I really think your main suggestion should be to get expert advice.

5 more listings up on ebay. WHOOT!

If her mom calls she will leave a message. I have the ringer off on my phone and I still get messages! If she is really arguing against anything, then you can't do anything for her. If it would piss her off and maybe make her consider what you are saying, I would suggest that perhaps she likes the attention if she is unwilling to anything to thwart it. But you know, there's a risk in that.

Tell your friend to call a shelter/hotline (I said local because they know the jurisdictional shit) NOW. They can get through her head if anyone can. And that's not complicated. And what msbelle said.

I've told her not to engage. As long as she's still arguing with him, it's not over. I think that may have got through to her. Part of the problem is, she's still in love with him. She just can't deal with the alcoholism and the crazy self-destructive juvenile behavior and suddenly being the other woman. And I just found out, he's never introduced her to any of his friends or family. Seriously?

Restraining order ASAP. Documantation. BTDT.

As someone who's worked in two DV shelters, in multiple capacities, a restraining order will not work if the woman continues to communicate with a stalker/abuser; if she gets one, and then communicates with him, it could backfire on her if she needs to get another one, or if things ever escalate to the point where it goes to court, and the opposing counsel can bring up the fact that the woman got a restraining order, and then willingly continued social contact.

Just a thought.

She SHOULD keep a detailed log of any contact or attempts at contact he makes, including emails, messages, texts, calls, VM's and drive-by's. If she does decide on a restraining order, this will be valuable information.

Also, many states will help women file OPO's (orders or protection) 24 hours. I know; I used to be the one called out of bed to the courthouse at 0dark30 to file 'em.

Well. We were on the phone until nearly 2am. After talking it out a few times, she agreed that she needed to put a stop to this and not engage him. I hope she'll stick to that when he starts calling her.

She told me a couple more things I never knew. Like, in nearly nine years of "being friends", not only has he never introduced her to his friends and family, they've never gone out together, anywhere. Not dinner, not a movie, not a walk in the park, not even to his house, because his mother is - surprise - a nasty tempermental alcoholic. They've only seen each other at her house. I pointed out that that was NUTS. The more she told me, the more convinced I became that this guy is craxy and she needs to be rid of him. I think I convinced her too, but we'll see. As of now, she's not intending to get a restraining order, but she didn't rule it out entirely, which is some progress. She doesn't feel that she's in physical danger. I just wish she'd realize that emotional abuse does count as abuse.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I've passed it on to her, though I may have to tell her again. I think she's just gotten used to abusive relationships and it's hard for her to sort out what's okay and what isn't. (BTDT.)

Timelies all!

Quiet day here. Grocery shopping is the only thing on the agenda for me.

Yikes. It's so hard -- a friend of mine recently split with her abusive husband -- I know she was clear that if he hit her, she was gone, but she took the emotional abuse way too long, because it "wasn't that bad, really." O RLY??? Fuckers.

In stupid news, I'm pretty sure I had a dream about waking up and falling back asleep, and then when I actually woke up, I really wanted to go back to sleep! But I made myself wake up anyway.

I never wear t-shirts that say anything, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get the Questionable Content apron mentioned at the bottom of the page here: [link]