Advice Sought : Intervening on an Enabler
Hello everyone,
I am here because I feel lost at sea regarding a close friend and her family. I am speaking on behalf of myself and a few concerned friends. We are looking for advice and are considering how to intervene on the situation. Most online resources only give information regarding intervening on the addict, and not the enabler.
The situation:
Her husband has had a mild drinking problem since we've known him but in the last 2 years it has gotten so bad that her denial of the problem has increased to match it. He drinks daily to the point of drunkenness. He is a stay at home dad while she works. He has increasingly shut us out, we do not see him if it's not with her.
In the past she has come to us for support regarding how to address the issue and we have tried to be there for her, but now there is no talking about it. According to her things have "never been better". Even recent incidents with his drunk behavior in our presence have not been acknowledged, so much that we feel like we are losing her as a friend. We have left the door open to talk and support but there has been no response. We have been tactful in how we have done this, but it's gotten so bad it is no longer possible for us to pretend everything is ok as she says.
She is a very loving mother, very hard working and strong willed; she does not ask for help often. Sadly she also does not have support from anywhere else whether friends or family. We have known her since before she met him and have been like family to her in place of her own.
The situation became very serious recently when we received information which she does not know regarding a sexual assault/attempted rape (police were not involved) against one of their close friends. The person who was assaulted wants nothing to do with them any more and does not want us to let her know about the assault.
This puts us in a very difficult situation, we feel powerless and at the same time like we must act. They have a small child and we care about all of them dearly. We feel like if we do not confront her enabling behavior the situation will get much worse and we will lose any ability to help we have at the moment.
Our fear is that she denies any problem and pushes us away entirely when we try to reach out and that we lose any ability to help them.
Does anyone have any experience with dealing with this and general advice?
Thank you