Pushing my friend to see that she was being abused messed things up more
How I screwed up in supporting my friend in a domestic violence situation and what I learned to do differently.
by Jessica Martin-Weber
I’ve written about when your friend is in an abusive relationship before and setting boundaries to keep my family safe when she was still with her abuser. Read that here.
If you or someone you know is in an unsafe relationship or is unsure if it is an abusive situation, in the USA call the national hotline 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) or Text "START" to 88788.
I’m not exactly sure when I began to wonder if my friend was in an abusive marriage but I remember when I knew for sure she was.
***Content warning- physical and mental abuse, sexual assault, and coercive control; expletives***
Our kids were playing in my backyard while she cried to me in my living room about how uncomfortable it made her to wake up to him having sex with her. She had told him earlier that night she didn’t want to, that she wasn’t interested. But he did it anyway, while she slept. She hates when he does that, she told me through angry violated tears.
That’s rape, I said. Sexual assault. He’s so abusive. He is abusing you.
She needed to hear the truth, I thought. I was certain I was helping her.
My words hung in the air and everything changed. She wiped her face and said it isn’t that bad. Rape and abuse seems a little extreme, she bristled. It had been a long time since they had sex, she knows that’s hard for him.
I couldn’t believe it, it sounded like she was defending him.
Feeling the need to impress upon her the seriousness of her situation, to make sure she understood how bad things really were and how horrible her husband really was, I doubled down, detailing all the ways I thought he abused her.
She became more insistent. Every couple has their issues. Doesn’t every marriage go through times like this? Marriage is hard, it just is. There’s a lot that’s wonderful about him, she didn’t want me to see him as a bad guy. He’s dealing with a lot. She really just needs to do better and handle things differently. She didn’t mean to complain and burden me, it really wasn’t a big deal. She was fine, she didn’t need pity. She didn’t know why she made it sound so dramatic. It was just whatever, it is what it is.
On and on she went, trying to convince me she wasn’t being abused.
Or maybe she was trying to convince herself. I’m not sure.
Obviously I wasn’t getting through to her. I listened in amazement as she explained away everything I saw as a red flag and sensed that she was annoyed with me, reacting as though I had betrayed her.
She switched to talking about work, filling me in on patient stories she had cared for in the last week (respecting HIPPA) and then about her kids.
I got the message: don’t say that. Don’t talk about her husband and his behavior in those terms. And absolutely don’t feel sorry for her.
My heart ached. I didn’t know how to help her if she couldn’t see the situation clearly.
In my victim’s advocate training I had been taught that victims very often will defend their abusers. We had to approach victims gently with the reality of their experience and support them to come to terms with what they lived through on their own terms. Even with that training and experience, in the face of my friend being abused I struggled to give her the space she needed to process.
In part because I was afraid that her situation would escalate. That her risk would increase. I wanted to push her to see what was really happening because I wanted to keep her safe.
But in pushing, I made her feel less safe with me.
Nearly a year and a half later she was once again, as she had for all the months in between, telling me about how sad and hurt and angry she was about how he treated her all while making excuses for him. An outpouring of details of what I considered abuse crashed over me again and again and again. Just like I had every time before, I listened and acknowledged that this was all very hard. Six months before I told her that I didn’t know what to say to her sharing the same things over and over and over again, that I couldn’t do anything and if she didn’t want to troubleshoot, I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say but that I could continue listening even if I don’t know what to say in response. Every time I validated and acknowledged her experience, careful not to slip into telling her what I thought was happening in her life. Every time I expressed concern for her. Every time I would ask what she needed and how I could support her. Most of the time she didn’t know.
I wish this wasn’t true but I was exasperated with her. I couldn’t understand why she stayed. I knew that the most dangerous time for an abuse victim is when they’re leaving their abuser and I knew it wasn’t as simple as “just leave” and still I was frustrated that she wasn’t accessing the supports available to her. It was completely lost on me how she could complain about how he treated her all of the time but not see that it was abuse and do nothing to make it any different. Leave, I wanted to scream at her, change your situation, get away from him.
I didn’t say that. I had learned that sounded like judgment to her and she couldn’t hear my care and concern for her wellbeing. My fear was that if I said those things she wouldn’t trust me any more and would end up further isolated. That wasn’t what I wanted. So for the past several months I just focused on listening. Asking how she felt and how she was doing. Validating her feelings. Offering comfort. Demonstrating empathy. Investing in her and our friendship. Holding space for her own process.
There had been other changes in our relationship, primarily new boundaries for how my family interacted with hers. If her husband was home, my children were no longer permitted at their house without their dad or me, I would not spend long periods of time at her house visiting, we declined getting together with them if her husband would be joining, and we limited having her husband in our home for social gatherings. These boundaries had changed our two families' relationship dynamic.
This time, instead of just quietly acknowledging the difficulties she was sharing, sprinkled with the occasional “I’m so sorry,” for some reason I’m not sure I can explain, at one point I felt myself shake my head sadly and heard the words “that’s not normal”come out of my mouth.
“You don’t think that’s normal?”
“Well… no. I don’t. Not at all.”
“Isn’t that just how men are?”
“Not in my experience and certainly not what I want my children to believe is what they should accept from a man just because he’s a man. I don’t think that’s normal.”
“So Jeremy doesn’t…?”
“No. Not at all. Never. That is not a reasonable way to treat someone. It is not ok.”
“No?”
