How do I set boundaries with a friend in an abusive relationship? Feminist Advice Friday
A reader finds her friend's abusive relationship triggering.
A reader asks…
How do you all navigate setting boundaries with friends who are in abusive relationships?
My friend and I have been reconnecting as friends the last few months via email and text/voice messaging.
Yesterday she opened up to me about her current relationship. She is in a kink dynamic that very, very closely resembles my previous one with my ex.
The verbal abuse that she described was very triggering for me, having just gotten away from an abusive Dominant myself.
I don't know how to navigate this friendship now that I know her current situation.
I don't know how to navigate supporting my friend without also having to hear about abuse. I don't want to cut contact entirely and add to her isolation.
But I also cannot handle hearing anything about her boyfriend.
I have named directly that he is abusive and have pointed her to some resources, which she is looking into.
Do you maintain friendships with women who are currently in abusive relationships?
I don't know how to balance the fine line between supporting and nourishing a friendship and also firmly distancing myself from an abuser and a dynamic that is triggering to me.
My answer
I think there may be some pushback on this question, since it anticipates potentially limiting contact with someone who is being abused. So I want to emphasize that I struggle with this in my life, too. It can be really exhausting and profoundly demoralizing to have a relationship with a person who is being abused.
In my professional life, I interact with abused women everyday. I’ll think I’m making progress, and then they’ll come back to me, over and over again, with some variation of “But I really deserve it, right?” People may not realize how frustrating these interactions are unless they regularly have them. From the outside looking in, it can look like the person is accepting and even justifying their own abuse.
But that’s not reality. Abuse is a complex dynamic, and it steadily erodes the ability of its victims to think critically. And of course, there’s no one who suffers more in these dynamics than the violence survivor. Sure, we may find their reactions frustrating and triggering, but we need to be mindful that the victim here is the one in the most urgent need.
Your friend needs you. Abuse is isolating by design, and the more isolated your friend becomes, the harder it will be for her to escape this relationship.
So, in answering your question, I’m operating according to two rules:
You can set whatever boundaries you like in any relationship, and the other person may then respond with their own boundaries, including ending the relationship.
It is ok for us to be uncomfortable, especially when sitting with someone else’s discomfort.
You’ll never find me claiming that being triggered is not a real thing. I have PTSD myself (though for a different reason—the loss of my daughter), and I find it really frustrating how cavalier people can be when talking about deeply triggering subjects, as if they don’t impact so many of us.
So I want to ask you, as gently as possible, and knowing that you and you alone are the expert on your life and your needs, now and forever:
Are you triggered by your friend’s abuse or merely upset by it?
Are you hoping to ban this discussion because it is truly triggering your PTSD, or because you hope that doing so will convince her to leave the relationship?
Because if your friend’s experiences are immediately sending you into flashbacks of your own or dramatically undermining your healing, you need to cut off your exposure to them. If it’s just that you don’t like hearing your friend deal with something you have also recently experienced, though, then I urge you to consider the possibility that requiring her not to speak of these experiences is cruel.
These experiences are integral to her life right now, and processing them may be life-saving. So it only makes sense to stop her from doing so if discussing the abuse is truly damaging to you.
If it is, then I need you to consider that continuing a friendship in which she cannot discuss her abuse may be damaging to her. That’s because abuse victims blame themselves for everything, and tend to see themselves as fundamentally undeserving and unworthy, especially early on, before they’ve fully come to see the abuse for what it is. So hearing that her stories are harming you may cause her to retreat, and may even set her back a bit.
Please don’t feel guilt about this.
I’m going to say it again: I do not want you to feel guilty about this. I’m just outlining what I think is the real calculus here.
If we are going to take friendship seriously, and hopefully begin centering friendships as equally important to, or even more important than, romantic relationships, then we also have to acknowledge that friendship can be challenging and fraught. That friendship can (and should!) demand a lot of us.
Sometimes our needs conflict with the needs of the people we love. And in deciding what to do, we have to be clear about the nature of the conflict.
So how do you go about setting boundaries?
If you truly cannot hear about the abuse, I think it might be best to reduce contact, explain why, and emphasize that you are available and here for her when she is ready to leave.
If that feels too daunting, would you consider limiting discussions about the abuse?
If that doesn’t feel possible, some scripts you might try include:
“I love you, and seeing you be abused is triggering and upsetting to me. I can’t hear about it. I need us to talk about other things.”
“I love you too much to hear about you being abused. I can’t talk about it, but I can talk to you about a plan to get out.”
“I cannot listen to you blame yourself for this abuse. We need to change the subject.”
When you set these boundaries, be sure to continue to give her love and affection, and to show genuine interest in other topics she wants to discuss. This shows her that she is worthwhile and deserves to be heard—a message she is almost certainly not getting in her relationship.
You may be tempted to assert boundaries you hope will induce her to leave her relationship. I get it. I’ve done that. It always backfires. Because the rush of love in an abusive relationship is intense, and will always override the desire for friendship. Do not wield your friendship as a weapon, or as a reward you will withdraw if she does not act the way you hope.
Instead, name the abuse for what it is. Because it takes a long time for most people to recognize they are being abused, and even when they do, they often convince themselves they deserve it.
Ultimately, remember that boundaries are for you, not her. You cannot control her. You cannot force her not to talk about something either. So think about your plan for enforcing your boundaries if you need to, then follow through every time.
Your well-being matters, and you do not owe another person suffering, even if your suffering benefits them.
At the same time, the feminist project demands that we begin centering friendship and decentering men. If we are going to take friendship seriously, if we are going to form lifelong partnerships with friends who love us as deeply as we hope our romantic partners will (but almost never do), then we must take walking away from a friendship very seriously.
I’m so sorry for all you have been through.
I had trouble reading this, because even reading about it is apparently hard, too. Too many too many too many women are in abusive situations. 😭 I just also want to add to the pile of what a person can say to a friend in this kind of scenario: “Please go to a therapist who is trauma-informed.” “I will help you find a good therapist to help you deal with this situation.” “I will happily go with you to your therapy appointment(s) until you feel comfortable without having me there.” (Be prepared to sit in the waiting room while your friend is in the therapy session.)
Offer to get her practical help. Help her get her meds. Help her go to a library to find out about resources in the community that will help her GET OUT of this scenario. (My next SubStack talks about how wonderful libraries are for people in our communities!) A librarian can seriously help someone with their needs & wishes & wishes to gain knowledge on any subject. Take advantage of the free resource that your local library has.
Hi Zawn, this article as always, is life changing for the better, thank you for sharing your wisdom through your writing. I did have a friend in the recent past who was clearly in a longstanding abusive relationship with her husband and additionally her teenagers were also extremely physically and emotionally abusive towards her. I did find the awareness of her endless cycles of abuse upsetting. I found witnessing it in person upsetting. I found her reactions to it upsetting. You articulate so well how she recently withdrew her friendship from me after approximately 10 years of best friends as she was very displeased from a couple of texts I sent her, so literally, withdrew her friendship and literally said “you were dismissive of me and that equals plans getting cancelled “ and other comments of this nature. It was really odd. Maybe someone can see something in this to explain? I am upset, but also have my walls up. Your incite-full comment regarding friendships has made me reflect on this, now 6 weeks later. Thank you