Finally... that night she stayed over with you, after the show where you ran into some friends of her abusive boyfriend, you say her boyfriend called and called your number. How did her boyfriend get his hands on your phone number?

She said the BF snooped in her phone. He probably at least suspected there was "another man" and even if he didn't know it was LW specifically, running into the BF's friend probably confirmed it if the friend told BF.

Phone contacts are often backed up on-line, and he probably knows all her passwords.

Why do you want a relationship with this girl? Sounds like she's a huge, huge "fixer-upper": cheating, abusive relationships, (unresolved?) rape-- all before the age of 20. I'm a middle-aged dude that has been out of the dating market for a while now, but aren't there women in your age group that have their shit together?

@ 3 - Really!?! Being a victim of rape means that you don't have your shit together!?!

Fortunately, women everywhere can celebrate the fact that you're out of the dating market.

@4: Being a victim of rape is far from the only salient fact about this girl.

Or are we doing that whole "once you've been raped, A Rape Victim Is All You Are, Forever" thing? I hope not. Let's not do that thing.

What's wrong with rescuing somebody? As long as you don't conclude that they owe you anything afterward?

@ 5 - More importantly, let's not do the victim-blaming thing. Or the "get over it, it's been long enough" thing. She's only 18, for fuck's sake. This can by no means be considered "forever".

And an 18 year old girl who's been raped by a relative just might need a bit more time to process what happened to her and to "get her shit together". She just might have issues that make her vulnerable to controlling, abusive men like her BF. Have you not considered that? Are you really that heartless?

Ok. Only seven comments in, and the fighting starts.
LW. Oh dear, this poor girl. My youngest is just 18, and it really is still such a tender age, or can be.
Yes, if you can help her extricate herself from this thug, just be clear and careful. She really is the one that has to decide her actions, you can only offer a helping hand.
Might be best if you do it as a friend, not a potential lover. Encourage her to move out from under his thuggery,
Into a shared house with others, not your place. Later, you two could look to see if you want to reconnect, sexually.
Agree with Dan, this girl needs good therapy, to help her heal from past trauma and strengthen her, so she never again falls into a similar life pattern with someone.
Be careful, are there other, older adult men you can call on if any trouble occurs with this guy?
Please, let Dan know how it plays out, then he can let us know.

Helping a woman escape abuse = "fixer upper" apparently

A friend recently wrote an excellent guide for dealing with domestic violence for Ms. magazine:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/10/30/wh…

One thing to keep in mind: if you do decide to insert yourself into the situation, don't be surprised if she doesn't react the way you hope or expect.

Dan if you see this please pass that link along.

@8 I agree. Dude if you want to help this woman then focus on getting her help instead of fucking her. Call a domestic violence hotline for support and suggestions and suggest she herself do the same.

"I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS GIRL DESPITE HER BEHAVIOR" !!! What the fuck? TOM is condemning her for the very sex that he himself was enjoying with her? This red flag is the size of a bed sheet. (TOM's concern with the number of people she's had sex with, seeing himself as a homewrecker as though her staying with an abusive man is important and has some sanctity.) She may be better off with the abuser in hand than with the abuser-in-training in the bush.

But she didn't write, TOM did. So here it is. Dan got it right that she needs help getting out and getting on her own two feet, but he didn't emphasize enough that she has to be free to do that without getting involved with someone else. Just help her get out of there. It's not going to be easy. The most dangerous time for an abused woman is when she's leaving. Go to the domestic violence resources and get advice from them. At 18, she may still have a family she can run to for protection too.

I agree wholeheartedly with Crinoline@15! This girl is NOT your "project" to save! At 23 I know it seems like you could do that just by proximity to the sheer force of your amazing healing powers, but she has way too many issues (many relating to sex) for you alone to solve. And fucking her? Just adding one more sludgy layer to her "I can only be friends with men if I let them screw me" cake. Be a friend first, help her get out of this toxic situation, into counseling and standing on her own two feet. Then, and only after she seems in control of her life, fuck away if she wants it. Think with the big head, not the little head.

