Relative being abused has announced her engagement.

[BamaTanya]

Link to the story in previous post:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127850

 

We were ready to go pick her up. She assured me he was gone. Took a job out of town. Had a warrant for his arrest. Etc. I talked to her a couple weeks ago and he was gone (at least that's what she said at the time).

 

Yesterday she calls just to chat. I asked where she was (staying at a friend's house -- the one she told me she'd go to to get away from the boyfriend). Well, into the conversation, I ask where what's-his-name is and he's IN THE ROOM with her. So I'm careful with yes-no questions. Yes, they're back together. She paid her rent money to get him out of jail and refused to press charges! Ugh. She was going to hand the phone to him so I could "meet him," and I said, "I DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO HIM."

 

They're planning to get married in December. She says she'll come visit us as soon as she can.

 

Dh says to tell her that HE is not welcome here.

 

I am so angry. This is the latest in a LONG list of awful decisions that snowball into much worse situations for her and her family (she has 2 teens, a grown dd, and 2 grandchildren).

 

I do not want to have anything to do with this man. I don't want him to know where I live. I don't want him to have our phone number. When they're together, he is IN THE ROOM while she talks on the phone and interrupts her constantly. He is controlling and violent.

 

I've never met him and I don't want to. But I don't want to lose contact with her . . .

 

How does one handle a situation like this? Wish I could press charges against him!

[lionfamily1999]

How does one handle a situation like this? Wish I could press charges against him!

Ime, all you can do is try to be supportive :( I had a friend who dated, got pregnant by and eventually married a drug addicted abuser. They have two kids now. There were a few years when we didn't speak at all. I told her, he goes or I go :( We've only recently reconnected. He's born again, she says he is better and I (because she was my best friend and I'm not willing to lose her again) am learning to keep my mouth shut.

 

She will choose him over you. If you want to be there when/if she really desparately needs you, then all I can recommend is to be noncommital in any opinions of him and keep your negative opinions to yourself. Ime, the abuser is of more importance than anyone else.

 

If, however, you really truly believe she's made her bed and she can lay in it... then go ahead and cut her off.

 

It's a no win situation :( I'm so sorry.

[Sue G in PA]

Pray Tanya, if you are the praying kind. I am and so I will on your behalf. That is a tough, tough situation. The need for "love" is so great that it seems she'll do anything and tolerate/withstand anything just for slightest "crumb" of affection. Praying for her right now and :grouphug: to you. Keep in touch, but don't allow him to your home.

[Erica in PA]

Tanya, I'm so sorry. I can imagine how sick you must feel over this. I read over your other thread about this woman, and the abuse she's suffered, and how your mom used to save her over and over again. My advice to you, hard though it is, is to let go of this situation. It sounds to me that she is still making the same bad decisions that she has always made. You can't let it dominate your life. It's impossible to help people like this, and when you try to, *you* will be the one taking some of the burden off her, putting it on yourself and your family instead, and she will still do what she chooses to do, leaving you powerless and frustrated (Can you tell I've been in your situation? :glare:)

 

If she wants your help at some point in the future, and hopefully she will, she knows that she can come to you. In the meantime, I'd put some space between yourself and this woman, and definitely stick to your guns on not getting together with this man, talking to him, etc. The fact that your relative has a sick attraction to an abuser does not make it incumbent upon you to welcome him into your family. You're willing to help her protect herself, but as long as she rejects that, you need to protect your own family. Don't let yourself dwell on this. You've done what you can, your mom did what she could, but this is an adult woman who is making her own choices.

 

I'm sorry, :grouphug:, these kinds of situations really do stink!! :( I hope she comes to her senses soon, for everyone involved.

[petepie2]

I'm so sorry. I can completely relate. It's like a sickness. I have a cousin that I was very close to growing up. She sounds just like your relative. Her husband at the time (she actually married him twice :confused:) had intended to kill her. They were separated at the time, and some things had happened that made her concerned about her safety. So, she had her father and stepmother stay at her house. She borrowed her dad's car and went somewhere else. She left her car at home, giving the impression to any passerby that she was the one in her home. Well, sure enough, her husband shows up that night. He kicked the door in and came in with a shotgun. He ended up shooting at her stepmother, but no one was hurt. He was arrested, of course. While he was still in jail awaiting trial, my cousin starts visiting him in jail and becomes very optimistic that he was going to get out and then they were going to get back together. Well, he got 25 years. I think he's been in jail now for 13 years.

 

I was living out of state when I heard about all of it, and I was livid. I remember writing a letter to her. Since then she has remarried another guy. She's been on the brink of divorce several times. For all I know, she did get a divorce. I don't know all of the in's and out's of their relationship, but our family has heard numerous times, "This is it! I'm not going back to him! Yada yada yada". It never ends. She's currently back with him. She doesn't have a job and I guess he's paying her bills. It's a big mess. No one can help her. The family has tried to help, but she always goes back to the same messes. I don't understand it. I don't know if it's a strong desire to just be with somebody or to have a father for her children (she has 3 children with 3 different fathers). But whatever it is, it defies reason and logic. Women like my cousin usually always "go back". We don't know what to do to break that pattern.