Almost everything written about supporting somebody in an abusive relationship is about her. This is about you, because the most common way support fails is not that the helper did the wrong thing. It is that the helper ran out.
People start intensely — calls at any hour, money, a room, arguments with relatives on her behalf — sustain it for a few months, and then disappear entirely, usually after she goes back. From her side that is another person lost, and it happens at the point she has fewest left.
Helping at a level you can maintain for years is worth more than helping heroically for one.
What this does to you
Worth naming, because most people supporting somebody assume their own reaction is disproportionate.
- Sleeping badly, or checking the phone through the night.
- Anxiety when a call comes, and anxiety when one does not.
- Anger — at him, at her, at her family, at the police, at yourself.
- Guilt about not doing more, alongside resentment about how much you are doing.
- Intrusive thoughts about what might be happening.
- Your own relationships suffering, because this occupies the space in your head.
- A specific, corrosive helplessness that comes from watching something you cannot fix.
Where you have your own history of this, expect it to be reactivated. That is common and it is not a weakness — what the body does with this applies to witnesses as well.
Where helpers go wrong
Making it your project. Deciding what the outcome should be and steering towards it. She then has two people managing her life, and the person who was supposed to be safe becomes another one with a plan.
Being available at any hour indefinitely. It cannot be sustained, and its collapse is worse than a smaller offer honestly kept.
Measuring yourself by her decisions. If your sense of having helped depends on her leaving, you will feel like a failure at every stage of a process that normally takes years.
Doing it alone. Keeping her confidence is right. Carrying it with nobody at all is what breaks people.
Money you cannot afford. Resentment about money destroys the relationship, which is the actual thing she needs.
Deciding what you can actually offer
Do this deliberately rather than by drift, and be specific.
Ask yourself: how often can I talk, and when. Can she stay, and for how long — genuinely. What money can I give without minding. What will I not do. Who else can share this.
Then say it plainly. “I can talk in the evenings. I cannot answer at work. You can stay for two weeks if you need to.” A clear, smaller offer is more useful than an unlimited one, because she can plan against it and it will still be there in a year.
Saying no to something specific is not withdrawing support. Disappearing is.
Having somebody yourself
You need one person to talk to. Not the compound, not her family, and not anybody connected to him.
A friend outside the situation, a counsellor, or us. You can call us about somebody else’s situation — people do it regularly, and you do not need her permission to ask a general question, or to ask what to do about your own exhaustion.
What you must not do is discuss it where it can travel. That is the one hard rule, and it is why choosing one person carefully matters more than talking to several.
Things that help
- Keep your own life running. Work, sleep, your own family, the things you did before. Losing them does not help her and it removes what you are drawing on.
- Set an hour to stop. Phone away after a certain time unless it is an emergency, and be clear with yourself about what actually counts as one.
- Separate what is yours from what is hers. Her decisions are hers. Your job is to remain available, not to produce an outcome.
- Do concrete things. Holding documents, keeping a bag, collecting children, writing down dates. Practical tasks are sustainable in a way that emotional availability alone is not, and they help more.
- Write down what you have done. On the bad weeks it is genuinely hard to see, and a list is a fair account of it.
- Expect the return. Plan for it now. Going back is a normal stage, and helpers who know that in advance survive it much better.
When to step back, and how
Sometimes you have to, and there is a right way to do it.
Signs it is time: you dread the phone, you are angry most of the time, your own health or work is suffering, your family is paying for it, or you have started avoiding her.
How to do it without abandoning her: reduce rather than vanish. Say what you can still do. “I cannot have you here again, and I will always answer the phone” is honest and it keeps the line open, which is the thing that matters. Then keep to it, because a stated limit that holds is worth more than a generous one that collapses.
Do not step back with an explanation that is really an accusation. “I cannot keep doing this while you go back to him” tells her the door is closed and that it is her fault.
If you were the one who was hurt too
Sometimes the helper is a sister, a mother or a friend who lived through something similar.
That gives you an understanding nobody else has, and it makes this considerably harder. If you find yourself certain about what she should do, or unable to stop thinking about it, that is usually your own experience talking rather than hers.
Getting your own support in that situation is not indulgence. It is the thing that lets you stay in the room.
What you are actually doing
Probably more than it feels like.
The thing that most often makes the difference over years is not a rescue. It is that one person stayed reachable, did not judge, kept her documents, and was still answering the phone when the moment finally came.
That person almost always believes, at the time, that they achieved nothing.
Questions people ask
Is it selfish to set limits?
No, it is what makes this sustainable. A clear smaller offer that lasts years is worth far more than an unlimited one that collapses after eight months, because the collapse is another loss for her.
She rings at any hour. What do I do?
Decide what you can genuinely offer and say it plainly, including when you cannot answer. She can plan against a clear limit. She cannot plan against a promise that quietly fails.
Can I talk to someone about it?
Yes, and you should have one person. A friend outside it, a counsellor, or us — people call us about somebody else’s situation regularly. The rule is that it must not be anybody it could travel back through.
I am angry with her for going back. Is that wrong?
It is normal and it is legitimate. What matters is where it goes: to somebody else, not to her, and not in a message late at night.
How do I step back without abandoning her?
Reduce rather than vanish, say what you can still do, and keep to it. “I cannot have you here again, and I will always answer the phone” keeps the line open, which is the part that matters.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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