I agree with everyone who's emphasizing the helping over the fucking. Be a friend, do what you can to help her get out of a toxic situation (if you can; if she doesn't seem to want help or think she needs it, there's not much you can do), and if it works, and she gets free of this dude and maybe into some therapy (if she can afford it), let her come to you. If she does, great. If she doesn't, maybe you're not the best guy for her either.

My initial instinct was like @3's -- Run, don't walk, away from this hot mess of a woman-child. But being middle-aged myself, I forgot how much of a hot mess MOST people in that age range are. Dan, thanks for advising compassion. Your approach is much more likely to break the tragic pattern of abuse this poor girl seems to have got herself into. She has a lot of growing up to do and having someone who cares about her will be a big help. I can only cross my fingers that Mr Abusive Paedo doesn't react by getting physical with TOM.

This woman is going to be an utter mess until she gets disentangled from this guy, which could be months or never. Give her help if you can, but don't throw yourself in with arms a-flailing and contribute to the trainwreck. He may be abusive, but she has to want to leave, you can't force that. And she may just go back to him and blame it all on you.

I have to agree with the direction of the comment thread. The LW unknowingly entered a relationship with someone facing serious domestic issues, but now that he has that knowledge, LW needs to terminate any sexual connection.

He also seems to have mixed motives and attitudes, that he needs to recognize and learn from. I don't judge him too harshly though, I'm not sure many 23 year olds are quite prepared to handle this situation on their own. Of course he doesn't have to, and shouldn't. I think his best course is to sound the alarm to her family and friends, and then play a supportive role to those who can be of more direct assistance to this woman.

Sounds like a setup for a big cash call to me.

@20: " I think his best course is to sound the alarm to her family and friends"

That's part of the problem. Being the "other man" he probably doesn't know them. He's walking into this somewhat blind and doesn't know the extent of what's going on, let alone if the family are also bad influences on her.

I agree with the bulk of the commenters here. You're doing a good thing by helping her escape from a violent situation, but don't expect a productive romantic relationship afterwards.

Get her out, be prepared to defend yourself and her from a violent attack from the BF, find somewhere safe for her to land (which might not exist with her family; no way of knowing which way the family feels about her vs her family rapist she alleges).

There's some small possibility that some of the details she's related to you are made up. That's not because rapes are often fabricated, but often because people who are a victim of sexual assault and domestic violence are made to feel ashamed and hide that shame in not telling the exact truth. Be careful.

(clarification for the above comment -- that's not a reason not to trust her or not to help her, just if she comes to you and needs to correct the record, listen and help her figure out how to trust you with the truth. don't freak out.)

@4: Take your meds, dude. As pretty much everyone else noted, this gal has a bunch of issues, and having been raped is one of them. Rape is severely traumatic, people who go through trauma understandably get messed up, and there is no indication she has recovered from that. Quite the opposite. It's certainly not her fault, but "not her fault" is not the same as "does not exist."

@16: Now that I think about it, younger-Me did have an annoying habit of dating girls with various mental issues, thinking my awesomeness would somehow make glaring red flags disappear. Of course it didn't, and it took a few colossal shit-shows before that lesson penetrated my dense skull. Maybe TOM's approach is an artifact of being 23.

Re: Abused women who don't want to leave their abusers.

It's true that there's not much anyone can do unless she wants to leave. A lot of times, the reason she doesn't want to leave is that she can't envision a better life. If you come from a situation where you're beaten up and raped daily, living with a man who only beats you up and rapes you weekly seems like a good deal. If you come from a situation where the poverty is so unrelenting that you don't have enough to eat, then going to a situation where you merely don't have a place to sleep looks pretty good. (I've used extreme examples to make my point. The actual calculation is likely to be far more subtle and likely to involve emotion, devotion, and hope.)

So one thing that anyone can do to help is to paint a picture of possibility. That's where Dan was going when he mentioned counseling and standing on her own two feet. If you make it clear that getting out, living on her own, making friends and thus not being lonely, paying the bills and not being in debt, if you show her and really convince her that those things are possible, then staying with the abuser starts to look like a stupid choice, and she's all the more likely to want to leave.

