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Can I help my friend relize her boyfriend is verbally abusing her?
I am a 19 year old female and my friend is also 19 and female. My friend has been in a relationship with a guy for over a year now. In the beginning of the relationship her boyfriend hit her. She was going to leave him then but he promised to change and to never hit her again. He stopped hitting her but he is verbally abusive. He tells her she is worthless. Besides that he gets jealous easily. He got mad at her because she was spending too much time hanging out with me. The day before his birthday she went to eat lunch with my family and me and to hang out at the campground my parents stay most weekends. She had a great time but because she was there for over an hour he told her not to bother seeing him on his birthday and she could take whatever she got him and shove it up somewhere (some inappropriate place). He kept sending her text messages and voicemails saying how mean and messed she is for not hanging out with him before his birthday (She had plans with him for the next two days). He said that it was her fault and this was his worst birthday ever. Not too long after he said that, he said he was sorry but he loves her so much and he was hurt because she doesn't care about him as much. That is his game, make her feel bad and then make her feel loved, and then bad all over again. He does it all the time to her. I told her he was a jerk and she could do so much better and since then, he told her that she cannot talk to me again. I am worried about her I don't know what to do. He hit her in the past and I think he’s not far from doing it again. He tried to break her car window because she wouldn’t let him in, because he was scarring her. Is there anything I can or should do?
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Tell her family.
Its not even the abuse that scares me about what you just described, its the manipulation. You picked up on it and detailed it out yourself, I can see why this situation is eating at you.
Tell her family to start with. Tell them everything you just told us.
Then sit down. Make a list like the above of every instance you can think of of this behavior. Every time you hear of something new, add it to the list. Be detailed about the behaviors and interactions.
Show her this list. Show her the evidence you can gather, consider holding a family intervention.
One thing you might want to consider. There are people who specialize in abused women's shelters, in helping girls like her in relationships like this one. Find one close to you, get a few close friends who will back you up, and take her to one of these places alone. Speak to a counselor there and show this counselor your list of observations.
You might want to talk to the place first, go find a counselor you like, talk to him or her and set up an appointment for when you'll show up, and arm a counselor with things to say.
He is dangerous. Even if he has control of his anger, he is dangerous because the kind of manipulation he does is intentional and that makes this ten kinds more fucked up than it already was.
People who act like he does get off on the control. They throw tantrums because they revel in the effect their tantrums have, that behavior this easy and this natural to them gets them exactly what they want.
Get her family involved if you can, hell get your family involved if this is a long time friend who your parents know. Get her somewhere with a professional who knows how to handle these things, whether you take her to a shelter or have a therapist who specializes in this area come to someones house for an intervention.
One last thing. I mentioned the shelter for a good reason. I had a friend who was being abused, and it was contact with other abuse victims that snapped her out of the cycle. She sat down in the waiting room (we kidnapped her as I described) and talked with one of the women who'd been there a long while (we arranged everything ahead of time so that the most experienced volunteer was on hand) and when the two women told different stories that made them feel the same, what was happening in her life finally hit her. And being around someone else who was able to break the cycle and yet remind her so much of what she'd been through made it seem alot easier to her for her to break her own cycle.
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if you think her life is in danger, get law inforcement involved and get your friend out of there. have her file a protective order against her boyfriend if she agrees. this shouldnt happen to anyone and he needs to be taken away. good luck<3
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