Possible abuse situation involving one of my best friends
 

So a few years ago I met this amazing girl at a job I was at at the time long story short she was taken at the time When I accepted that but my heart still burned for her because she was so kind wonderful and amazing with a great heart but since I knew it couldn't happen at the time no never told her we remained great friends til we no longer worked there

Closer to the present we reconnected on Facebook and had the same great conversations then some of her statuses got troubling I msged her asking if she was ok

she replied

I was really sad to hear this she was the best friend I had at that job she got me through some of the worst times this was something she did not deserve in the least I wanted to hurt someone just hearing that

these feelings were quickly followed by a rush of happiness because she was out of it and she was ok

We kept in touch and talked more frequently and conversations then started to lead towards the past through no intent or agenda whatsoever it slipped out that I had feelings for her in the past

She said she "kinda knew that" but I never asked her what gave me away or anything it was clear she was flattered and we had good laugh about it (as in catharsis between good friends not at my expense) later I even tried asking her out for friendzoned moved on the way she did it was so kind it even gave me confidence to talk to other girls I was interested in we continue d out friendly conversations with me expecting nothing and sometime later she changed her fb to in a relationship with no details or mention of the name of her new bf an alarm went off in my mind but I was afraid if I asked she'd just think I was jealous her fb updates seemed normal so I stopped worring and we continued to talk and then yesterday this happened

she posted a status something about

"Post a photo if you love your special person" for positivity or something I'm not going back to it to find out and the photo she posted was an old one

If her and her ex be who she was with when i met her!!

In between this all starting and now she had a brief encounter with someone she met after me which she shortly ended but this still resulted in a baby

The alarms in my head were screaming now...

Is she back with someone who abused her? With a newborn baby who is not his added into the mix?

Every instinct I have told me if I did not ask about this is be a terrible friend or worse something would happen to her and that baby and I would have done nothing to prevent it when I had the means. I was not going to live with that

I sent her the following message


I got this as a reply

I do not believe she is hiding anything YET but notice in her reassuring she did NOT really answer my question about wether she is back with her ex or who her mystery BF is

Well this was her status this morning

That name I REDACTED is indeed the name of her ex bf

She is back with him

I have to call hope of us being together months ago

I am talking to another girl as we speak

I am writing this only out of concern for one of my best friends in the world

I will NOT let anything happen to her or that child I will spend every breath I have to make sure they are safe

I know abusers sometimes change temporarily and relapse i wont let them become part of those statistics

That being said after everything I gotta be discreet now or I'll just sound like a paranoid jealous spurned lover which I swear on my life I am NOT

What do I do

Oh gosh. First off you seem like such a lovely guy. That was such a kind and thoughtful message that you sent to you friend and she's lucky to have you looking out for her.

You won't like this, but I don't think that there's an awful lot that you can do right now. It isn't super-common, but abusive people can recover and become non-abusive people. (I'm not just making that up, I have a friend who works in the field who acknowledges that it can happen). So that's something to hope for at least! There is of course a bigger chance that you're right and that she's back in an unhealthy relationship and if that is the case, he may well have control over her phone or other messaging devices so you need to be careful. Whether through her choice or not, it sounds like she's not using any communication channels of her own at the moment, which means you can't even continue a casual conversation, which at least creates the safe space in which she could start to share if she wanted to. How would you feel about contacting the guy as requested in that status? I'm guessing whatever country you're in is currently in lockdown, so contacting via the boyfriend to arrange to meet up isn't going to work, but you could ask if she'd like to talk on the phone to catch up?

In the long term hopefully she'll be back in direct contact with you, in which case I'd advise being careful as mentioned above. Feel free to ask light questions about her relationship, but if she shuts down in response try not to take it personally- she might not be ready, or it might not be safe for her to talk about. It will be obvious to you that she should leave, but for her it's a lot more complicated and try not to get exasperated by her - you can't make her reach the decision to leave, but you can be a consistent and caring friend to help her on the way to reaching that decision herself.

