What To Do When You Find Out Your Friend Is Abusive

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By Natt Bartell, volunteer advocate.

Many of Walnut Avenue’s resources and services that address domestic violence and abuse are geared toward survivors— that is, people who have been harmed or who are escaping or coping with abusive relationships. While survivor safety is the highest priority in our work, it is still important to note that domestic violence affects more than just the person who chooses harm and the person who is harmed. It can affect anyone else living in the house, and it can even have a wider ripple effect. There is a lot of information about how to leave a violent relationship, but very little information on what to do if you find out that your friend is abusive. 

This post is adapted from the article, “6 Ways to Confront Your Friend Who’s Abusing Their Partner” by Kai Cheng Tom, which has some great information about how to deal with this situation and also deserves a little more discussion on the nuances of such an emotionally challenging situation. 


So you find out your friend is abusive: what now?


Start by believing the survivor.

Often, the desire to protect our friends, especially those who have marginalized lived experiences and identities, is overwhelming. But evidence shows that people rarely lie about abuse: of official reports to law enforcement that are made, only approximately 2-10% are concluded to be false or unsupported, a rate no higher than any other accusation of crime and usually associated with extenuating circumstances such as a history of litigation abuse. It is important to note as well that of these reports, many are not “false” (as in factually proven not to have occurred) but rather “baseless” (unable to be substantiated by law enforcement according to relevant legal definitions), which accounts for the disparity in the percentage. It takes a lot to come forward about domestic violence and abuse, so believing survivors is important. It is also, based on the data, the most logical place to begin.

You may be presented with evidence that what they say is true…or you might not be. Understand that regardless of how this plays out, it is not your job or responsibility to act as judge, jury, and executioner, or to go on a fact-finding mission and compile evidence. Take the admission of abuse at face value for now and plan for next steps.

Unfortunately, even people who are capable of wonderful things are also capable of violence. Every person, regardless of their gender, political affiliation, faith or lack thereof, demographic, or lived experience is capable of abusing another person. But people who cause harm are often as good at finding and grooming allies as they are at finding and exploiting the vulnerability in a partner or family member.

It can be hard to reconcile these two truths: how do you acknowledge that someone who’s had your back for years, who’s been a friend and an integrated part of your life, can also be abusive?


Take time to sort through your own thoughts and feelings.

Realizing that your friend is choosing harm can be very difficult emotionally. You will probably experience a large range of emotions including surprise, confusion, and/or anger, and sometimes all of it at once. Discovering that a friend is abusive will fundamentally alter the way you see that person, and in that way it is very similar to loss. You might go through the stages of grief as you unpack what this means for you, your friend, their partner, and your mutual relationships. 

Sit with these feelings. Acknowledge them. Allow yourself to feel these feelings safely. This may mean speaking to someone else about it, but if you do, be mindful that you are not putting the survivor in jeopardy by speaking to a mutual who might repeat what you say to your friend, to the survivor, or to law enforcement. If you don’t have anyone you can speak to whom isn’t a mutual or uninvolved with the situation in question, you can call a domestic violence hotline. Those numbers are for you, too!


Make a plan for what to do with this information.

This plan is going to vary depending on the nuance of the situation. Every domestic violence situation is different, and what you do with this information needs to be handled very carefully so that everyone involved stays safe.

At this point, you might support the survivor. If the survivor is open to it, they may ask you for help finding resources, or for emotional support. There is most likely a reason they trusted you with this information if they disclosed to you directly. This means they see you as a safe person. 

You might also have a conversation with your friend. This should only be done if it is safe for both you and the survivor to do so, and it should only ever be done with the consent of the survivor. Not getting the consent of the survivor could result in them being harmed further in retaliation, so this is crucially important. Below is a set of examples of dialogue that are good starting points, taken directly from Kai Cheng Tom’s article:

Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge that telling your friend that you think that they’re abusing their partner is incredibly awkward, hard, and sad. There are few things I’ve done in my life that were harder. It’s possible that there is no “good” way.

    Some suggestions I can make, however, include:

  • Speak from a place of love. Explain that the reason you’re having this conversation is because you care about your friend.

