How to Encourage a Friend to Leave a Cheating Husband

Giving advice is not the answer. When trying to help a friend, you must be kind, compassiate, a good listener, and ultimately provide needed empowerment to release yourself from being the rescuer.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• acceptance of human nature.

1. It’s just human nature, for most of us anyway, to want to help others, especially a friend. But the bottom line is, you can’t. The first step is accepting this. For the most part, your friend will most likely interpret your “encouragement”, as trying to tell her what to do. She will listen, but will not follow through. Nothing you can say or do will make her leave.
2. But there are things you can do to help. Be a friend. Let the person know you understand that they are going through a difficult time. Be a listener, big time. Let them talk about what she goes through with this person. Make statements that show “I hear you and I’m there for you.” You can suggest counseling, not necessarily marriage counseling but personal counseling to help her get through this by talking to a professional. Hopefully, this process will lead her to do the inevitable—make a decision.
3. I have worked with battered women and I know that even physical abuse will not make a woman leave her abuser. Infidelity falls along the same lines. Ultimately, people will make their own decisions, hopefully before it’s too late.

Tips & Warnings

• I believe in self-empowerment. I would also like to suggest that you do not become an enabler for this person. What I mean is, although you want to be a compassionate and understanding friend, don’t try to be a savior. Do not make yourself endlessly available to listen to all of her woes. She will feel better while talking to you, but in a sense, this enables her to go back and carry on as always. When she feels overwhelmed again, she’ll go back to you for support. My advice for you would be to say something like, “I know you are having a difficult time right now, but you know how I feel about it. I’ve already asked you to consider either leaving or getting some professional help, and now it’s up to you. Because I care about you, I want you to understand that you need to make a decision about what you are going to do.”
• Good luck to you as a friend. It is always difficult for us to see those we care about going through a crisis such as this. And remember the best thing you can do for your friend is not that you can solve her problems, but to show that you have faith in her ability to do what is best for her.