half or more of her net worth and income, her routine, her neighborhood, shared friends and even some family members. Her world is being completely turned upside down, and now, she is faced with making monumental choices that will impact her future and her children.
Overwhelming is not a big enough word to describe it. It is all consuming. And in this state of mind, it is virtually impossible that she won’t make a mistake.
She will sell the house when she should just stay put. She will meet someone amazing and sabotage it out of a primal need to isolate. She will take the first job offer out of fear instead of waiting for the right one to come along.
In spite of leaving the abuse, she may find herself a year or two later in an alternatively terrible situation, questioning everything she did and feeling remorseful about every decision she made to get there unless she can make the right ones.
That’s where you come in. Choose to be a green light in her life.
If our nervous systems are green when we’re in a calm, logical place, and yellow when we’re on high alert, and red when we are frozen, hers is black. The power is out. And even if it’s red or yellow, she’s not making healthy decisions in that frame of mind. She’s acting out of short term survival in those states, not logic and what’s best over the long term. You can be her long-term logic.
Tell her you are her advocate. Explain the stop light analogy. Walk her through the decisions needed. Ask her to trust you and to defer to you with these big decisions for the time being.
I can’t count the amount of times I just wanted someone else to tell me what to do in the three years post final separation and divorce. Asking me to figure it out was like asking me to fly. Impossible.
This may seem like overstepping, but I assure you, it is not. She desperately needs someone to help her think clearly and rationally. She needs you more than you can ever know. Say more, not less, especially now.
…..
Five years post divorce, I’m grateful for the lifelong friendships I have had to sustain me before, during, and after the abuse. I often wonder where I would be if it were not for them, as well as running, writing, and praying. The combination of those four coping strategies got me through every dark period for more than two decades.
It’s hard to look back and see what happened to my life as a result of not knowing how abuse presented in all its forms. It’s hard to process how it happened to me and what I wish I had known and done to prevent or stop it. It’s also hard to imagine how my friends must have felt watching it and either not really knowing what was happening (like me) or how to help.
Like so many things in life, the wisdom of experience is hard earned. All I can do now is try to make meaning out of the pain, to be a light in someone else’s world going through the same thing. Thus, the reason I write.
I wish with all my heart that my friends had wholly understood what was happening to me. I wish with all my heart they would have been able to help me in some of the ways listed, even if it was only just by knowing what I was going through.
I know beyond any doubt that saving myself was 100% my responsibility, and that it’s entirely possible that even if they had said something I wouldn’t have listened. Please do not misread any of this to mean I blame my friends for anything. I do not and never have.
All I’m suggesting is that if you have a friend, or a child, or a loved one being covertly, emotionally abused, please speak up.
If they are in a roller coaster relationship, on and off again, in love and then out, hot and cold, tell them that’s not normal. It’s not romantic. It’s not passionate.
To the contrary, it’s nothing more than a train ride to a trauma bond addiction that will only end in profound pain and suffering ….and maybe even death.
At a minimum, please remind them whenever you can, healthy love doesn’t hurt.
