My friend’s in a dysfunctional and downright abusive relationship with a manipulative, hurtful man.

It's painfully obvious to everyone, yet she chooses to deflect, make excuses for him, etc.

When I deliver truth in response to the situation, I don't hear from her for weeks afterwards.

I want her to focus on herself and take healthy steps to eventually break out from whatever binds her to him.

But whenever I deliver facts - e.g. it takes two to tango - she goes missing again.

Am I being helpful by highlighting what’s unhealthy, or is my honesty hurtful?

My Stuck Friend

She knows the facts. She’s living them.

What she needs is to know herself better, i.e. the value she has as a person, her right to have a loving, respectful relationship, her ability to find and sustain an equal partnership.

Your best support will come from letting her know what’s great about her, which is why you stay friends.

When you tell her what she’s accepting that’s wrong, you confirm her belief that she can’t have better than she’s got.

She needs boosts to her self-confidence. Then, she’ll boot out this manipulative abuser.

Meanwhile, if the abuse escalates, call the police.

My stepdaughter’s 16 years old. I’ve been married to her daddy since she was age four.

We have two other kids together, but she’s always been treated as a full member of our household despite only seeing her two days every other weekend.

We've tried to be kind and friendly to her mom, but it’s always been flatly rejected.

Now a teenager, she has anger issues and loud, tantrum-like outbursts where she curses her dad and says whatever’s most hurtful.

Then she’ll refuse to see us.

We forgave her the first time. She and her dad had a long conversation about how to have a discussion or disagreement without a tantrum.

A month later, she did it again over not wanting to share in household chores.

Rather than discuss maybe changing her chores, she yelled, cursed, and said nasty things to her dad.

He and I agreed that she needed to suffer the consequences of her behaviour and we’d let her come to us to apologize and ask to return to our house.

But I don't think she’s going to return at all if we do this. Maybe she needs to graduate and be on her own away from her mom's influence before she can come back to us.

Her mom’s long tried to sever her relationship with her dad so there’ll be no help from there.
What can we do here to help her? She’s refused therapy. She can’t go through life dealing with disagreements with vile temper tantrums.

Sad Stepmom

Many teenagers lash out at parents inappropriately during these turbulent years.

When conflict over a past divorce divides their loyalties, teens have an even tougher time.

Yes, she needs to know there are consequences for behaviour that’s nasty and hurtful to others. But she’s also crying for help to not have to deal with parental garbage, which is how she sees the situation.

Soften your response. Both her father and you can say you won’t listen to curses but you’re very willing to listen to how she feels.

Tell her she can negotiate with you both – whether over different chores, or age-appropriate house rules when she visits, etc.

If she does stay away, her father must stay in contact through email, text, a meet-up for coffee, whatever. She’s testing his love.

Commentary “As someone whose wife cheated on him (and we're still together), I’ve learned that there are only two types of people being cheating on:

“You can either handle it, get over it, and move on… or you can't.

“A person who cheats needs to own up to it and allow the partner to make the decision about what he/she is capable of handling.

“The cheater needs to accept that decision.

“If the partner leaves him/her, let it be chalked up to the cheater pursuing a course of action that killed their relationship.”

Ellie – Some people, like you, have the self-confidence and compassion to understand why a partner cheated, without feeling insecure about themself.

But many others see the cheating only as a rejection. They feel they cannot trust that it won’t happen again.

A break is sometimes the test of their initial bond, whether missing each other will help them get over cheating and distrust.