My best friend's partner is awful to her. What do I do?

With advice from The Portrait of a Lady and The Taming of the Shrew

My own copy of the The Portrait of a Lady

I’ve had a best friend for 20 years, she is everything to me. But I hate her new partner. I am very worried because I know she wants a child (she is 32) and they never use contraception, so I feel like there is a strong chance she will get pregnant and stay with him.

She is nervous around him. He gaslights her constantly. For example, she goes out to meet friends and he tells her to have fun - but when she gets back he is angry with her and complains about being lonely. He does and says things that are hurtful, and makes her feel like she is walking on eggshells. If she tries to stick up for herself, she gets called hyper-sensitive and he has told her many many times “You get so crazy/I wish you were normal.” She has said to me, “I really think it is me and that I am difficult.” She is not.

I’ve never seen her question herself so much. She is naturally a funny, loud, chatty person but she has grown quieter and I even see her look at him sometimes before she answers a question. If we are out at a bar she doesn’t dance anymore if he is there. She is nervous talking to other men if he is watching.

I don’t want to lose my friendship or make her feel judged, but I just don’t know what to do. If she has his baby I will be devastated. 

I am so sorry for you and for your friend. It is agony to watch someone you love get mistreated. My whole heart goes out to you. 

To state the blindingly obvious, however much you or I analyse this, neither of us can predict what will happen if you talk to her. But if it helps, I have one case study to offer, because I have had this conversation myself - except I was in your friend’s shoes. Some years back I was sitting with my house-mate, drinking cocktails on our terrace, when she said of my then-partner: ‘I don’t like the way he talks to you.’ 

It was like the clouds had suddenly parted, revealing total clarity underneath. Because I didn’t like the way he talked to me, either. Three weeks later, I ended a relationship that had been causing me more pain than pleasure for a very long time.  

What my friend did, in my opinion, was extremely kind and extremely brave. She must have known she was risking a lot with a comment so unequivocal. But she also knew it might be years before I came to the same realisation on my own. And so when I tell you I think you should talk to your friend, you’ll see I’m biased - but I can’t help thinking you should. However, if you decide you don’t want to, there are other, equally important things you can do too. 

There are, of course, many who’d say the opposite to me. One of my friends used to work for a domestic abuse charity, and they were told never to advise callers to leave a relationship, no matter how bad. This may have been partly protocol, but the reason my friend gave at the time was that women are far more likely to return to their abusive partners if they don’t make up their mind to leave by themselves.

I do understand this. I think the issue is that so many women don’t set much store by their own judgement, especially if it is being purposely eroded by their partner, as in your friend’s case. (Please see my first post on why calling women ‘crazy’ plays into a very long history of patriarchal control and manipulation.) Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew offers a chilling example of the way judgement erosion is a central tenet of abuse. In the play, a bold, boastful young man called Petruchio wears down the resolve of his initially independent wife Katharina, until she accepts all his views, even when they go against the evidence of her own eyes. Petruchio’s ‘victory’ is marked by the moment at which he points at the sun, and tells his wife it is the moon. She accepts this impossible statement. He then doubles back on himself, and insists it is the sun again - Katharina replies:

Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.

It’s a chilling moment. The repetition that haunts the verse feels indicative of the way Katharina is learning to live as Petruchio’s shadow. And while she may be appeasing him here, appeasing is the path to believing. By the end of the play, it is much harder to tell whether Katharina is simply parroting Petruchio’s views, or if she has now internalised them completely.

My point is, it’s really hard to decide to leave your partner when his or her views have become your own. In this state, the alternative perspective of a friend can be at its most threatening - or its most illuminating. So, if you try to talk to your friend, whatever you can do to make the conversation feel gentle and loving will help. If you haven’t already, start by asking how everything is going with her boyfriend: it may be that she gives you an opening. You can then say you’ve noticed she seems quieter lately, so wanted to ask if there was anything going on in her relationship. Tell her that because you love her, you want to make sure she’s with a partner who makes her feel safe, happy and like she can be her full self. And if none of this helps her see the light, you can go the whole way, and talk about him. Remain calm, and offer specific examples of his behaviour, rather than generalised criticisms; they are harder to refute. For example: ‘I’ve noticed he sometimes seems to act in quite a controlling way. For example, when you spoke to your friend John for a long time, he got really angry and it seemed to upset you. So I wanted to check in and see if you were ok.’

Here are the risks: A) It might not work. B) She might be angry, and distance herself from you. C) She might tell him about it, and then he’ll be angry, making her angry, leading to outcome B). But, if you pad everything with reassurances that you love her and that you’ll support her no matter what, I think the chance of these outcomes become smaller. You just have to decide whether the risks are worth reward D) she leaves him, and becomes her chatty, vibrant self again.

If you decide the time is not right for a conversation, you can still support your friend. I am rereading Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady at the moment; the most heartbreaking story of a woman losing herself to a cruel relationship that I’ve ever read. Isabel Archer, the novel’s bold, curious, presumptuous protagonist is determined not to marry, so she can explore Europe and make full use of her independence. To this end she turns down two proposals, but is eventually drawn in by Gilbert Osmond. Yet mercurial Osmond is only interested in her money, and Isabel’s potent self makes him insecure and resentful. Slowly, he begins to chip away at it: he criticises her taste, opinions and decisions; he isolates her; he withholds his affection to keep her in a state of insecurity. When we meet Isabel after marriage, she has already ‘lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception—she had more the air of being able to wait.’ Horrible. And the way she is shown to us is important, too: at Osmond’s house she is static and contained, ‘framed in the gilded doorway’; flattened into a mere picture of a woman, the one-dimensional portrait of a lady.

But Isabel has a cousin called Ralph, who, from the moment he meets her, likes Isabel exactly as she is: ‘she was charming, and presumptuous - indeed, that was part of her charm’. Ralph never tells Isabel to leave Gilbert, or criticises her decision. But he does something else useful. He appreciates her real self. He loves to hear her talk; he gives her every freedom he can offer her. And it is in conversation with Ralph that Isabel is finally able to acknowledge the abuse she has suffered, a powerful experience. In fact, in her pain ‘the only knowledge that was not pure anguish’ is ‘the knowledge that they were looking at the truth together.’ Ralph does not try to deny or minimise Isabel’s dark realisation, but he provides a potent counterbalance - ‘Remember this: if you've been hated, you've also been loved. Ah but, Isabel -- adored!’

Now, don’t read the next sentence if you don’t want spoilers. I’m sorry to tell you that Isabel does not decide to leave Osmond, at least within the pages of the book. However, she returns to her husband with a new understanding of exactly who he is, and how poorly she has been treated. The novel places emphasis on this realisation, and ultimately leaves the story open-ended. Who knows how much of Isabel’s independence, in time, she may manage to wrest back, with the precious gift of clarity that Ralph’s love has helped her to reclaim?

It can be easy to distance yourself from a situation like your friend’s: you may feel so upset, betrayed or frustrated that you don’t want to go near it. But you have to do the opposite. Be there as much as you can to remind her of the self she is in danger of giving up on. Laugh twice as loudly at every one of your friend’s jokes. Take her out dancing, if she won’t dance with him. Compliment her on all the things you fear she’s losing: ‘I love how loud you are! I love how I could chat with you about anything! I love how good you are at talking to strangers! I love everything about you!’

Hopefully, that way, your friend will realise that a person who treats her with hatred is not worth keeping around. Hopefully, the strength of your love will remind her she deserves to be adored.

(I’m sorry my column was a day late this week, Fictional Therapy readers. I’m in Canada for my brother’s wedding and everything is a little crazy.)