For supporters

Domestic Violence

Everything else in this library is about encouraging someone toward a decision. This is the opposite. The most dangerous point in an abusive relationship is when someone leaves, so your instinct — get them out — is the instinct to hold. What actually helps is staying close, believing them, and letting the timing be theirs.

What helps

• Believe them, and say so — "I believe you, and this isn't your fault" may be the first time anyone has said it. Being doubted once is often enough to stop someone telling anyone again.
• Don't attack their partner — This one is counterintuitive. If you tear into them, most people defend them — and then stop telling you things to avoid the argument. Talk about behavior and its effect on your friend instead.
• Stay in contact, ordinarily — Cutting someone off from their friends is how abuse works. A regular, unremarkable text is a direct counter to it, whatever else they decide.
• Leave the decisions with them — They're the one who has to live with the consequences and read the danger day to day. Support without conditions keeps you useful; ultimatums make you one more person controlling them.

What tends to backfire

None of these are stupid. Most of them are what caring looks like when it is frightened, which is why they are so common.

• "Why don't you just leave?" — It sounds like help and lands as blame. There are usually money, children, immigration status, or a clear-eyed fear of what leaving would set off.
• "I can't watch this — call me when you've left" — Understandable, and it removes the one person still checking on them. You can protect your own limits without going silent.
• Making the plan for them — Packing their bag or calling a shelter without agreement can trigger exactly the crisis they were timing carefully.

What you could suggest

Understanding the situation does not tell you what to actually do. These are things you can offer.

• Call the hotline yourself, for advice — The National Domestic Violence Hotline advises friends and family, not only people being abused. You can ask what to say before you say it.¹
• Agree a way to reach each other — A code word, a set check-in time, or which of your messages are safe to leave on their phone. Ask what's safe rather than assuming.
• Offer specific, small things — A spare key, somewhere to keep documents, a lift, a phone charger left at yours. Concrete offers are easier to accept than "anything you need."
• Ask whether they want a record kept — Some people want dates and details written down somewhere the other person can't find. Offer, don't insist, and keep it only if they want it.

Questions that are easier to ask than to invent

• Are you safe right now?
• What do you need from me?
• Do you want me to just listen, or help you think about options?
• How can I reach you if I don't hear back?
• Is there somewhere you could go tonight if you needed to?
• Is it safe for me to text you?
• What would make this easier to talk about?

Words you will hear

Safety plan

A practical plan for staying safer — whether staying or leaving. Documents, money, a bag, who to call, which room to avoid. Hotlines help build one.

Coercive control

Abuse that runs on isolation, monitoring, and control of money rather than violence. It's often what's happening long before anyone is hit.

It isn't only physical

Threats, financial control, and cutting someone off from friends are abuse in their own right, and predict physical danger.

Sources

1. Help a Friend or Family Member — The National Domestic Violence Hotline
2. Why leaving is the most dangerous time — Women & Children First