I love my friend, but.....

Since she is involved in this relationship, she can't see clearly. Being an outsider you see what is going on and you understand that it is wrong, but her mind may be clouded.

When I was younger, I had a BF who cheated on me with my best friend. I took both of them back. Looking back, I realize that this was insane, but I truly thought he would change. He didn't. It happened again with someone else. Unfortunately I wasn't able to end the relationship. I suffered through it until he did.

All you can really do is be supportive of her, and tell her how much you care. I think if you try to talk her out of it too much, she may resent you, even though you know you are doing what is best.

Hopefully she will come to her senses, and then she will need a friend to turn to. Good luck! She's lucky to have someone who cares.

Number one thing is to be supportive of her.


To tell you the truth, the cheating doesn't bother me. YES he cheated on her and threw the vows they made to each other and their mutual trust in the garbage.. but the hitting eclipses that.

Hitting her on the chest is ABUSE. It should never be tolerated. I understand being angry enough to want to hit someone, but when you love and trust them, it's a line that should never be crossed. If he does it once, he WILL do it again.

After this, I hope she is not willing to stay with him.

Though she is your friend, please report the violations of the no contact order, with dates and times if you can. This is important.. it is important to do the right thing here and help her get herself and her children away from him.

Honestly, there is nothing you can do other then let her know you are there for her when she is ready to leave him. I agree with above reply, the true insult is the physical abuse, yet the cheating is emotional abuse......and obviously this was not a 2 time and caught situation.....! Does she really think that the 2 times she found out are the only times? The control he has over her is far beyond this and most likely what she has expressed to you. The significance of her finding out again, is not about him cheating twice on her and her family, it is how or what is going to allow her to see that she doesn't have to except this. She is better then, and if she can't see this immediately, her children are beyond any blame in this type of relationship. She needs to know that she has a support when she is ready to remove herself and children, but until then there is only so much you can do. I would not enforce any legal actions unless she is establishing them, or if he of course threatens you! I am simply talking from an experience of an abusive relationship and how it felt to be alone in one.........However, she has children, this must be so difficult.......to cut the ties...........

There are lots of books on battered wife syndrome... the whole psychological dynamic that keeps a woman in this kind of abusive situation long past getting-out time. Maybe you could find a good book for her, something where she would recognize herself in it and maybe begin to get some perspective.

Also... I went to a women-only event last year that was part of a hospital-sponsored series, and they gave each of us a little gold lipstick tube... but instead of lipstick inside, there was a tightly-folded note with the phone numbers of all the local battered-women shelters on it. They said to keep it if we thought we might need it someday, or to give it to a friend we thought could use it.

The idea is to keep the lipstick tube in your purse so those phone numbers are handy at all times -- but even if your husband/boyfriend goes through your purse, these numbers are camouflaged so he won't find them and get angry.

So maybe you could make up a lipstick tube like that for your friend, with local phone numbers she might need in an emergency...?