@ 25 - "Rape is severely traumatic, people who go through trauma understandably get messed up, and there is no indication she has recovered from that. Quite the opposite."

Exactly. So when you say she hasn't got her shit together (active voice), you're putting the onus on her. You're basically saying that an 18 year old girl who was raped by a relative needs to woman up and resolve her issues (when, from the looks of it, she's still far from having figured out the impact this has had on her, and she most probably won't until she gets some help).

That's a fucking weird way to look at it. Maybe you should take your meds.

@26IHSN Yep. I used to think, "There she is with her fucked up, abusive, crappy relationship, and here I am, a nice guy who would never dream of treating her so bad. The obvious choice is me, right? Usually not, for a myriad of reasons. And I hate to say it, but, in hindsight it was probably better to not get involved with those girls because their problems were deep, rarely solved, and had a way of sloshing all over everyone around them.

@28: So you're objecting to my use of "active voice"? I'm sorry, but this conversation is too moronic for me to continue. Alas, I cannot be your Internet bad guy of the day.

But FWIW: I generally use active voice for stylistic reasons, because passive voice sucks.

@28 word - no one else is going to get someone's shit together for them. Fair or not, the onus IS in fact on her to get it together.

@ 30 - No, I am not objecting to your use of the active voice. I was merely emphasizing the fact that in your view, it's appears that it's her responsibility to not annoy this poor guy with her problems until she solves them, when it's obvious that she needs help to get to the point where she can begin to deal with these issues.

Now there's a guy who does want to help her, the LW, and your best advice is for him to run away from her? As many have stated here, he shouldn't start a romantic relationship with her, but hey, when somebody wants to do good, you think it's NOT moronic to tell him not to?

That said, I am objecting to your view of the passive voice, which has been vilified for no reason by stupid grammarians. The passive voice is extremely useful in certain circumstances, such as when you don't know who the person doing the action is.

@ 31 - If her problems were just run-of-the-mill 18 year-old lack of togetherness of her shit, I'd agree with you. But it is obvious and well documented that victims of sexual abuse need support.

@33 you are misunderstanding. Support has nothing to do with it. This girls choices are to "get her shit together" or to live with the consequences of what happened to her. Thats it. That's the scenario we all face in this world, and belief that things will be "OK" through any course other than securing your own future are misguided.

Dude, the secret to happiness is finding a woman who has her shit together.

@fetish

You seem to misunderstand the effects of a minor being raped by a relative. It's a lifelong trauma. She must get professional help as soon as possible, but that won't make the rape disappear. She will live with the consequences of what happened to her for the rest of her life, whatever help she gets : the help she needs is in learning how to have a good-enough life from now on, and how to manage the inevitable down periods she'll have for the rest of her life.

@Ricardo, Crinoline

I quite agree with your analysis.

It is offensive to tell people to take their meds. A lot of people have to take medication to stabilize their moods and for them not to have psychotic episodes.
I'm assuming it is these sorts of meds people mean, not the blood pressure meds etc.

When LW said he liked her despite her behavior...what made people instantly assume "behavior" meant having sex with LW? I assumed LW was referring to the overall tangle of events.

If a young woman has been raped by a relative and is living with a 35-year-old when she is barely into adulthood herself, I think it's safe to say her family are unlikely to be much help here.

39- BiDan-- Unlikely but not impossible and therefore worth mentioning.

I was envisioning a situation where her parents have been divorced for some time, and her father has been distant, maybe because he's still arguing with the mother. The relative who raped her was someone on her mother's side, and the mother turned a blind eye, maybe because she was getting financial help from the family. When the 18 year old moves in with the 35 year old, both mother and daughter may really have been thinking it was a good thing. Teens do that. Now that things have gone sour, she may think she has no family to turn to, but she does. She might contact her father and let him know how bad things have gotten in his absence, and he might step up. She might move back in with her mother who, after a lot of argument, might step up also.

Granted I have a tendency to see plot possibilities way beyond what's in a letter and maybe even beyond statistical likelihood, but I have to think of positive outcomes when I give advice.

@ 37 - It is, indeed, extremely offensive to say that. I shouldn't have thrown it back at him. But his total lack of empathy really pissed me off and I responded impulsively.

