A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Hi there, im not to sure where to start with this so i'll let you know how life got to be like this. nI was friends with a girl since primary school, madly in love with her, little did i know at the time that she was madly in love with me. This was when we were 16. I had alot of family problems at the time, me and my mum do not get on at all, we hate each other and back then i was a mess. I spent a lot of time over at her house and at my mates as we had been very close all our lives. I later found out just before we were due to leave school she felt the same. I wasnt sure how to appraoch her but i soon did and we were very happy. Ofc my mum was happy for her, that she was happy but not for me. SHe always said to her she could do better. However a year later i had to move away, i was guttered i had to leave her and so was she. I had no choice.4 years on.... Im now 22, me and my mum never have and never will have any kind of relationship. Please understand i am not writing to you to help me with this. I have however moved back to my hometown, mainly because i want to be back with her and my old friends, and i was so glad when i found them all as we were such a close group. I was prepared for her being with someone else and as long as shes happy i hope we'll be friends. However i did not expect this!Shes with a guy, who to others is a really great person however he treats her like crap. And yes he has hit her. She blames herself we all think because hes made her think its her fault and its not. I hate to see her like this. Her best friend (who is also one of mine) has told me about the past, how hard she found it after i left and in a way she just wanted to feel loved. I want to help and i told our friend this but what can we do?I have noticed though, we were always so playful together, playfighting alot, now if i just go to mess round her head quickly flinches away. But something really shook me. I overheard them talking and heard her admit that shes finding it to hard, she believes she deserves the abuse she gets and its even harder now that im back because her feeling for me never left. She told her friend, and its been passed on to me that if she could she'd have me back.Thing is ive known her all her life, shes not the same anymore, deep down the old her is still there, its come alive afew times but only for a very short moment. Its heartbreaking and i just dont want top see her hurt anymore.Whether we will be together one day i dont know but i just want to help her out of this, she wont talk to many people about it, espeically not me as i dont really know the guy and i havent exactlly been around throughout this. I dont know whether to tell her that i know how she feels and that i still feel the same but i dont want to rush her because i just wanna get the person i once loved back. I just dont know how to be there for her. What should i do? Should i tell her? Please bare in mind this guy isnt full on beating her up but he has hit her, i just think she needs to get out of it.
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2010): Only she can get out of this I'm afraid. There really is nothing you can do, people in abusive relationships male and female have to truly want to leave this person and in my experience no matter how much they say they do, very often they don't because they feel they can't.
I've seen women horribly abused people go back to their tormentor over and over again. Even when the guy is gone they still pine for the nice part of him, when he's in the sweet cycle. It's strange how that happens, I could never figure it out until I was in a discussion with two female friends about their experiences. Anyone who knows abuse knows about the mean/sweet cycle, mean = abuse (physical, mental and/or emotional) and the sweet which is the time he apologizes and makes up for what he did. These two girls told me that you become so worn down from the meanness that when he's sweet there truly is nothing in the world that makes you feel as good that anymore.
You're so distraught after the abuse that the sweet side of him comes with a sense of overflowing relief and a very intense feeling of ecstasy, they said this feels like a love that's so strong the feeling is indescribable and it becomes like a drug. It becomes impossible to see that the abuser is really him because he's capable of such kindness, often they refuse to believe that the abuse he commits is his fault and they think it was something they did to set him off.
Another thing they said kind of threw me off guard as it was unexpected but both of them admitted that they were perfectly willing to tolerate the abuse because they knew the sweet guy would follow soon after. That they'd become so accustomed to it, even though they new it was wrong and in general made them miserable those brief moments when he was apologizing made it worth while. They were willing to stick it out in the hope that maybe someday he'd just change and become that sweet guy permanently.
Why am I telling you all this? I'm telling you this because the only thing you can really do is be there as a friend and hope she finds a way of getting out of this on her own, without any pressure from anyone else to do so. Both those girls told me that people calling their abusers, asshole or even telling them he's abusing them only made them feel defensive and protective about him. Because believe it or not inside all abusive men is a scared little insecure boy crying in the corner because most of it stems from their own abusive pasts. They saw this side of their abusers and this is one of the reasons they went back time and time again because they had for sympathy too. "Us against the world, no one understands him like I do"
At the end of the day I've only tipped the iceberg of what goes on in a relationship like your ex's current one. It gets far more complicated than that. The fact remains you can't do anything about it and if you get mixed up in it then you could bring a lot of trouble your and her way, you could even end up pushing her further into his arms and completely losing her as a friend if you interfere.
I think it would be a bad idea for you tell her you know what she said and I think you could really complicate things for her if you told how you feel about her. She might lose trust in the friends that told you that and it could lead to her isolation.
Please don't rush this or try and force the issue. The best thing you can do is be there as her friend, spend fun time together, be a safe haven for her by just being a good friend with no drama and no seriousness and just fun. In time she might grow more attached to you and on her own be able to move on. Don't make any passes at her, don't bring up her own relationship and try not to dictate to her what she should not do. You have to take this very slowly and let things progress naturally and at her own pace.
The two women I mentioned said the most important thing for them that helped them escape their abusers was their own strength, the fact they did it on their own. The empowerment they felt from taking all the necessary steps themselves without coercion but with support from friends.
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