You have known him since university. He was at your wedding. He lent you money once without being asked.
And now his wife has told you something, or you have seen something, and you cannot make the two versions fit.
This is an uncomfortable position and it is a genuinely useful one, because a friend of his can do things nobody else can.
Why it does not fit
Because both versions are accurate.
The generous, funny man you know is not a performance he maintains for twenty years. That is who he is with you. Who he is behind his own front door is a different matter, and there is no rule that people are the same in both places.
This is the most common reason friends conclude a woman is exaggerating: he is not like that with me, therefore he is not like that. It does not follow, and it is worth noticing that almost nobody assaults their friends. The selectivity is not evidence against her account. It is a feature of the thing itself.
Men who do this are frequently well liked. That is not a coincidence — a good reputation is what makes it survivable and it is part of why she is not believed.
The one thing you must not do
Do not tell him what she said.
Not to hear his side. Not to give him a chance to explain. Not as a friend who does not keep things from friends. Not softened into “people are worried about you”.
This is the single most common way women are seriously hurt after disclosing, and it is almost always done by somebody with good intentions who believed a direct conversation would help. She goes home to a man who now knows exactly what she said and to whom.
If you take nothing else from this page, take that.
What you owe her
Believe her, at least provisionally. You do not have to be certain. You have to not dismiss it, and dismissal is the default.
Keep it confidential. Including from your own spouse if it could travel, and including from the friend group.
Ask what would help. Rather than deciding. She may want nothing, or something very specific.
Do not investigate. Asking around to establish whether it is true is a way of telling people.
Do not make her prove it. Requests for detail feel like fairness and land as disbelief.
What you owe him
Less than you think, and not nothing.
You owe him honesty about your own position, which is not the same as passing on information. If you decide you are not going to help him hide it or make excuses for him, you can say that without ever mentioning her.
You do not owe him access to what you know. You do not owe him a defence. And friendship does not require you to help somebody conceal harm — a friend who covers for him is not being loyal, they are being useful.
What you can actually do that nobody else can
This is where a friend of his has real value.
Stop laughing. The jokes about keeping her in line, checking her phone, not letting her go out. Do not laugh, do not join in, and do not change the subject smoothly. A flat “I do not find that funny” from a male friend lands harder than anything a woman could say, and it is the most underused intervention there is.
Do not agree with the account. When he tells you she is impossible, unstable, or trying to take his children, you do not have to argue. Not agreeing is enough, and it is noticed.
Interrupt in the moment. If you are present when something is escalating, being there is the intervention. Suggest going outside, stay longer, offer a lift. You do not have to confront anybody.
Refuse to be the alibi. Do not confirm he was with you when he was not. This is asked more often than people expect.
Say the thing about his children. Where nothing else reaches a man, that sometimes does. Not as an accusation — as a question about what they are seeing.
Be a witness if it comes to it. What you have seen and heard yourself, with dates. A friend of his giving that account is unusually powerful precisely because there is nothing in it for you.
Should you confront him?
Generally not, and never on the basis of what she told you.
If you have seen something yourself, you can say so, and keep it to what you witnessed: “I did not like the way you spoke to her.” “You have been drinking a lot.” Present tense, your own observation, no reference to her.
Do not attempt to fix him, and do not treat one conversation as having achieved something. He may cut you off, and that is a real cost worth deciding about in advance.
And be honest about your motive. Confronting him often serves your own discomfort more than her safety, which is precisely the calculation to make carefully.
If he tells you himself
It happens, usually minimised, usually framed as a bad patch or as her behaviour.
Do not reassure him. “Every marriage has that” is the most damaging possible reply and it is the most common one.
Say plainly that it is not alright, without a lecture. Ask what he intends to do. Suggest he speaks to somebody. And do not offer to mediate, do not attempt joint counselling with a friend, and do not become his confidant on the subject, because that role quietly turns into cover.
Living with it
You may lose the friendship, and you may not — sometimes nothing changes visibly and you simply carry it.
What you should not do is disappear from both of them, which is the most common outcome. The couple you knew separates, everybody feels awkward, and she loses another person at the point she has fewest left. Staying in touch with her, even lightly, costs you very little and is worth more than you would guess.
Carrying this is its own problem, and it is worth having one person you can talk to about it who is not in the same circle.
Questions people ask
He has never been like that with me. Does that mean she is exaggerating?
No. Almost nobody assaults their friends, and the selectivity is a feature of the thing rather than evidence against her. Men who do this are frequently well liked, which is part of why they are not believed.
Should I tell him what she told me?
Never, in any form, however softened. It is the most common way women are seriously hurt after disclosing, and it is almost always done by somebody who believed a direct conversation would help.
Should I confront him?
Generally not, and never on the basis of what she said. If you saw something yourself you can name that — “I did not like how you spoke to her” — and be honest about whether it serves her safety or your own discomfort.
What is the most useful thing I can do?
Stop laughing at the jokes about keeping her in line. A flat “I do not find that funny” from a male friend lands harder than anything a woman could say, and it is the most underused intervention there is.
He admitted something to me. What do I say?
Not “every marriage has that”, which is the most common and most damaging reply. Say plainly that it is not alright, ask what he intends to do, and do not become his confidant on the subject.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, email us at hello@healbridge.org, 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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