Sorry for the length of this, a bit of backstory first.
My best friend (female, im male) has been going out with this guy for about 8 months. She is Asian (Muslim) and he isnt and this causes problems. Obviously her family wont accept this fact so they are currently in a 'secret' relationship where (most of) her family do not know, the ones that do know strongly advise her against carrying on.
Firstly i'd just like to clear up the fact that I am not interested in her at all apart from being friends (the reason i say this is that it has come up in the past by others).
This guy is a decent guy, except when things aren't going ok - then he turns into a total jerk. Because she is constantly lying to her family about where she's going and who she's with etc etc it ges her down and several times they have split up with this as her reasoning. He has always convinced her to try again and she always does.
He is very insecure and doesnt trust her at all, regularly accusing her of cheating on him (with me, and just about anyone else) although he is very quick with the "i'm sorrys". This is not any of my business really, and i always said to myself that I wouldn't get involved, but the last time they split - after a long period of her being unhappy with the situation - he got alone with her and used what i would call emotional blackmail:
"I only got this new car cos of you, now i'll have to take it back", who buy's a new car because of ur g/f of 2 months?
"I only joined the gym because of you, now i cant cancel my membership for another 5 months"
"Oh yea by the way, I cut myself on my arms because you're breaking up with me", now, the first 2 may seem a bit petty to some people, but this?
She is a very caring person, sometimes too much so and people take advantage of her which i feel he is now (he does this kind of thing a lot, but not normally to this extent). She now feels like she can't get out of this situation because he will hurt himself or do something stupid.
She quite often tells me that she doesnt know what to do and is confused, she knows that I think she should break it off with him (easier said than done, i know i know) but not the extent of my reasons ( a) he doesnt trust her b) blackmailing her c) she is really sad alot of the time because of this whole thing) but she then just carries on as normal. Until next time, which then they are in even deeper and it affects her more. Its like watching her run into a wall, getting up and taking a bigger run up the next time. if you keep running into a wall you're gonna get hurt
My question to you is - should I say this to her? Explain that I think it is affecting her in a bad way and maybe try and convince her to finish it?
I am quite confident that it will be for the best in the 'longterm' but of course it doesnt really affect me apart from my friend being happy/sad so its easy for me to say this. She tells me everything and I only want whats best for her but I dont know if i should get involved in this - it's like the old saying "Love is blind" i guess.
If anyone has any questions I will do my best to answer,
thanks in advance
wow longer than i thought, sorry again
