tl;dr: friend married with kids, in abusive relationship, feels trapped due to finances

Hi everyone- using a throw away because this isn’t my story.

I have a friend (40 F) who is having a hard time, she is intrigued by Reddit, but doesn’t have an account. She is dealing with circumstances that I don’t have any experience with, and have seen Reddit comments give great advice to people in need, so I’m hoping I can share basic details and maybe show this to her depending on how it goes.

Please be kind, I feel that one thing stopping her from posting on Reddit is being judged.

Married with pre teen kids (husband is father of kids)

Have a business together, sounds like the majority of business debts put in her name

Rent co op apartment in HCOL area, their rent is at least 1000 under market value, so leaving would likely mean having to leave the city.

She works so so hard- does it ALL: kids meals, husbands meals, cleaning, planning, majority of dog walks / care with their puppy, full time on their business from home (if not more). Not infrequently working all weekend and late into the evenings to catch up. She has told him how overwhelmed she is with no change. It sounds like she has brought up counselling and he was not interested.

He is emotionally/ verbally abusive frequently, and it has got physical (not sure of frequency, but at least 3 times that I know of). As far as I know, the kids have never been physically harmed or witnessed him harming her.

She feels like she has no options because of how intertwined their finances are, and I don’t think there is a safety net/ savings. I don’t know specifically what happened but she is responsible for the household shopping and this week he moved most of the money from their joint account.

Her support system is also far away, and I don’t know how much they are aware. Which is why I’m making this post.

Please be kind if you are going to comment or provide advice as I would like the option to show her this post if I get helpful feedback.

Even if you’ve been in a similar situation, and can share anything about that- I think it would even be nice for her to read those as I know she feels isolated.

Thanks so much for reading.

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