The more you put him down the harder she is going to defend him. In a way, you are actually pushing them closer together.
There’s not much you can do except be there to pick up the pieces when she falls.
Show her this: signs you’re in an abusive relationship
Maybe seeing it in print, and she can read it alone over and over again, will help.
Do you and Lee have mutual friends that you hang out with together? If so, next time bring up the Git to the mutual friend and how he treats Lee and see how the mutual friend and Lee respond.
We don’t really hang around with the same people often. To be honest, neither of us are massively sociable- she sometimes hang round with friends from work, or a bunch of arty friends I only know a few of, and I go to a few clubs which she isn’t interested in.
I’m going to talk to the few mutual friends we do have, but unfortunately I’m not going to be seeing any of them for the next week or so, and I doubt she’ll be seeing them for quite a while longer. The only one who has met the Git took a pretty instant dislike to him.
After I tried to talk to her on Saturday about the ‘handing in notice’ incident, she ran to his house, insisting that he’d have a good explanation, and he probably hadn’t done it really anyway (despite me showing her the email from the agency), and I haven’t seen her since. She messaged me saying she doesn’t want to talk to me at all now, because it makes too much conflict with him.
I did show her that abuse link, but she just got angry about it. Ugh.
Time to cut bait.
I’m afraid so. You’re renting? Whose name is on the lease? You’ve got to look out for yourself now.
I agree wiyh others – you’ve tried, but there is littlt you can do to save someone who allows herself to be abused. Cut your loses & get out. You’re not responsible for your roomate.
But there ARE others who are responsible – her blood relatives. Have you told her parents/siblings about your concerns?
Her family won’t even consider interfering- they’ll take her at her word if she says it’s OK, and that’s it- this is not the first time she’s been in a messed up relationship, and they all went along with it last time. They also live a few hundred miles away.
Both names are on the lease. I’ve just found out she’s sent her notice in- after insisting since this started that she’d pick a date and give me two months notice at least, she’s handed in one month’s notice today. Great.
I have to echo the sentiments of many others, I think you have done all you can to warn your friend and dissuade her from this course of action. In sharing your concerns and taking care of her in the past, you’ve been the best kind of friend she could have.
It may be hard to do, but if you can try to keep her on good terms until she moves out, she will at least know that when this relationship of hers goes down the pan she has a way back to you without having to face a barrage of “I told you so”.
Good luck finding a new housemate - can the lettings agency help with that at all?
Aw, shit, I am petrified for this poor dumb bitch. I’ve been her, and it took me an awful long time to get wise.
I liked IvoryTowerDenizen’s idea to show her that list, a shame it didn’t work. At this point, I’d give her a hug, tell her she’s a good friend, I love her, and I’ll be there for her if she ever needs help. (Assuming that to be true, of course, and by help I mean escape from Git, not money to buy him a birthday present).
I know, I couldn’t parse that either, especially since having Lee unencumbered by obligations to you ultimately gets him what he wants. He ought to be thrilled that you have a new housemate lined up, that means Lee won’t be feeling any guilt/attachment/obligation to stay longer.
Since she’s handed in notice, talk to the agency and see about getting Lee off the lease and putting the new housemate on. At this point I’d sever all legal ties, too, just to avoid any potential fallout later. If she needs a place to crash after this “relationship” falls apart, she can be your unlimited guest. Until she figures herself out… honestly I don’t think I’d get myself into living with her again after this, at least until she’s had some time/experience at living independently. Which I think, honestly, might be the one thing that gets her to grow a spine – I watched it happen to someone else I was loosely acquainted with. They’d been married over a decade, she was really, really dependent on/subservient to him, and always had been… basically moved from parents to husband. Then he spent a year when he was on the road nearly all the time for work. She learned to be independent, because she had to. She learned how to function without him. Not surprisingly, when he got back and expected things to be the same, they weren’t anymore – the marriage didn’t survive.
I’ve been through something similar with a friend although we weren’t living together.
What we (other friends and I) did was consistently and calmly point out the abnormality of the behavior with as little emotion as possible. "Carly you know that it’s not acceptable for him to call your boss and ask about your vacation time just to verify you’re not lying to him
It was a long process, you’re not going to change her mind right away but make it clear that you’re not making judgments, you’re there for her and when the light goes on and she manages to free herself she’s got a friend to come to.
You cannot free her you can only reiterate the things her common sense should be telling her that are getting drowned out and be a safe harbour when she does escape. You are not responsible but cutting yourself off completely is a little harsh. Protect your own interests, don’t maintain her on the lease as while she’s under his control you can’t trust her to consider your interests but leave a door open even if she cuts off contact.
So apparently she’s now decided that me trying to point out how worryingly this boyfriend has been acting is me trying to control her, and has stormed out.
I got pretty angry about the lease situation (I’m in a pretty bad situation to find somewhere new, so it’s going to be very difficult for me to find anything), because she started insisting it was my fault that she’d changed her mind on the notice, and was accusing me of trying to get her into trouble by suggesting the friend’s sister moved in, even though she’d previously thought it was a good idea- the creep had persuaded her that it could somehow leave her bankrupt, rather than just them terminating the lease, which was the real ‘worst case’ scenario.
This is not the first awful relationship she’s been in, incidently- the last one, she lived in the guy’s house for two years but she didn’t have a key, she wasn’t allowed to leave anything visible in the house, in case someone came round and saw it, and she wasn’t allowed to use the address for anything- so she wasn’t able to work, and had to walk several miles to go to the jobcentre. He also spent all her savings on something for himself. She didn’t think that was controlling either.
It could be my age speaking, or my lack of interest in being involved in this level of drama, but to me, her friendship doesn’t sound worth the drama. Wish her a nice life and find a new place or a new roommate.
I’m with Cat Whisperer. She’s done this before, the things she picks fights about are incomprehensible (how can she convince herself that dropping her from the lease and getting a new roommate makes her liable for anything when it patently does the opposite?), and she will NOT get better until she hits absolute, rock bottom with no place lower to go… and her personal rock bottom may not be achievable in this lifetime.
You can’t save her. She won’t save herself. Someday she might. But don’t count on it.
I’m sorry.
I agree with the majority; she’s a lost cause and all that.
But how are others responsible for the choices and behavior of a grown-ass woman? Is she not a legal adult, making her own decisions and allowing Douchebag Git guy to steer her around?
I see that as her problem and I see no reason whatsoever that a roommate is morally or otherwise obligated to call up the parents of a grown woman and rat her out like a child. Maybe if or when she feels like she needs help, she’ll, I dunno, do something irrational and call her parents for help. Unless and until that happens, I don’t think it’s the roommate’s job to alert her parents of potential danger.
I’ll throw in that it may be compassionate to alert her family, if they were close, if they’d want to (try to) help if they knew. But it is absolutely not the family’s responsibility to ride herd over an aforementioned grown-ass woman. Said grown-ass woman is responsible for herself. That comes with being a grown-ass. 
I don’t think it means others are responsible for her behavior, but (more) responsible to try to help her. A parent or sibling usually has more of a sense of responsibility to reach out to her than her roommate does.
There’s not a lot more they can do for a grown-ass woman in a bad relationship (or even series of bad relationships). She is a competent adult; if she wants to choose shitty men, that’s totally her prerogative. She obviously gets something out of these relationships; it probably isn’t anything healthy, but it’s what she wants for now.