First of all I just now noticed this obviously this should say "I have up all hope" of us being together but the autocorrect on this kindle ****ing sucks

Second of all thank you for the sifts she is posting regularly on Facebook again nothing about the relationship though just lockdown and baby updates I was thinking about in a couple of days sending her a simple "how have you been" without mentioning her relationship or anything and seeing how she responds

I just had a lovely conversation with the other girl I'm talking to I mentioned past relationships prevent me from letting my hopes to up.too high but it seems there's a chance ill.emerge from this lockdown with a great girlfriend but if I catch whiff of anything ill put every bone in my body in the line to prevent my friend or her baby from getting hurt

Yeah, sending her a light message in a few days sounds like a good idea :)

Great news with the other girl! Good luck; I hope it works out.

Sent that message and just got a reply

Just 3 words

Great thank you

Nothing more

But her updates on her page seem mostly positive with the exception of some concerns about going back to work with her baby guess all I can do is keep watching for now

Maybe you could ask her what she's been doing?
Hiding it is easy online...

Unfortunately I think you're right there. It's so painful and frustrating but she knows you are there and beyond checking in occasionally, there's nothing else you can do until she decides she wants to talk about it.

Attention Moderator Who Reviews Posts With Links For Approval

Do Not Approve The Post I Just Made

In The Screenshot Of The Conversation I Had With Her Yesterday I Thought I Blacked Out All Apperances Of Our Names There Is One I Missed Do Not Approve The Post

Ok seeing how its been several.hours I assume the moderator for my warning

I'll just summarize the conversation so I don't make that.mistake again

SHe posted some pics of her and her baby taking a walk outside

I commented "Beautiful"
she replied "thank you we had a nice time"

Then thinking of the quoted post I asked

"So what else you been up to"

She replied

Just cooking cleaning and binge watching and dreading going back to work

So sounds like nothing major has happened yet but I know abusers can switch around any moment I guess like the other said all I can do IS keep watching

Ok so I've been trying to come up with excuses each time I try to check in on her...you know...so it doesn't....sound like I'm checking in on her so last night I told her about the other girl I've been talking to (and I was curious about this as well anyway so I kinda killed THREE birds with one stone here) I asked her how she (again in her words) "kinda knew" I liked her but made it clear that I was looking for a way to tell if the other girl really likes me (which was mostly still true but still)

She said

If course since she's not an idiot she suggested some things I can do to progress things with this girl in spite of lockdown and I actually liked.some.of them I think I'm going to try some (sidebar: still over the idea.of anything romantic with us but I went after her when she was fair game and got.put.in the friendzone but she says I'm a great catch? A little confusing but I'm not gonna think about it too much hence I typed.sidebar)

So anyway tonight she.messages me back out of the blue

I say

I checked our messages no new ones between last night and this.moment unsure what I "didn't respond" to 🤷

Once we cleared it up I explained how I know this girl I've been talking to and closed.out by saying


(this is 100% true)

She says back So yeah nothing to report on the is she being abused front she's still posting happy things but yeah she just got.super invested in my new relationship prospect out of nowhere with very little prompting

What could this mean? Is she trying to tell me.something?

With regards your sidebar- maybe you're not her type, but she still thinks you're generally a great guy. And that links to my answers to your other questions- maybe she's just really happy for you because she's your friend and is excited for you in your new potential romance. She could even be trying a bit too hard because she feels guilty that she rejected you romantically, so is pleased that you've found someone else as this means she doesn't need to feel bad for not being interested in you in that way. I don't know, I'm really speculating here!

