I think my (27m) friend is in a bad relationship with his (28f) girlfriend and I don’t know how to help

I’ll start off with some background info about my friend we’ll call Max. Max is 27 years old and has been with his girlfriend (we’ll call Vicky) for a little over 10 years, they’ve been together since they were 16, and it’s the only relationship Max ever had and only women he’s ever been with. They also have two kids and they rented a nice house. I met Max when I started working at my first job a few years ago and since then he became part of my friend group. Last year Max started telling me about how Vicky was being very controlling and emotionally abusive toward him, constantly talking down to him and about him to people, controlling everywhere he went, constantly accusing him of cheating, etc. He kinda took it all until around the end of November when he finally snapped and broke up with her. At first she started screaming and crying and begging to be taken back and then got cold and resentful to him. They still had to live together because of financial reasons for about a month, during that time she would constantly talk bad about him to their 6 year old daughter (the other kid is like 2 so she didn’t even understand the situation) and would bring a bunch of guys home to sleep with in their house, even when Max was home. Needless to say this was all very hard on Max and he nearly had a few mental breakdowns. And started drinking everyday.

Onto the beginning of January, Max is finally out of that house and away from Vicky. My friend group and one of my friends specifically a guy we’ll call Ethan tells Max that he needs to start going out and meeting women and hooking up. I basically said the opposite, I told him that he should take some time to heal from his situation, get therapy and avoid hoping into dating or seeing other people for at least a little bit. I’m basically ignored and Max goes on and makes a Tinder profile and starts for matches. About a day later he starts talking to this woman I’ll call Becky. Max says that Becky is also a single mother, 28 years old, with 2 kids of her own (ages 4 years and 8 months old) and works as a nurse. Immediately red flags start going off in my head, I start telling Max that this is a bad idea to talk this women and to ghost her. I immediately get shut down by almost everyone else at the job and my friends saying that Max should go for it and go on a date with her, tha he needs to live more. A lot of people said that the best way to get over an ex to to start seeing other people and hooking up. I don’t agree with this at all, but every time I tried to go against what others were saying it felt like my words were falling on deaf ears.

Ethan, who also encouraged Max to go out with this girl, said that I wouldn’t understand what Max was going through because I have never had a girlfriend or been in a relationship before, therefore I can’t give proper advice to someone who was heartbroken because I’ve never been heartbroken.

It was around this time I got a better paying job elsewhere, so when I left my old job I didn’t see Max everyday like I use to and would only talk to him on the phone or play video games with him. I saw him a couple more times in person but that’s about it. And in that time I only heard a few updates on how his relationship with him and Becky, only hearing that they were getting more serious and she took him with her on vacation one time.

Fast-forward to two days ago, I go to see Max at the restaurant I use to work at. I say hi and we start catching up. I asked him if he was still seeing Becky and he said he was and things were a lot more serious now. I asked him how serious and he then showed a tattoo that went from behind his ears to down his neck that spelled out ‘BECKY’. I said “Dude, wtf?”. He said I wasn’t the first person to say that. I asked him when he got it and why. He told me that about three weeks ago him and Becky were drinking at his house and Becky was saying that she was upset that none of the other guys she was with ever got a tattoo of her name on them and it was something she really wanted. He then DRUNKENLY said that he would get a tattoo that day and then went and got it done while she was encouraging him to do so. I WISH I was making this up, I’d show a picture of it if i could. I was shocked, I then started asking him to tell me more about Becky and he told me that the two kids she has are from two different guys that she was in a relationship for both of them less than a year and she still has baby daddy issues with one of her exs. As he saying this he also mentioned they had a pregnancy scare a little while back. Oh yeah, and he’s still drinking daily.

I told him that this girl seems like a troubled individual and that he maybe should stop seeing her. Max insisted that she is past that and she lonely and is just looking for somebody and so is he, that they both were troubled. That she makes him feel good and they were making each other happy. I said “Dude, you were with Vicky for over a decade and you have two kids. You have known Becky for about five months and you have a freaking tattoo of her name going down your neck.” I pretty sure he got offended by what I said because he stopped talking about it after.

I tried talking to my friends today and they pulled out the ” You’ve never had a girlfriend” and the “You’ve never been heartbroken, so you don’t know anything” card. I was basically told Max is an adult who can make his own decisions and that I’m being to negative and if I actually care I’ll be I should be supportive of him. It pisses me off that I’m always not listened to because I’ve never been in a relationship. I even told Max to go to a therapist to talk about his issues and he refuses saying he doesn’t need therapy.

I don’t know what I can do to help Max, I wish I knew what to say. To Max, it seems like I’m the only one being negative towards his relationship. And all my advice I try to give him is always shut down because I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ll admit, I’m only seeing things through my perspective and I want to know how other people see this situation. Maybe he’s doesn’t even need help and is just going through normal relationship things.

Tl;dr My friend has gone from one very toxic relationship to what I’m pretty sure now is developing into another toxic relationship and I don’t know how to help him because no one takes me advice because I’ve never been in a relationship before.