How to help a friend escape an abusive relationship...?

Her abuser pressures her severely, so your plan to pressure her severely for action "sooner rather than later" isn't going to help her. Instead, if you want to be sensitive, be patient and wait for her to be ready to take action, which might be later rather than sooner. You also might take a look at the language you are using when you talk about your friend. "She is emotionally not up to task" for someone of her intellect and upbringing. You stage an intervention and, after "hours and hours", get her to "accept" that her relationship "cannot and must not last" and you finally uncovered that she is staying with him out of spinelessness ("completely unable to inflict any pain on him whatsoever"). He definitely talks down to her, not sure you're doing any better in this respect. So how can she know that what's waiting for her out there is any better than what she's experiencing already? Also, she's the one with the privileged upbringing and the volatile father and alcoholic mother and controlling boyfriend and so on. It's her life. You have seen it from the outside but she's the one who's lived it and she's the one who knows what it's like to cope with those things. Saying she's "unable to inflict pain on him" is something you present as a nonsense reason because you don't understand it, whereas she has a deep understanding of what that means. To you, it's just an obstacle in the way of getting to yes. Remember, you are the one who doesn't understand here. This guy dominates and controls her life, tells her what to think, dominates conversation. A bunch of you got together and did all these things to her for a whole weekend and at the end of it, you're frustrated and asking us how you can most quickly get her to do what you want. That's extremely coercive. Look, normally I would be thrilled that so many of her friends cared so much and wanted so badly for her to get out that they would band together to offer support. I should be a lot nicer to you in recognition of the fact that you're sick of seeing your friend suffer and you're desperate to get her out. But take a look at the way you've written this. You practically make it sound like you kidnapped her and subjected her to 48 hours of interrogation. If she's resisting you, it's probably because she's not as spineless as you think, and if she's giving you rationalizations that don't make sense, it's probably because she has a mind of her own and isn't willing to substitute your judgement for hers even if deep down she knows you're right. Those are good things, even if they're frustrating for you. I suggest you get a copy of Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That?" and read the chapters about how to support an abused woman. You have just spent an entire weekend telling her she's causing herself to be abused, which is exactly what her BF does. You all need to rethink your approach from the bottom up and expect to support her over way longer than a couple of days.

"I will not be in your life as long as this man is in your life. He is hurting you, and you are hurting yourself by not ending this relationship. I love you and I care about you, and I will be here when you choose to start taking care of yourself." Please don't do this. If you do this, her abuser will think all his Christmases have come at once because you'll be isolating her from her friends and leaving her 100% under his influence. Seriously please don't do the abuser's job for him. Not in other ways, and most of all not in this way.

I was your friend, except that by the time I left him I had no friends and had to make a desperate scramble to make new ones fast in order to get support to leave. Man, was I lucky to find a group of stand-up people who all said to me a variation of this: "It's your decision. It will take however long it takes. You can always come over or call, day or night, if you need help. Here is a key to my house, if you need to just get out of his way for a few hours or days." My friends made it possible for me to leave. My old friends, the ones I had before the abuse started, loved me so much but did what you did - and what my abuser did. They told me I was wrong, that my decisions about my life were faulty and that I needed to leave him or they would leave me. I lost all of those friends. After the relationship ended, I contacted them all and they all were thrilled, but my friendships with them will never be the same. It's ok. I know they were doing their best, that they didn't know what to do. So, my advice is this: be supportive. Realize that she must really love this man to put up with what you recognize is abuse. When she talks about him and his behaviors, ask things that reinforce her autonomy and decision-making like: - What did you say back? - How did you feel when that happened? - What are you going to do now? Save your totally justified anger for later. She needs support, which includes allowing her to do this on her own timetable. It will be slow. She will probably leave and go back to him multiple times, once it finally happens. Just give her a safe space to talk it out and to run to (if you can) while respecting your own boundaries. Please try not to cut her off, though. That was what most people did to me, and not only did it not work (it didn't make me leave him) it helped me get further entrenched in the abuse, because I was socially isolated.

