How am I (23F) supposed to handle the fact that my friend (23F) is dating a controlling racist and sexist(27M)?

Non-Romantic

Throwaway because I don´t know if the guy is on reddit. I apologies in advance since English is not my first language. Sorry for the long post. TL;DR! At the bottom.

So me and my friend have known each other for about 8 years and we met in school. Before she met this guy, she would stand up for her opinion and she was not racist or spoke ill of people from other countries. Now she is using derogatory terms and names when she talks about certain people. She has dated this guy for about a year and I have only met him once, but she has talked a lot about him.

At first, she told me that he would make racist jokes and so on. Then she said that he would talk ill of people that are adopted from other countries even though both her sister and brother is adopted from other countries. She said that she has asked him not to talk about those kinds of things with him. I got really worried when she started saying that he is looking through her phone and forcing her to delete male facebook friends. She makes excuses for him that he is just insecure since the mother of his child cheated on him. Which does not make it okay, but she thinks it does. My friend will often say “I can´t do that cause if I will, he will break up with me”. The most recent time she said this was about a week ago when she was getting a tattoo and would not get a certain animal just because he hates them. She can ergo not make her own decisions about her body.

She has told me that they fight a lot and it will often start with a small fight that then escalates to the point where he storms out and ignores her. He will often return the next day and then act like nothing has happened. From what I know he has never hit her, but he has threatened her once that if she did not move out his way he would do something. It was not outright “if you don´t move I will hit you”. It was more “move if else...”.

He is very rude, patronizing and mean to her. I have been with her when he has called her, and he is full on screaming at her for something minor. I can see that when he does this she sorts of shrinks in size and start talking to him in a quiet baby voice. I have said to her that the way he talks to her is not okay, but she never really gives me an answer.

I met him the first (and only) time about one month ago. He barley looked or talked to me. The second I met him he started using the N-word, saying that all immigrant are on benefits, that he was going to put a knife into a Romani person, said that all women do is go to shrinks and that mental illness is just a way to get attention (in front of me that has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt) and called the mother of his child a whore. I was so stunned and uncomfortable, so I was just quiet and wanted to sink in to the ground. He was also so extremely scary and angry that if I had said something it would only have gotten worse.

I don´t know how to handle this. I never ever thought she would be okay to live with a person that has these types of views. I know a lot about domestic violence and how extremely hard it is to leave. But that does not make it easier for me to handle. I just want to say to her that this is not going to end well and that she needs to break up with him, but I am afraid that if I do, she will never talk to me again and then she would only have him since she does not have a lot of friends. I have thought about telling her parents to keep a look out for any sort of abusive behaviors, but I don´t know how much he has charmed them and if my friend would find out, it would probably just be a shitshow. I have recently started thinking about if I should say something to her about it. But I don´t know how because she has had a few friends tell her that they don´t like him and son on, but she does not listen to them and just think they are full of shit since “they don´t know the real him and I am the only one that understands him”.

I am really worried and since I am not a racist and sexist have a very hard time understanding how she can be okay with him saying and thinking these things. I am so sad and frustrated over the entire situation since I don´t want people that say and think these kinds of things around me and I am worried that the abuse (since I believe that he is mentally abusing her) will escalate. So my question is should I talk to her about it?

TL;DR! my friend is dating a racist and sexist and he is abusive towards her and I don´t know how to handle it.

Posted Dec 16, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

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