Advice regarding my wife's friend

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TomS

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My wife has a dear friend of many years who is involved in a messy situation regarding her ex boyfriend. It seems that they were living in the same house (but in different rooms so I’m told). She was helping him get on his feet by providing a place for him to stay. She was taking some of the money he receives from SSD/SSI to pay the house expenses. It so happens that he was stealing her money and doing drugs and she kicked him out. Since then he has been harassing her to no end. My wife told me that today he tried to run her off the road in his car.

They have restrianing orders against each other, but he seems to keep on bothering her. My wife and I fear for her friend’s safety. I know that these kind of things escalate in violence. The man is is need of psychiatric help because he does not take his medications as prescribed by his doctor. My wife’s friend has a habit of trying to “fix” up down and out people, but I think she should be wiser in choosing who to be romantically involved with.

She may lose her job because of him. It was a company car he tried to run off the road.

Is there any advice out there. The guy is in jail, but will probably be released in a couple of days. My wife, her friend and I are members of AA. This is where she meets these people.

God Bless You All! and thank you,

Tom

P.S. I think she is Ukranian Orthodox in religious belief but I’m not sure. She told my wife she would like to talk to a priest about this situation
 
Hi Tom. I’m a member of AA as well. As far as I know your friend should have the restraining order on her person and call the cops whenever something like this happens. Another aspect of recovery is learning to set “boundaries”, which is what your wife’s friend needs to do. Although, she is in recovery for her alcoholism, she apparently is in no position to help another to the degree she has been-at the expense of her safety & now her livelihood. From what you have described she is also co-dependent as well-I know I have the same behavior pattern as she, trying to help those who are manipulating and quite frankly refuse to do anything for themselves. In reality it is a form of control and to be in kaos. She needs to be aware of that or at least be willing to look at that. I know that for me I felt very responsible for whoever I was trying to help, and guilt seemed to rule me. I have a much harder time discerning if I’m being helpful or being codependent and usually it’s my daughter (a recovering drug addict that points out when it is me being co-dependant)
Anyway, your friend does need to follow through with getting law enforcement involved…go to the police station. Everytime he breaks that restraining she needs to call the cops. That paper is worthless if she doesn’t follow through. The more she does nothing the more dangerous it could become, also there is a least a paper trail and this guy could have a history of doing this to others.
I hope this helps a bit.
 
She needs to report each and every violation of the restraining order to the police and document the harassment. It might also be a good idea for her to take a few karate lessons and learn the basics for owning and handling a gun. If she is now living alone, I would consider going down to the animal shelter and picking out a nice, big dog. You are right, these situations have the huge potential to end in violence and one can’t be too careful. Is there someone that she will listen to, that can take her aside and convince her that her misplaced compassion is really not helping anyone and steer her into more productive and fulfilling volunteer activities?
 
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