Two friends in trouble and my crappy attitude about them.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I though for a long time about where to put this, if I’m wrong, I apologize, please move it for me.

I’ve got two good friends and they both live miserable lives, but I don’t feel sorry for them and I don’t feel any compassion either.

The first one has been my friend for about 20 years, I’ll call her M. She had a horrible family growing up and ran away at 17, my father let her stay with us as long as she wanted. At 18 she left our house to move in with a 40 something year old man. A few years later, she got knocked up and a few years after that, he married her.

I wouldn’t care about any of this at all except that all M does is complain about what a horrible person her husband is. He will not let her talk on the phone, if anyone calls her, he puts them through an inquisition. If he decides that you can talk to her, he listens on the other end.

M is not allowed to leave the house to even take her daughter to the playground, her husband is afraid that she might try to pick up another man.

Last winter, M had her 31st birthday, her husband took her out to dinner and when she couldn’t decide what to order, he through a glass of water at her head and they were told to leave the restaurant. The husband blamed her for the incident.

I can only communicate with her through a secret email address, I’ve told her that if she wants to leave him, I’d be happy to help her. She and her daughter can stay with me until she got on her feet. But, she says she doesn’t want to cause any trouble.

My other friend, I’ll call B. I’ve only known her for a little while. Her husband is just about as bad. The family only has one car and he will drop her off places and expect her to walk home so he can go out with his drinking buddies. Not easy to do with two children and loads of groceries.

He spend all of the families money on Nascar tickets for many years and eventually they lost their house. Their son had no birthday party or gifts so that the father could join a bowling league and had to buy equipment.

When B tries to talk to him, he yells at her and insults her in every way possible, all in front of the kids and once in front of me and my kids.

I talked to B about it all and she says her husband does a very good job supporting them financially (remember, they lost their home and they are on welfare), but he doesn’t support her emotionally.

I am having a very hard time in dealing with my friends. They do nothing but complain, but refuse to do anything to change their situations. I find it hard to be compassionate and I don’t know what to say to them when they tell me about the problems they have.

I’m beginning to think I must be a bitch.

2

Oops, I’m sorry the spelling in that stinks, I’m a little upset about my friends right now.

3

Tell your next girlfriend not to get married.

Honestly, I would feel the same way. If you try to act in some way (say, with a lawyer or such) you may damage your friendships, but it could really be worth losing a friend if you know their life will be better in the long run.

Or not.

What do I know.

4

dragongirl, please stop beating yourself up.

your friends are indeed stuck in appalling quagmires. but UNLESS AND UNTIL they make a move to help themselves, the only thing they will do is bitch and moan, and keep dragging you emotionally into their misery.

you’re the only one close enough to know whether there is any possibility whatsoever of their actually doing something to help themselves. i’d make an educated guess that you’ve decided (or intuited) that it’s not happening before the next ice age at the soonest.

if that is indeed the case, then i for one wouldn’t dream of faulting you for removing yourself from an unending source of depression and disillusionment. you can try to be an unending source of strength and encouragement for these two sponges, but when the chips are down, THEY have to be the ones to get their butts in gear and make something happen.

your mission in life is not to rescue these people. in the long run, everyone is pretty much responsible for their own redemption. if they actually do try and pull themselves together and ask your help in getting out, and then you turn your back on them… then i’d do some serious "tsk tsk"ing in your direction. but until they get off the mark, you’ve pretty much done what is humanly possible for the moment.

when people suck you dry emotionally, eventually you can’t help them no matter HOW great your desire to do so. after a certain point, it becomes not so much a matter of supporting and encouraging them – it actually turns into enabling them to continue their self-destructive paths. they get their emotional “fix” from crying and complaining to you; you dole out the sympathy and support. they’re pleased that their feelings are validated – but do absolutely nothing to change things. go back to beginning of circle and repeat, ad nauseum.

perhaps pulling back and taking away the sympathy pill might be the final straw that slaps them with a big enough dose of reality. might work; might not. but at least the vampiric emotional fangs will no longer be embedded in your veins. there comes a certain point where you have to realize that things just won’t get better, and for your own emotional health and sanity, you are much better off getting away from them.

depressing people really can drag you down to their level, if they’re given enough time.

5

I totally agree with what lachesis said. You can be willing to listen forever, but until THEY are willing to do something, nothing is going to change. I understand how frustrating it is to stand by and watch them destroy their own lives, and yet as has been shown time and time again, women in abusive situations (and there is no doubt that if these situations are as you describe, they ARE abusive) have to WANT to get out of the situation themselves, no one can want it for them.

My suggestion would be to, as lachesis said, pull back and take away the sympathy pill. Let them both know that when and if they’re ready to change their life, you’ll be there to help them…but no more talk. Only action is acceptable. If and when they want to get out of their current situations, you will be there to help them; but until then, no further communication.

And you might also specifically tell their kids that if THEY ever need an adult to help them, you’re available. Sounds like they’re trapped in truly nasty situations.

Hang in there. You’ve been a good friend, but if you stick around, you really won’t care any more. I’ve had toxic friends before, and they really WILL suck the life out of you if you let them.

But if you can be a good enough friend to (a) let go of them but (b) be there if they are willing to DO something, then you will be the kind of friend we all hope we can have.