@ 33 - No, I'm not. As Sissoucat clearly explained @ 36, you are. The girl will always have to deal with the consequences of the abuse she suffered, and your refusal to acknowledge that merely demonstrates that to you, rape isn't such a serious thing. That's really ugly.

Going back to our Grand Arbiter, you don’t have to be perfect to be in a relationship — otherwise nobody would be — but you do need to be in basic good working order. It’s likely from the evidence that the young woman in question is not. There is no need to blame her for that: it’s just an observation.

It really does sound like other people were to blame for that, which doesn’t help her any. She still needs to figure out how to get to ‘basic good working order’ from where she is now. The LW may or may not be able to play a helpful role here, but either way he needs to be careful of his boundaries.

"I actually like this girl despite her behavior." FWIW as I read this letter the "despite her behavior" refers SPECIFICALLY to having sex with him after they reconnected without disclosing that she was in a (exclusive?) relationship with a 35 year old man FIRST ... and nothing else.

She was raped (presumably as a minor) by a relative. That means she was incested. How old was she? Was this a one-off, or did it happen repeatedly over a long time? How close was the relative (DAD? StepDAD? Brother? Uncle? Cousin?). Point is, depending on the scenario this could be way more serious than rape. Let's say she was raped by her biological father repeatedly from the time she was 8 until she was 13 ... in that case she has been betrayed by the first man in her life who she had no choice but to love completely. It will be very difficult for her to ever trust a man enough to have a good relationship, and cheating will likely be a pattern for her. Or maybe she was raped ONCE by a cousin who came to visit when she was 16? Well that is a totally different thing, still traumatic but much easier to deal with and get over.

Also, even if it was a fairly distant relative (uncle or cousin) who raped her only once, if she disclosed this to her family it will make a huge difference how they reacted to it. Was she believed? If she did NOT disclose this to her family, well, why not?

In any case, being "raped by a relative" - aka being incested - entangles all the trauma of rape with family issues in a way that stranger rape, acquaintance rape, date rape, simply do not. The younger the victim is when this kind of thing happens, the worse it is. (I am not talking about pre-sexual "playing doctor" among children - that's just normal stuff.)
It's unfortunate, but this kind of rape is way more common and way more hidden than many people realize.

@6 it's a crappy basis for a relationship. When you are someone's social worker/therapist/auto mechanic/short order cook it colors how you perceive each other even after the problems are resolved. Also, it's not real feminist/modern to say "Hey, you are locked in a cycle of dependence and abuse, how about I take over and you can be dependant upon me instead!" Help them get back on their feet, but don't be their feet.

Dude, trust me, your life will be a better place if you follow a simple rule: don't sleep with people with major mental/emotional health issues. Women attracted to abusers have huge issues. Stop sleeping with this girl. Be her friend and tell her you'll help her extract herself but don't be physically involved with her unless she's away from this guy and is doing counseling. And yes, get yourself an answer to Dan's question - how in the heck did that guy get your phone number?

The LW sounds so selfish! just like a lot of commenters here. Talking about her "bad behavior" and "unresolved rape" (how the fuck do you resolve rape? You are so lucky you have no idea what this to be raped. That doesn't "resolve"). The victim blaming and shaming here is sick. she needs HELP and compassion. she is so young to have to depend on an abuser. And her only help is this dude who clearly cares more about himself. She Should do what she can to get out but also keep working towards some real independence. Which is very hard. :(

6- Long time-- The problem with rescue, even without obligation, is that it reinforces the helplessness of the rescue-ee. It's a matter of: "Great, I'm no longer tied to the train tracks, but I'm still a poor damsel in distress who needs someone to protect me; now what?" Instead, you somehow need to set up a dynamic where the damsel gets good at untying her own knots, judging character, knowing her own mind, stopping trains with her superpowers, and goes on to a life of leaping tall buildings with a single bound.

I think she should get a restraining order against him (and perhaps TOM should get one against him as well). To me, it sounds like this is the time to get the courts and law enforcement involved before the situation gets even worse. Best to you, TOM.

