― anthony, Wednesday, 6 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― electric sound of jim, Wednesday, 6 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ron Hudson, Wednesday, 6 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
i have a male friend (no, really - since i'm posting anonymously, why bother using the 'i have a friend' thing?) who has been dating a girl for almost a year now. she and i have become friends since they started dating, and she often confides in me. there was an abusive incident a few months ago where he pretty much sexually assaulted her. when she confessed this to me, i told her that it wasn't her fault at all, showed her a lot of sexual abuse counselling websites, urged her to tell her therapist (which she did), insisted that she try and convince him to seek therapy himself, and tried to encourage her in the strongest terms i could use that if anything like that ever happened again, she should immediately leave and phone the police. knowing that she has very low self-esteem, i knew that just yelling that she should 'dump his abusive ass' would not work. after she confronted him, she told me things got a lot better. i never brought it up with him, because i knew that he would blame her for having told me about it, and that it would most likely do no good.
now she has a different problem, which is that he has become obscenely posessive and jealous. he constantly harasses her about looking at other guys, insists on knowing where she is at all times, and when she walked into her room today she found him sitting in her room reading her e-mail. his excuse was that he 'wanted to know if she had a rehearsal or something', though this is not the first time he's done this. last weekend, she apparently convinced him to come to therapy with her, and the therapist got him to acknowledge that his behavior is inappropriate, and that he needs to seek help. he's still doing all of this, though, and the Instant Messages i saw on her desktop were decidedly threatening.
obviously this is textbook abusive boyfriend stuff. my question is, how do i get her out of what is obviously an extremely volatile and dangerous situation? even worse, he is moving into the nearby city (we live in a suburb) to start a new job in a month, and they will probably break up. i know his roommates as well, and i am trying to figure out the ethical thing to do - should i warn them? should i confront him? i don't want this girl to get hurt, and i certainly don't want his future girlfriends to end up in the same situation. what can i do here?
(thanks for reading all this, by the way, if you indeed made it this far)
― confused, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 01:50 (twenty years ago) link
You can be very intelligent & strong, and still let yourself be abused like this, and it's a very slippery slope to get back up. Just be there for her, and let her talk about it if she wants to, but unless you have training in domestic violence stuff, I wouldn't push her too hard to act on anything.
― lyra (lyra), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:02 (twenty years ago) link
― confused, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:56 (twenty years ago) link
― lyra (lyra), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:58 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 04:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 05:13 (twenty years ago) link
i'm not sure how you can have any respect for the guy thats doing this though, i mean, when you see him, doesnt now knowing the real person underneath make you feel kinda sick?
what are these potential room-mates like? i think they should be warned possibly yes, maybe you want to make sure this girl is extricated before doing that though?
― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 06:19 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 06:22 (twenty years ago) link
yes and no. on the one hand, the mere thought of it makes me want to throw up. it also makes me shudder every time i think about some of the misogynist jokes we've made/laughed at, like i was encouraging his behavior (and if one good thing has come of it, anyone who tells a misogynist joke around me now gets the cold stare). on the other hand, the fact that i've never seen this side of him makes it almost easy to dissociate it from the person i know, or to see his actions as a mental illness rather than the emergence of the 'real person underneath'.
as for the roommates, there's no threat to them personally, since they're all hetero guys. what i meant about warning them is that maybe they should be aware of his abusive nature towards women in case he ever does try this again. i think if i warned the roommate i am friends with, though, he'd be in roughly the same position as i am now (ie mostly powerless), except that he isn't friends with the current g/f so i doubt he'd be able to provide much support for her. i imagine that the only thing he could really do would be to keep an eye / ear out in case he observes anything abnormal, but i imagine that a roommate would notice if there was anything to observe regardless. is it worth ruining this guy's living situation (for two years) for what likely amounts to very little real benefit?
(and thanks for the advice and kind words. it really is much appreciated).
― confused, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 07:10 (twenty years ago) link
― confused, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 07:12 (twenty years ago) link
Echoing what others have said, the *worst* thing you can do is go on about how abusive the guy is, or pester her to leave him. If you do that, you will drive him further *towards* him, as there is a big sense of "No, you're wrong, watch, we *can* make this work" even when it's obviously killing her, just to prove the naysayers wrong. That seems very romantic.
The best thing that you can do is be there, provide support, and if possible, be an escape route. Listen to her when she talks about what she does, don't make judgements or whatever, but let her talk, because hopefully she will start to listen to what she herself is saying. Having an escape route is important, because feeling *trapped* is the worst part of being in an abusive relationship - the feeling that you have nowhere else to go, esp. if she is living with the guy. The best thing a friend did when I was trying to leave my abusive relationship was offer me a couch "for a few days while you try to figure things out". That was the break that I needed to get out - the escape route.
I really feel for you, and I hope the best for your friend, I hope that she find the courage to get out. Seriously.
