TW: emotional abuse How do I help my sister realise she needs to leave her emotionally abusive toxic partner? My sister is in a really toxic relationship. He treats her like sh*t, has a very short fuse, is very self absorbed (she admits she knows this), has a female friend who looks a lot like her and whom he acts super coupley with and prioritises over her, won’t tell her literally anything about his past as she’ll judge him for being a bad person (and the little bits he did tell her were awful), and gets mad when she wants to take the morning after pill after he uses pull out method because “she’s crazy and paranoid”, got her no gift for 1 year anniversary and instead made her cry saying she has no emotions. You get the picture - and this is just the very tip of the iceberg. For reference see a screenshot of smth that happened between them recently too so you get an insight. She’s spent countless hours crying about him and stressing to the point of being unable to eat (to which he said “fix yourself bc it stresses me out”) I’ve tried telling her to dump him, and that she deserves better etc and I just feel so angry he’s hurting her like this but she just refuses to leave him. It’s her first relationship too so she’s stressed she won’t find someone else ever again. How can I help her get out of this? Do I stop trying to tell her to dump him? Do I share resources? What can I even do at this point? It sucks seeing her be treated like this when she’s been such a lovely and patient partner to him all along

She just refuses to leave him saying she loves him and being deep in denial saying it’s mostly good (it’s really not). Previously she admitted she didn’t know if she loves him anymore and is just scared she won’t find someone so hot again. But whenever she says this stuff she then feels very guilty and doubles down on saying he’s a great boyfriend the next day.. I don’t know what to do anymore

You can share resources or turn the question back to her in an attempt to have her answer the situation as if it were to happen to you to a close friend. But at the end of the day.. Sadly there isn’t anything you can do. She needs to hit a point of realisation by herself and it’s hard for people that are that attached to someone. She’s been sucked in completely. She’s staying with him for all the wrong reasons and she will not get happiness like this but she’s in so deep. At this point this relationship is part of her personality so she’s too afraid to lose a part of her life. How old is she?

I think the best thing you can do is make her feel loved and supported and show/tell her that if she leaves you'll be there for her. Clearly she has this fear of being alone but if you can show her that it's possible to be happy and loved while single and that you'll support her, keep her company etc through a breakup that could help her feel less scared. I agree with @Yi_eune telling her to break up if you've already said it is only going to go so far, so I think showing her a strong support system outside of this relationship is helpful.

@Yi_eune she’s only 22, this is her first relationship.. so it could also be that since she’s never experienced any of these big feelings before the idea of breaking up seems impossible. I’ve shared some resources but will continue to do so and yeah, good point about making her feel supported outside it; I know she also already made a bunch more friends which she said made her feel like there’s life outside of him, too, so hoping all this togetehr helps a bit

@aurielle thank you so much, both of you are right, I’ll try and help her feel a bit more supported, spend more time with her etc