The girl is 18 yrs old, she in my knowledge of that age, needs parenting still. That she has suffered sexual abuse, rape, means she's wounded, she stays with a 35 yr old thug because maybe she believes that's all she is worth. To be brutalised.
Supporting her to see she is worthwhile, encouraging her to leave the abuse and to heal her trauma as best as possible with therapy etc ( see Chase's ref above), is the best way this young man can help her.
He though, is at an age where
the "I am most powerful" head space seems to be strong, so he needs to be very careful how he proceeds.

You might want to help her, but step back and just be friends with her for a while. She really NEEDS to be unattached for a while and learn that having a boyfriend is not as important as loving herself first.

I keep having a conversation with my sister about her choices in boyfriends. She will break up with an abusive guy and then immediately NEED another boyfriend who turns out to be abusive (not saying you are). I just don't understand some women's need to grab someone, ANYONE as soon as they're out of a relationship just to say they have "someone". It's just the weirdest thing on earth to. And to think my sister and I grew up in the same household.

@Alison: Well said. I'd only add that he should be careful of getting hurt.

@35: You generally need to have your shit together to find a partner with their shit together. Like attracts like, and all that rot.

@52: ABSOLUTELY. He can provide outside assistance but rushing into something with her is just going to retard her progression emotionally, and if he cares about her in anything but the short-term he needs to give her wide berth to get sane and secure and grounded once any immediate danger is taken care of. And beyond offering to help find her safety, backing the fuck off and not trying to substitute his control for the "other man"'s. There's no way she's ever going to find her footing if guys keep trying to sweep her up and carry.

@53: Serial monogamy and the need for someone to "be there" no matter whom isn't just a "woman thing". There's plenty enough menfolk who can't stand being alone and settle for whomever in the meantime.

@undead: You generally need to have your shit together to find a partner with their shit together.

True, although if you're lucky a woman might take you on as a fixer-upper.

"There's no way she's ever going to find her footing if guys keep trying to sweep her up and carry. " ... problem is that if she's offering sex/relationship in exchange for being swept up & carried there is always going to be somebody to take her up on it. If SHE isn't dead set on being alone to work on herself that's just not going to work. Also, of course the people who are going to take the deal she is offering probably won't be the best people & certainly won't be putting her interests ahead of their own. You can't really expect anyone but parents and long term partners/spouses to do that - and sometimes even they won't.

The fundamental problem is that the person who really needs the most help in this situation is not the one who wrote in & asked for help. From my perspective the best thing for the letter writer to do for himself is to just back off & stay away. It's almost certain given the girl's age, the family issues described, and her current relationship pattern (living with a possibly abusive older man who she cheats on with ?a? younger ?man?/men - and may well be TELLING HIM ABOUT IT to twist the knife into her current substitute for her bad daddy/uncle/whatever - see question: how did he get that number?), that being the "other man" to this girl is a much better deal than being her main partner.

The other problem is that she's complaining but not yet ready or capable of exiting the scenario she's in. Maybe she doesn't know how, maybe she doesn't WANT to change her situation, but the guy doesn't know her very well at all and wants to make decisions for her without knowing what it is that she actually wants. He really needs to talk to her more than Dan and get as straight answers as an 18 y/o is capable of providing. Also the fact that he doesn't really respect her should be another reason for him to stay the fuck back unless she does have a personal danger-sort of situation, which we don't necessarily know. Yeah the other guy doesn't sound great, but we don't know what she's telling him either, entirely independent from her past.

Oh, no no no. You do not want to be with her. If she is being abused and is 18 with a history of trauma, she has no business being in a relationship with anyone when she gets away from the 35 year old BF. Rather, she needs counseling and likely a safe place to live. This dude should offer help to her, and then bow out quick AF. And he should think about his attraction to chaos and damsels in distress, because that's his own problem he can deal with- away from her- while she gets her help away from him.

@36 I'm not sure if you know what "therapy" means.

It's not a magic pill, where help is simply received and then the healing begins.

She's still the one who has to "do the work". "Get her shit together", whatever you want to call it. Therapy is the means, not the ends.