“Not to me and not to Jeremy and in general, no.”
She sat quietly, lost in thought. I waited.
After a bit I broke in:
“Do you feel safe? When that happens, do you feel safe?”
An almost imperceptible head shake.
“It is normal to feel safe with your partner. It is reasonable. You deserve to feel safe. Always.”
Her hand moved to her face, covering her mouth. Blinking, she seemed to no longer be entirely present with me. The color started to drain from her face as she continued nearly motionless. Then, in a jolt she ran a hand through her hair and pressed both hands against her face. Her gaze moved to the backdoor where we could hear the kids playing, her expression pinched and color now flooding her face.
I said her name gently.
There was no response as tears brimmed in her eyes.
She sighed a small sob.
“It’s not normal.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.
“No. It is not normal and it isn’t reasonable. It isn’t ok.”
Silence. I didn’t know exactly what was happening but I could tell this was a critical moment. I followed her lead and waited as she processed. Tears began to stream down her face.
Until finally:
“Oh my god, how could I be so stupid? How could I fall for someone that would do this? How could I think this was ok?”
Then she detailed example after example of the ways he made her uncomfortable, harmed her, belittled her, controlled her, and exploited her. Abused her. Examples I had held up to her that day a year and a half before when she jumped to defend him. With each one she asked if it was normal, reasonable, or ok. Each time I told her no.
“That is not normal. That is not reasonable. That is not ok.”
In about another 6 months she safely left her abuser. That day in my living room it was like a domino fell with the realization that what she was experiencing wasn’t normal or reasonable. It would be another couple months or so before she started to gingerly use terms like rape, abuse, control but she got there in her own time. That admission came gradually, starting with “this isn’t normal, this isn’t reasonable, this isn’t ok.”
On the first anniversary of her divorce we toasted her freedom over margaritas. We chatted about her new life, the kids, and her future plans. She congratulated herself on being mostly-free of the weight of her ex and called him a name to which I raised my glass.
“Good riddance to that abusive Fucker. I’m glad I finally saw the light and was able to get away from him. It’s so embarrassing that I stayed with such an asshole for so long. You know, I felt so stupid that you could see he was abusing me when I couldn’t. I didn’t want to believe it. I thought I wasn’t the kind of woman to be abused and I would never stay with an abuser. But I did for 18 years! Ugh. It still makes me cringe.”
*Note: all people are the kind that are abused, it is not their fault they are abused. This kind of thinking is common and often encouraged by those in power to abuse because it enables and perpetuates abuse, causing society to not believe people when they are abused if they don’t fit the “type” we have conjured in our mind as being the only ones that are abused. My friend thought this way because she was conditioned to think this way and it served her abuser well. She had nothing to be embarrassed about and she is hardly stupid, she was groomed for abuse in a system of oppression and her abuser exploited her strengths as part of the abuse, particularly her loyalty and optimism.
Since that day when I tried to convince my friend she was being abused, I have never led with that again. I’ve supported many survivors since that day and continue to do so but I find it is much more effective for me to be a safe space for them to process the experience. I direct them to abuse hotlines and to develop safety plans with domestic violence advocates and do everything in my power to keep the lines of communication open.
It is important to me to be honest and I do want to be sure I’m not being complicit in abuse by being silent about abuse. Pointing out that an abusive behavior isn’t normal is a way to do that without embarrassing the individual or having them feel defensive of their abuser. Sometimes I still get frustrated that they aren’t seeing what I see on my timeline but they deserve the dignity of determining that for themselves in their timeline. They are so often stripped of their dignity as it is.
Here’s what I do instead:
Be available to them to process their experience without judgment or labeling.
Checking in with them, see how they are doing, and hear about how they are feeling.
Supporting them as best as possible in ways that are meaningful to them at that moment.
Be a safe space for them without putting them in the position to defend their abuser.
Hold space for them to trust me.
Acknowledge their experience with empathy and care.
Model appropriate emotional responses to their experiences without centering myself.
Show concern for their wellbeing without labeling what they experienced.
Normalize healthy treatment.
Prioritize them. “You don’t deserve to go through that.” “You deserve to be treated better than that.” “Nothing you could do justifies that happening to you.”
Gently indicate what is abusive, controlling behavior with “that isn’t normal, reasonable, or ok.”
Care for them in identifying their situation for themselves.
Encourage them to reach out to domestic violence advocates in their area to develop safety plans and know what their options are.
There is no perfect way to support someone living with abuse, the situation itself is so imperfect it is impossible. Showing up in flawed ways is still valuable. You don’t have to do it all right for it to be meaningful.
Develop the skills you need for identifying, communicating, and holding boundaries with kindness and dignity including how to respond when someone doesn’t like your boundaries in our popular Practical Boundaries Masterclass and Workbook.
Ready for tried and true strategies to help you reach your relationship or parenting goals? Would you like to change your parenting? Want to interact differently with your partner with improved communication?
We're Jessica and Jeremy Martin-Weber, parenting educators and coaches, former teachers, and parents of 9. We're here to help. With masterclasses, workbooks and guides, and personalized private coaching, we support families in reaching their goals in their most important relationships. With a deep understanding of neurodiversity, high demand religious backgrounds, child development, and being trauma informed, we work with our clients on practical action steps that align with their values, goals, and purpose.
For a no-cost, no-obligation conversation with us to get you started on moving closer to the relationship you want with your children, go here.