6

Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of scum that call themselves men out there in the world, so you get situations like this one.

All you can do is be supportive, and offer any help that they decide they WANT. If/when the WANT help, go to the ends of the earth to help.

Men like this are certainly bad for the rest of us who actually love and RESPECT their wife/so. As one of the good ones (I hope), it was a small block that I had to remove when I met my wife, as she had previously (about 2 months prior to me meeting her) broken an engagement off with one such ass.

Hopefully your friends will realize what a mess they are in, and do the right thing “for the children” (hate that phrase, but it applies here, and it certainly would help them personally too)

Good Luck
-Butler

7

I’m worried for the kids in these situations, but unfortunately there isn’t much you can do. (However, if you are aware of any type of abuse happening to the children, I’d take some sort of action. Yes, I’ve done it myself. Not easy but kids need protection and if the parents are not willing to provide it, it is up to us.)

I had a friend like that. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m not a trained counsellor who can detach myself at the end of the day. I can’t fix all the wrongs that happened in her life that led to her falling victim to abusive relationships. I’m not an ever-flowing fountain of emotional strength. I stopped talking to her eventually.

Initially, I voiced my concerns and shared some anti-abuse literature I have (such as a checklist, “How Do I Tell if My Partner is Abusive?”, the effects of family abuse on children, etc), and told her what I knew about how she could get out if she decided to.

It’s no kind of a friendship when you are severely limited by what you are allowed to do and say with your friend, and your time spent together is coloured by both the emotional overload that she spills all over you whenever you do talk, and her fear of upsetting or pissing off her partner for often petty things.
I don’t know if you can remain friends with these two women even if you do request that they keep their problems to themselves. Being in an abusive relationship is a full-time job and it colours everything in the victim’s world. It’d be impossible for you to avoid hearing about or dealing with it.

You’re definitely not a bitch. It’s precisely because you have human feelings that you are finding these situations untolerable!

8

Some people get stuck in a rut and call it a groove. Your friends are those sort of people.

9

I agree with what Mama Tiger said about saying to the kids that they can come to you for help. They are unwillingly trapped, their moms could get out if they really wanted to. Maybe I’m hard hearted myself, but it sounds as if, with the moms, you are going to have to use some “tough love”

10

You’re not heartless, dragongirl. If anything, you may have a little too much heart, but now is the time to harden it and tell your friends that you cannot support them if they are unwilling to change their situations. At the risk of spouting “New Age Psychology”, are you familiar with the words, “enabler” and “codependent”? If you’re being someone they can dump on and complain to allows them to continue in abusive situations, you’re doing them more harm than good. I’d say tell them, “I’m not abandoning you, and I will be there for you when you decide you want to change things, not before.”

Good luck! I know it’s not easy, but it seems the best things rarely are.

CJ

11

I have to agree with lachesis and everyone else who posted “tough love” advice. My mom’s younger sister was in an abusive marriage for years. The physical and mental attacks got so bad that my aunt had a nervous breakdown and ended up hospitalized for a few months (during which my parents cared for her two children).

My aunt came to stay with us for awhile, too, after she got out. Despite the severe mental and physical abuse – her husband tried strangling her at least once, and she only got away by playing dead – she refused to listen to my mom’s advice to leave the relationship. My aunt kept saying she loved him so much that she couldn’t live without him. Of course, that didn’t stop her from calling my mom several times a week, sobbing hysterically about the awful things her husband was doing to her.

For many years my mom tried to convince her sister to leave, but my aunt always refused to listen. Finally mom put her foot down – she told my aunt that she didn’t want to hear another word about the husband’s abuse unless my aunt was willing to do something to change her situation. The rest of the family followed mom’s lead. Once everyone stopped listening to her constant complaints, my aunt decided to end 20 years of misery and finally get a divorce.

::backreads:: Hmmm. That was much longer than I’d intended.

The point I’m trying to make, dragongirl, is that you’re not being, as you said, a “bitch.” My aunt’s constant phone calls took a serious toll on my mom’s health. Mom would often end up in tears after talking to my aunt, and it got to the point where she almost became physically ill whenever she heard the phone ring.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think any advice you give your friends will be useful until they decide to help themselves. As tough as it may be to watch them suffer, you need to take a step back. Let them know you’ll be there to support them when they want to change their lives, but that you can’t listen to their complaints any more until their willing to make those changes. Otherwise, your own health might begin to suffer.

Best of luck, dragongirl!

12

If these kids aren’t already subject to the same abuse their moms are getting—they probably will be sooner or later.

Keep being a friend to these 2 ladies but keep your eyes and ears out for these kids.

The moms are adults who have made their choices and if they choose to stay with these men you can’t do much to help them until they are ready to be helped.

BUT, these kids have no choice in the matter.

If you suspect or KNOW that these kids are being abused, please do something.

You don’t want some little boy growing up thinking it is his “job” to keep his wife in line. You don’t want some little girl growing up thinking it is her “place” to be treated like her mother before her was.

No matter how much I try to understand I just don’t get these moms who let their kids see this kind of behavior or worse, let their children be abused…verbally, physically, emotionally…it doesn’t matter.

Damn…I don’t understand why some people are given the precious gift of children.

Best of luck to you.