  • Own your words, feelings, and judgments. This often looks like using tentative phrases that begin with “I feel that,” “I could be wrong, but I think that,” “It seems to me like,” and so on.  It also means not speaking for the survivor of abuse unless they’ve asked you to.

  • Allow for pauses, gaps, and breaks in the conversation. Acknowledge that this is a dialogue that may have to take place over a few days, weeks, or even months.

  • Resist the urge to give your friend orders or ultimatums. Phrases like “You need to do _____,” “If you don’t stop____, then_____,” and “You have to ____” aren’t helpful. Analyzing their behavior (“Maybe this is because of your past traumatic relationships”) is probably also not that helpful. Instead, point out the behavior that you see as abusive, tell them that you think it isn’t acceptable, and let them draw their own conclusions.

    Walnut Avenue’s commentary: you don’t have to have already decided what you’re going to do. For an initial conversation, avoiding ultimatums may be the safer option for both yourself and for the survivor by lessening the likelihood of direct conflict. You’re allowed to ask for time to think.

    Depending on the details of the situation, you might decide whether it’s better to walk away from this friendship or to stick around as a support person, specifically to encourage your friend to learn how to make safer, better choices. (Note that sticking around but pretending the abuse never happened is often interpreted as implicit agreement to the abuse.) For support on considerations for making such a difficult decision, you can contact Walnut Avenue advocates at 1 (866) 269-2559.

 

Examples of ways to state that you think your friend is acting abusively include:

  • “I wanted to talk to you because I’ve seen you push and slap your boyfriend a few times now, and it makes me worried about both of you.”

  • “I know this is awkward, but I have to tell you that I am worried about the way you fight with Sabina. You’ve told her that you’ll hurt yourself if she breaks up with you, and I don’t think that’s okay.”

One of the most powerful things we can do as friends is hold up a mirror to each others’ behaviors: We show each other what the things we do look like from the outside.

Seek support for yourself. There are a lot of feelings involved in the process of finding out that a friend is abusive. Support, resources, and information are available through agencies like Walnut Avenue. Links to other support networks are below:

 

Remember that people who do good things are still capable of harm. 

You might know your friend as an amazing person who helps out in the community or is charming, kind, and charitable. It might come as a complete surprise that this person is abusive. Remember, everyone is capable of choosing harm. People who are good in public still sometimes choose violence in private; it’s common for unsafe people to intentionally foster a positive public reputation and groom allies as a way of isolating a survivor from potential help and to conceal the harm they’re doing.

While it is absolutely possible to still have compassion and love for this person, those feelings should never cross the line into justification of abusive actions or minimization of the survivor’s struggle. Remember that causing harm is always a choice. 

There is support and information from restorative justice, transformative justice, and community accountability resources which can help you find the balance between having compassion without accidentally turning that compassion into excusing the harm.


Consider distancing yourself from this friend. 

While Kai Cheng Tom’s article is excellent in many respects, it suggests that “unconditional love is one of the most important supports in enabling abusive individuals to bring an end to the harm they’re causing,” and this can be a dangerous narrative to follow. Although change is possible, it’s very difficult and takes a lot of time, personal effort, and appropriate support from other people which balances compassion with accountability (rather than collusion or condemnation). If love alone were enough to “change” someone, then there would be far fewer survivors in this world and much less need for crisis intervention services.

The decision to change from someone who causes harm to others has to come from the abusive individual alone, and it takes a lot of work and effort. Many individuals who choose harm do so as a pattern of behavior, and will engage in this pattern again when opportunity with lack of sufficiently deterring consequences arises. Strongly consider either distancing yourself from this person or establishing new boundaries and expectations in your friendship: choosing to remain in the friendship with no change at all in your dynamic would be taken as implicit permission for your friend to continue the harm.


Understand that you are not alone in this struggle. 

Domestic violence and abuse are complicated issues with a lot of nuance, and they affect countless individuals. This is why support networks like Walnut Avenue exist. You are not alone, and you do not have to feel helpless in the fight to break the cycle of violence.