TL;DR version:
My friend Barbara is coming to town and I haven’t seen her since she moved all the way across the country last year. I’m afraid she is unhappy with her boyfriend but isn’t emotionally mature enough to know it. I’d like to take advantage of seeing her in person to have a conversation about it. Unfortunately, the other people we will be seeing want to take of advantage of the meeting and get her to break up with her boyfriend because everybody hates him and he is very controlling, and also they think she is unhappy.
Long story version:
Barbara is 28 and was living at home with her dad before the big move. She didn’t make a lot of money, and was expected to take care of her special-needs sister most of the time. Her sister has a degenerative cognitive disease that makes her a total asshole. It’s not her fault, but it is still very difficult to deal with. Barbara has the patience of an angel and dealt with it very well, but was antsy to get out of her dad’s house and not have to deal with her sister anymore. And also she wanted to get married and have kids!
She met a man online, and 2 months later she moved across country to be with him. They are engaged to be married.
He has some mental illness issues that cause him to be quite controlling. BF wanted to pick out Barbara’s wedding dress because he doesn’t think she dresses modestly enough (which is laughable). Barbara’s other two sisters decided they could help resolve the tension by coming to visit and making it a sister thing. The three of them could pick out a dress together and have a day of remembering their mom, who passed away a couple years ago. Her absence in helping plan the wedding is just another shitty reminder that she is gone.
BF was distraught. He was upset that the sisters didn’t want to spend all their time with him, and upset that Barbara was ok with them not wanting to, and also that she wanted time with her sisters away from him. He was so depressed that a compromise was made where he could take all 3 sisters to the wedding dress shop and drop them off. Then he could get a coffee across the street and watch for them to finish and come out, so he could join up with them again.
His mental condition makes it so he can’t work much. He is in a lot of debt but spends money foolishly. This is quite stressful for my friend for obvious money reasons, but also because they won’t be able to have children naturally, due to some medical stuff, and she wants to be saving up for that.
Barbara has never been in a relationship before. She is absolutely the nicest and most compassionate person in the world! She is an amazing cook, she has the best attitude every single day! She was very obese until just recently, and so missed out on any of the normal learning benchmarks for relationships.
Now she has a guy that she has to support, and that panics at the thought of Barbara talking to someone without him included in the conversation, or of her coming here to visit her friends without bringing him. She is frustrated with it all! But says that they are happy and that he loves her and she loves him.
There were people who thought she wouldn’t be able to hack it in the real world that far from home, so admitting this isn’t working would be admitting failure.
But maybe she really is happy. I don’t want to judge, I just want to help if she needs it. What should I say to her that isn’t “break up with him?”