I know this situation. I never thought that I'd have to call the domestic violence line, but I did, for a friend who was just like this girl. She was a friendly person, and she did care about a lot of people, but she grew up in an abusive household with an abusive parent and married an abusive husband (who she thought had rescued her, with the associated high age gap and alcoholism and everything else). She wanted to leave, and then didn't want to leave, and then probably would, and then wouldn't. It culminated when he beat her up and someone else in their building called the cops after she ran out of the apartment. After a night in jail, the husband was the one who kicked her out and gave the divorce ultimatum. I think that he was worried that his employer would find out about the jail stay.

All I can say is: be realistic. This woman is used to someone else making all her decisions for her. And of course there's the gaslighting too. She probably has little experience with what healthy boundaries are. She is used to someone else taking all of her self-esteem, and she, for whatever reason there may be in her past, believes that she doesn't have any power. You can be there as a friend, and you can give her support for any decisions she makes, but she has to make the decisions, and some of them will probably not be ones that you would make (and some may not be good decisions at all, but you have to be open that you don't approve while being supportive of her, which can be really tricky).

Be prepared for whatever relationship you have ending if/when she leaves her significant other.

After calling the domestic violence line, I learned that it takes about 7 tries for someone to finally leave their abuser, and some never, ever do. It is a long and painful prospect for someone on the outside to watch, especially the more that you care for the person.

Try to stay a friend (as much as you can, considering that there's a huge romantic entanglement here). Do the "tag me in as you need me," which has her be the active force in her own life. Encourage her to treat her safety as paramount (and this can be really hard, for oh so many reasons). This includes things like having a new passcode for her phone, getting an emergency plan (including a temporary phone that stays absolutely hidden until she is really ready to leave), and getting her important papers into a safe, neutral place, like a bank deposit box. There are a huge number of websites that can help with someone who wants to leave, but getting to that point is an uphill slope, and people don't always want to climb it. For some people, even a really shitty, painful known is better than the unknown, and that's double for those where they have no life experience with things that are healthy, positive, self-affirming environments.

Good luck.
What happened with me was that we did end up getting death threats from my friend's ex. But he wasn't the outgoing type...our interactions ended after they split up. There are a number of people who have different, less happy stories. Just...be realistic with yourself, and educate yourself on what it really means to interact with a real-life abuse situation and not a generic afterschool special.

She may be 'using' TOM as a way, a path, toward escaping the abusive relationship. It's opening the door... so maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to leave or be left. Or she's looking for someone to remind her she's lovable and a good person.

Idk. It's what I did when extricating myself from an emotionally & sometimes physically abusive relationship with an alcoholic. It made things much messier with my ex (which continues 3yrs post), but I don't think I had the balls then to make a clean break. I was trying to force his hand to end it, which he legally did when he filed for divorce (and subsequently tried to take back - and he's still mad at me for ending things?).

Anyway, yes, that scenario can happen. And, I know for me, I needed lots of counseling to become whole again and feel of value and regain my confidence and, even today, I need support to extricate myself from his critical bullshit (we have kids :/ ) .

Truly, nine months of counseling and support from friends & family was crucial for me to regain my footing & confidence. I hope she finds it; she has much life to live & discover.

FWIW, my rebound relationship helped me get out of the abusive relationship but the rebound didn't last. It was what we both needed at the time. TOM, be cognizant that she might not need you when she's found herself again in her recovery.

@62: "Just...be realistic with yourself, and educate yourself on what it really means to interact with a real-life abuse situation and not a generic afterschool special."

Well that's not very "romantic", what with treating her like a real human being and not a character in a carefully controlled fantasy narrative and working towards her long term success.

Oh, and grats on making that transition funkymama!

@Ricardo: I missed most of this, because vacation, but: The point was that this girl was very much not in working order. That means he should stop trying to make it so he could date her.

The fact that she'd been raped? Completely irrelevant. Rape victims have other traits besides "rape victim." This applies to both positive and negative traits. One of her other traits is "not in good working order." Don't date people who have that trait.

@66: The point is that there are plenty more items in her life that indicate instability, picking that one out and holding it against her as a personality flaw is just trashy.

Or perhaps you are saying just this, the wording was a little ambiguous.