The people who are calling for patience & for you to hang in there with her know of what they speak. So do I. Be an ear, a shoulder, ensure she knows she can call you anytime (day or night) if she needs to get out - and mean it. She loves him. Emotional/verbal abusers, IME, didn't get that way by having delightful, loving childhoods. She may feel that she's the only person in the world who sees who he "really" is, underneath the cruelty. I say this because not only do I have friends who've been there, I have been there. And being emotionally/verbally abused reinforces any existing martyr tendencies she may have - her suffering is necessary, so he doesn't lose the one person who really loves him. Getting to the point where her happiness - her survival, emotionally/spiritually - is more important than keeping him company in his misery takes time & patience. Knowing this (and having gotten out of one myself), I'm happy to say that I was able to be there for a friend who needed to get out of a bad relationship. She went back & forth many times, and her family & other friends lost patience, berated her for being weak or stupid (surprise, surprise, things HE also told her she was). She kept talking to me about it, kept faith that perhaps some day she would be able to leave him, and eventually did. It's a process. You don't understand what she's going through. It's like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog - she didn't jump into this situation, the "heat" got turned up slowly over time. She adjusted, got used to it, accepted it, loved him through it. I'm a bit put off by kellybird's insinuation that emotional/verbal abuse isn't "real" until he starts hitting her. I can assure you, emotional/verbal abuse is very real and very destructive.

I was in a relationship like this too, and I want to second cairdeas, tel3path, and JuliaIglesias. Please pay attention to them, and to Nattie's linked comment. What would have really, really helped me, would have been concrete help and, secondly, perspective. So, if you want to help: Let her know she can stay in your spare room. Find her a recommendation for a good therapist. Make things easier in her relationship ("Sure, no problem if you send your package here"). Attempt to understand and really listen. Don't stigmatize her. Be open to hearing anything. Let her know you're there. Being in an abusive relationship is like being in an invisible prison camp designed for one. No one else knows how you're suffering, and they don't understand what holds you there. And then they laugh when you push against the barbed wire or yell at you when you do your best to appease the guards. Empathy.

Short of giving her Hobson's choice (either she dumps him or you all chip in for hired goons to break his legs) there's really not much you can do. She's an adult and has the right to make her own horrible mistakes. You might try extracting a rock-solid promise that if he does ever hit her she will come straight to one of you; before doing that you should each find the women's refuge closest to you so know know where to go when it happens. You might also care to try extracting another rock-solid promise that she will not ever under any circumstances get careless with her contraceptives.

I'd ask her if she wants to ever have children, and if like 80% of people she says yes, asking her if staying with him is worth giving up on that dream, emphasising that she cannot subject her future children to this abusive relationship. In other words, she must not have children with this man. Is she prepared to never have children? Just anecdata, of course, but when we asked a friend this in a similar situation, she panicked and immediately got pregnant ...by her abuser. Not remotely guaranteed to have the outcome you'd like.

Unfortunately you can't really pull an intervention on a relationship. If this worked, people around the world would be convening in living rooms to earnestly convince their friends to DTMFA. What you can do is be there for her and be ready to help her when she decides she's had enough. You can attempt to convince her that she's worthy of happiness and that you all want her to be happy. Other than that you are treading on thin ice. Deciding to leave her relationship is something she needs to do herself - if you push too hard you may drive her away from you.

Indeed, pushing too hard may drive her away from you, which is definitely not a desirable outcome (she would be even more under the thumb of her partner; he would have that much less restraint in eventually acting on his physical threats). Be there for her. That's all you can do. Trust me, I know how hard that is to hear, I've had a couple of friends in similar situations, and I myself have been an abused woman. In my case it took him finally hitting me. That was my breaking point. Your friend's may be different. Abusers break down a person's sense of self. It gets to the point where the abused person genuinely cannot comprehend that their own friends honestly believe that they deserve better. They're in a space where their partner (sometimes their family as well, if they come from a cruddy one) has taught them that the abuser determines that person's worth. Not the individual themself. And so: "Deserve better? Then what does it say about me that I'm with someone my friends think is so shitty?" is one typical thought to go through their mind. It takes the shittiness finally getting beyond a breaking point, one where the abused person can finally say to themself that pretty much anyone would deserve better. In time, with support from friends (and hopefully therapy, good to hear your friend has that), the bar of shittiness gets raised, and with plenty of time and recovery, it's no longer "shittiness" but a sense of self that can recognize that everyone can choose what kind of relationship they want. Their partner does not determine their worth; they do. Support her on that path. A sense of self has to come from oneself; others can encourage it (or abuse it...) but cannot substitute for it.