[The Lost One]

Hello everyone,

I've come to you at the end of my rope. My sister is a stressed out young woman, who is preparing to leave for college soon. Her boyfriend is younger than her, so he won't be going yet. They fight often, and both can be quite cruel to each other (verbally). However lately they seem especially troubled; they quite nearly broke up, and at one point he mentioned thinking about killing himself. She told me this out of desperation, and I talked to both of them online to try to smooth things over.

However both of them widely refuse outside help. He just hates all help in general, and she won't accept advice if she doesn't like it. For example when I suggested she call a hotline when he made the mention of suicidal thoughts she refused the notion, citing it would 'ruin his life'. She also won't talk to either of our parents (which I don't entirely blame her for), the pastor who helped me deal with family troubles, or anyone for the matter. She can't decide what to do, and seems determined to try to help him.

Both sets of parents aren't really the greatest in the world. While not physically abusive our Dad is emotionally abusive, and our Mom is distant. His parents are widely unavailable and from what my sister implied his Dad is cruel verbally as well.

Honestly my head is spinning at this point. I know its teen drama, but with how stressed my sister is and his mention of suicide its getting pretty serious, and I don't know what to do. Do I betray her trust (and likely destroy our relationship for a long time) and rat him out? Do I keep quiet and hope it was just teen drama and nothing more? Help please. >_<;;

[Soul Quake]

Maybe you should get to the bottom of why she is in a verbally abusive relationship, what she is gaining from being with him, and why she is putting up with this.

How would you "rat him out"? Who would you go to?

[MyUserName]

Tricky situation you find youself in...

This is what i would do...
The bf - I would tell him that if he doesnt decide himself to get professional
help from his own free will, tell him straight out you will have to pass on this
information to someone else.
Your daughter - do exactly as Soul Take said.

[lynn P.]

Good advice so far. It sounds like he's trying to sabotage her leaving for college. Tell her nothing should stand in the way of her education and this is an unhealthy dysfunctional relationship. If he keeps threatening suicide, tell her to call 911 because he needs a professional and she should also tell his parents. He may indeed be serious OR he could be manipulating her. Tell her you love her and don't want to see history repeat itself - meaning if she saw her dad emotionally abuse she could be more likely to tolerate it with her own partner. This can be the greatest time in her life as long as he doesn't stand in her way.

[CedarS]

You would not be ratting anyone out. Abuse thrives in secret and makes us feel like we are bad if we tell. You can tell. You can raise the alarm, you can tell people that you are concerned. Suicidal threats are serious. And this is too much for you to have to carry on your shoulders.

Raise the alarm, tell people, call in help for yourself too.

If your sister won't call the hotline, you can call. I've done that myself in the past, called hotlines to get help for me as I deal with friends and family going through abusive and suicidal situations.

If you hear that he is making suicidal threats currently, you can call the police. They can do a welfare check. Let them figure out what to do next. You can set really clear boundaries and delegate what isn't your job to whoever does those jobs - in other words it isn't up to you to have to figure out when someone is seriously suicidal or not. You can call in community support and let the authorities do their work.

Set boundaries and let people have whatever consequences come their way for their behavior. Don't try to protect people in silence. You deserve better.