― kate, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 07:22 (twenty years ago) link
I think you're wise not to tell her what to do, but encouraging her to talk to an expert is a good thing. Otherwise, when you are with her, do what you can to counteract his behaviour. He is undermining her self-confidence and decision-making, so praise and interest will help.
if its just this one girl that brings the beast out in him maybe he'll get better too
I want to stamp on this one quickly. I'm sure Sterling didn't at all mean to suggest that the woman is causing his violence, but it could be read that way. More importantly, stats and studies consistently show that men who do this carry the behaviour to their future relationships. Exceptions to this are rare. This guy will do it again.
Also, the idea that the roommates will be fine because they are heterosexual males is not necessarily a valid assumption. I've not seen any studies on this, and the bullying nature of these men makes it far less likely that they will try it with other adult men; but this thinking is what leads many people to think that women should put up with some mistreatment "for the sake of the children" - you'd probably be amazed by how many parents of women in this situation say that, for instance. It is not stated often enough that the abusive man also abuses the children in over 80% of cases.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 11:29 (twenty years ago) link
I feel so strongly for your friend. When I was in the situation she's in, I was so alone and people on the street who saw me being abused ignored it, never mind getting any help from my friends. The fact that you are concerned is so beautiful to me. You can step in and you should. You should confront this guy. One thing that I learnt from what happened to me is that you should never ignore it if you suspect violence in a relationship - you might be wrong and that would be a bit embarrassing but so what. But I guess you have to have been there to have that kind of conviction.
If you know of a specific act of violence, call the police and report it anonymously. Let both the boy and his girlfriend know that what's happening is serious and illegal. If all you know of is the sadism, then above all else I think you need to confront this guy. You need to find the strength to say to his face that what he's doing is wrong. If you don't want to get his girlfriend in trouble, just say that you noticed something yourself. Don't let this continue because you don't want to upset anyone.
It really is hopeless, though. My boyfriend tried to get me back by going to an anger management class. They had guest night - for the 'victims' - and he took me along. At one point in the class, the therapist requested that one of the men tell him about an angry act he'd committed during the week so that the class could 'analyse' it. As no-one else volunteered, my boyfriend did. To my horror, I had to relive an incident from a few days before when he'd broken into my car, kidnapped me, dragged me along the ground, etc etc. At this point I didn't see my boyfriend at all because I was too scared of him - the class was the first time I'd seen him, except for the kidnapping, for a couple of weeks. I was too upset to listen so I went and sat outside, but I was glad my boyfriend was going to get criticised by everyone else. A really nice girl came out and sat with me and gave me a cigarette. Then we went back in. On a flow chart on the wall, the therapist had written what my boyfriend had done, and what he could have done instead. My boyfriend had watered down the incident so it sounded like he'd just shouted at me in a car. As I came back in, the class and the therapist were comiserating with him about how hard it must have been for him. It turned out that my boyfriend had said, and this was true, that the spur for the incident had been that he'd broken into my car and found a letter where I'd talked about another boy I was 'in love with'. Actually, I'd made a one line joke to a girlfriend in another country about a boy - something completely innocent, as it happens, though what would have been the difference if he'd caught me fucking someone? - but he didn't explain that. We broke up for coffee and several of the participants in the group came up to me and said a sort of weak 'poor you' and then started attacking me for provoking my boyfriend by flirting with other boys. That was the anger management group.
The situation is hopeless.
― bla, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 08:57 (twenty years ago) link
I was lucky in that my ex's violent outbursts were directed at himself, rather than me (I only ever got hurt in the line of his own rage - this sounds crazy when I tell it, why I didn't talk about it at the time). He would freak out so badly that he injured himself - and then tell his friends that not only did I provoke the outburst with my "infidelity" (joking about boys in bands) but that *I* attacked *him*.
This "anger management group" sounds pretty piss-poor. Abusers are masters of emotional manipulation and lying - it sounds like he's manipulating the group like he manipulated you. This guy is not going to change.
Gah, this shit fucking sucks and it just doesn't end, it has such long-lasting effects. I'm freaking out now because I'm reacting to something perfectly ordinary in a way that was trained into me by my Ex, and I hate when that happens - not only because it makes me unable to trust my new lover, and that makes me edgy and unhappy. But also because I am so angry and so upset that this fucking CUNT has been able to have such a long-term effect on my emotional life. I know I have to let go, let him stop having power over me, but it's really difficult. :-(
::deep breath::
― kate, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 09:06 (twenty years ago) link
― kate, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 09:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:05 (twenty years ago) link
I've been friends with this guy for just over a year now. I'm also friends with a woman who told me at a gig recently that he beat up one of his ex-girlfriends (she's friends with this woman). Don't know how to react. I must say I've always quite liked this guy so it was very surprising and disappointing for me to hear this. I never knew the ex in question but I'm sure it's probably true. I'm curious if anyone else has had experiences of these sorts of revelations and how they reacted. Or general thoughts.
― mirostones, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 22:02 (nine years ago) link