The attempt is.appreciated eh.....chances are increasing I could emerge from this lockdown with a beautiful new girlfriend and I can't stop abuse of I can't confirm it's happening I see the whole thing as mainly a win

Meme she posted on Facebook

https://m.facebook.com/alittlehippie...pe=3&source=48

(The link is to the meme itself not anyone's profile)


SAYS.....SOMEONE.....WHO TOLD ONE OF THEIR BEST FRIENDS SHE KNEW CARES ABOUT HER THAT SHE'D GOTTEN OUT OF AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP ONLY TO GO BACK TO THIS PERSON

°deep breath °

Other than that her posts seem TO be mainly happy pics with baby posts about how happy baby makes her bf is not even mentioned though relationship status is unchanged red flag or no haven't talked to other girl I speak OF in a bit but talking to a couple other girls too while not closing that particular door either something is coming up around here soon I may be able to take SOME lucky lady to ;) hey its a pandemic a bro has to keep his options open ;) so what y'all think about these developments with my friend here ?

I can completely understand your frustration with your friend! It's just really hard to apply what you know about the world to your own situation.

I hope that she is truly in a better situation now; perhaps she's not with the boyfriend or he has cleaned up his act. If she isn't hopefully one day she will confide in you again about this and it will be so flaming annoying when you know that she could have avoided this by not going back to him, but love (or what we think is love) makes people put themselves in danger and if you can meet her with understanding and patience then you might be able to help her find the courage to finally leave for good.

Not much to report on the situation itself most of her.posts.seem.to indicate nothing serious has happened just an observation based on some things she's posted recently again unrelated to the situation....I still consider her one of my dearest friends but it may have been for the best that a romance never happened I can kinda see now it may not have survived honored to still call her my friend though and still dedicated as ever to make sure she's safe

My conversations with the other girl I've previously mentioned are still a bright spot in my life right now asked her to something that took place recently but she wasn't feeling well but renewed interest in seeing each other soon there's something coming up that may be great

Still keeping an eye on my friend to make sure nothing serious happens if he hurts her or her child I will allow nothing to prevent him from paying for it but right now she seems ok and mostly happy with the exception of these posts.I'm talking about but since we did not get together it's a small thing

This all sounds very positive :) I hope things continue to go well with the other girl and that you don't have any more reasons to be concerned about your friend.

She just posted another meme on Facebook it says


When your happy with someone in private you don't need to prove it on social media

Sounds cute but a small part of me fears it could be am excuse to say I need to hide my relationship

Honestly, reading through everything, it comes across like you're being a bit obsessive and borderline inappropriate with regards to checking on her. If you don't have much back and forth contact with her otherwise, and she's told you she's okay, then it sounds like you need to just let it go and stop trying to overthink and overanalyze it. She's got a right to make her own choices, and she hasn't come to you for help or advice. If someone was making posts like this one about me and checking on me like this for months after I'd made it clear I was fine and just wanted to stay friends/acquaintances, I'd be more than a bit creeped out.

I'm not sure I fully agree with you Camden. I think as a worried friend you're entitled to think a bit about what they post on facebook. If you post something on social media then people are welcome to look at it and think about it. It makes sense not to harass the friend with worried messages after every post and to instead try to talk through your thoughts with someone impartial.

Having said that, OP, I do think you're reading a bit too much into the latest post and you do need to try to accept that for whatever reason, she has chosen to get back with this guy and wants to at least portray that things are good. I think she knows that you've got her back and if at some point things go bad with him (or if they already have but she is ready to accept it) then she will be likely to contact you for help.

Posting about someone else's posts/life on another site is pretty damn creepy and inappropriate to me. If someone did that about me I would be really freaked out.

If you were asking for support for yourself that's one thing. But it doesn't sound as though you are.

That said, when a close friend of mine was in an abusive situation, I found it immensely helpful to contact RAINN, which is an abuse helpline here in the US. They offered me support and guidance to accept and trust that my friend knew how to deal with the situation in the safest way possible for them and needed to make their own choices, and the only thing I could really do was make sure they knew I was there for them if they ever needed. That's really all you can do. You may want to look up helplines and resources in your area for how to help *you* cope, as it seems to be something you're having trouble letting go of.