iheijoushin Posted December 13, 2006 Posted December 13, 2006 I have a good friend I and many of my other friends are concerned about. He recently graduated from our College and has begun attending graduate school. He is living with his college girlfriend of several years. In the beginning of their relationship, she was active and was very involved in her schoolwork and hobbies, but as she neared graduation (she was one year ahead of the friend), she became increasingly apathetic towards life and spent more and more time sleeping and eating in their bed, barely venturing out to work on her thesis project. After she graduated she moved back in with her parents, and the two spent alternate weekends driving or taking the bus to visit eachother (they lived 1.5 hours apart after her graduation), and this resulted in the friend almost entirely neglecting his other friendships. Since they've graduated he has taken care of everything for the two of them. He pays for the apartment, groceries, does all the housework (including cleaning up after his girlfriend who is very messy), and does all the cooking and shopping in addition to graduate school. On the other hand, the girlfriend refuses to work due to "depression" (a self-diagnosis, she is very skeptical of therapy though has recently begun going to a therapist he seems to have no idea of the destructive world she's build around herself), or even leave the apartment. This is often very extreme, an example being that dispite the fact that the girlfriend has a car and they live a mere 8 minute or less drive from the grocery store, she makes him take the subway to the grocery store which he then has to walk to, and carry the groceries all the way back on the subway. My friend is exhausted all the time from all the extra work he does, and often seems very unhappy and resigned to his situation. A huge part of the problem is that he feels (and is correct) that his girlfriend is completely and utterly dependent on him. She has grown used to having everything done for her, and possibly as a result has built a fatalistic philosophy that life isn't worth living if she has to feel pain (which she defines as doing anything that does not bring her immediate happiness) so she doesn't ever do anything that might "hurt" her. As a result her behavior is incredibly selfish and egocentric beyond reason. She is completely oblivious to how her behavior effects other people, or would change since if challenged she would probably defend herself because of her self-diagnosed depression. This has isolated my friend socially as she often guilt trips or even manipulates him into not going out or even really having any life outside of the apartment or besides her. She often has friends or family over without asking him, but typically only consents to him having his own friends over with much protesting and negotiation. It is clear to me, that he is very unhappy in his current situation and that this is one of the most destructive yet not-openly-abusive relationships I have ever been privy to. He is also deeply compassionate, and cares a lot for his girlfriend still. He most likely feels trapped because she is so completely dependent on him and doesn't want to hurt her, even at great expense to himself. So my question is what can I and others do to help our friend? I am particularly concerned since I don't want things are moving beyond a quiet simmer and I and others don't want to see things escalate to some kind of explosive conclusion. The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that his girlfriend used to be friends with us too, and only became distant as she changed. How can we best support our friend without letting our personal feelings that the relationship can only be fixed by a break-up affect the discussion? We want him to know his friend support him and he can talk to us about what's going on if he chooses to. Finally, does anyone have any advice on how to bring up and start the discussion? Thanks in advance for any thoughts or ideas that you share with me!
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