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How to Help Someone who is Being Abused

You can help someone who is being abused, such as a friend or family member.

Before you offer help, it’s important to understand the effects of abuse on an individual’s psychological health. Abusers strive for compliance and obedience from their partners. Abusers want their partners to stay in the relationship to meet the abuser’s needs. So, they aim to break their partners’ will to take action, including leaving. Abusers seek to undermine their partners’ self-esteem, self-confidence, self-determination and ability to make decisions. If you want to help, be careful not to aid and abet the abuser by reinforcing these feelings in your friend or family member.

You can:
• Help him to think through his experience for himself, don’t tell him what to think.
• Help him develop options and to assess them, don’t decide for him what he should do.
• Help him find his own solutions, don’t rush to give him your solutions.
• Discuss steps with him, don’t take the steps for him.
• Offer resources for support, encourage him to use them, but accept that he will do so or not at his own pace.
• Help him discover that he can help himself, don’t take responsibility for him.
• Respect his right to make his own decisions, even if the decisions are not those you would have made.

Simply put, treat him as an adult capable of managing his own life, even when the effects of the abuse may have weakened his capacity to do so. Help him discover his own strength, don’t rescue him and thereby, leave him vulnerable.

Here are some ways you can help a friend or family member:

• Be available and maintain contact.

Abusers often try to isolate their partners from friends and family. Stay in contact and be there when he needs you.

• Listen without judging.

One of the most important things you can do to help is to listen without criticizing. He needs to be able to tell his story. This will help him come to terms with his emotions and to better understand what is happening to him. Don’t judge him. He may feel ashamed, guilty and responsible. An abused person will say, “How could I have gotten into this situation?”, when he is really saying, “How could I have been so stupid?” He may be reproaching himself; he doesn’t need someone else to heap on more criticism.

• Let him know he has a right not to be abused.

Let him know that abuse is unacceptable. Assure him that he neither deserves nor is responsible for the abuse. It is not his fault. Explain that there is no excuse for abuse in a relationship – not alcohol or drugs, not financial pressure, not depression, not jealousy, not stress … not anything. The abuser is responsible for the abuse (See For Batterers).

• Believe what he is telling you.

Chances are you are hearing only the tip of the iceberg.

• Learn about intimate partner abuse.

You don’t need to be an expert, but learn about partner abuse so you can better understand what he is going through and better assist him.

• Help him recognize that he is being abused.
People, particularly men, who are abused may not describe their experience as abuse. They tend to minimize the instances and severity of the abuse. They see it as “problems with the relationship” or the abuser is “stressed”. In addition, men may not see themselves as victims of domestic violence because they think that only woman are victims of domestic violence. Shame also may make them reluctant to acknowledge that they are being abused.

It is best to help your friend or family member to discover on his own that he is being abused. There are four important steps to help him understand his situation:
§ Ensure that he knows the definition of intimate partner abuse and its different forms. Recommend that he visit this Website. Print out and show him the Definition of Domestic Violence and the Power and Control Wheel.
§ Help him see that there is a pattern of abusive behaviors, not just isolated, unconnected instances of abuse.
§ Let him know that he is not alone, that others, including other men, have experienced partner abuse.
§ Emphasize that partner abuse, particularly physical abuse, tends to get worse and becomes more frequent with time, and that the abuser is unlikely to stop abusing.
It may be best to provide him with information from domestic violence experts rather than appearing to be expressing your personal opinion on these matters. (See the Reading List and Links.)

• Keep information confidential.

Respect his privacy. Also, if information about abuse you have been told gets back to the abuser, it might endanger your friend or family member by angering the abuser.

• Identify support resources and share them with him.

Identify support resources, such as counseling or housing, that are available to assist a person who is being abused (See Links). Try to find and include resources that are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-friendly and knowledgeable. Make a list and share it with him. Encourage him to use the resources; he has a right to support. Also, see Services for Friends/Family of Victims and Survivors.

• Encourage him to make a safety plan.

Help him think through steps he can take to increase his safety, whether he is staying with the abuser or leaving. Encourage him to work with a partner abuse advocate to create a safety plan. (See Safety Planning and Contact a Victim Advocate)

Offer to be part of his safety plan. There are many things you can do, for example:
§ Be someone he can turn to in an emergency;
§ Offer your home as a place he can go to be safe;
§ Offer to have a telephone line for him installed in your home at which he can get messages;
§ Let him use your computer for communication about abuse, as long as the abuser does not have access to your computer (See How to Clear Your Browser); or
§ Let him have mail sent to your address.

• Explain that some forms of abuse are illegal and that he can seek protection through the police and courts.

Some forms of abuse are criminal acts (See Some Abuse is Criminal Behavior). For example, physical abuse or threats are assault, sexual abuse is sexual assault and financial abuse may be fraud. He can seek protection from these acts through the police and courts, including securing a domestic violence restraining order (See Restraining Orders).

• Don’t criticize the abuser.

Your friend or family member may have conflicting feelings about the abuser. He may be angry with the abuser, but, at the same time, love him/her. He may want the relationship to continue, but the abuse to stop. If you’re critical of the abuser, your friend or family member may become defensive or stop sharing with you. There is a very important difference between criticizing a person and criticizing behavior. Talk about negative behaviors by saying something like “I am really concerned about how your partner treats you. Nobody has the right to put someone down.”

• Do not confront the abuser.

This can result in an escalation of abuse and put both you and the partner in danger.

• Don’t slip information about abuse into the belongings or home of your friend or family member without his knowledge.

If the abuser finds this information, it can escalate the abuse.

• Do not leave messages about the abuse.

Don’t leave messages, such as voice mail or e-mail, which the abuser might hear or see. Abusers often monitor telephones and computers.

• Have patience, more patience and even more patience; don’t give up.

Most of us think, “If he/she ever did that to me, I’d be gone in a heartbeat.” Commonly we do not understand why people stay in abusive relationships. However, from the point of view of the person being abused, there may be good and sufficient reasons to stay (See Why Men Stay). It can be even more difficult to understand why someone would return after having left an abusive relationship. On average, gay men leave and return more than three times; it may be as high as an average of 7 times. After the same events happen time and again and he still doesn’t leave or he leaves and returns, you may want to just give up. Or watching what is happening becomes too painful to continue to be involved. Try to have patience and stay connected as much as you can. In the end, you may be the lifeline he needs.

• Set limits, if you have to.

Friends and family members can get exasperated, give up and get out when the same patterns repeat themselves over and over again. If you want to hang in with your friend or family member, you can set limits. For example, tell your friend or family member that you are there to help if he wants to leave or is in danger, but you can’t have him coming to you every time he gets abused, because emotionally it is too much for you.

• Be careful for yourself; Take care of yourself.
If you are helping, you may want to have your own safety plan to protect you from the abuser. Also, helping can take an emotional toll on you. Use the domestic violence resources to get support for yourself and your own support resources.
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• Contact GMDVP Client Services