Crosspost "My brother-in-law is being abused but he's staying with her. How can we help him?" from /r/abuse:

My wife is trying to get her brother to escape his abusive girlfriend. On Thursday he was hiding at a friends house and he was ready to fly from Ohio (where they live together) to my mother-in-law's house in New York. Then suddenly - though, perhaps unsurprisingly - he went back home to his abusive girlfriend. Now he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. I don't know for sure but I'd bet that his abuser didn't let him leave (AKA she probably threatened to punish him by never letting him see his 2-year old daughter ever again).

As a survivor, myself, of more mild abuse (social/emotional and financial abuse) I'm riddled with anxiety by this because I was there: I was told I'd never see my son again so I stayed for way too long. I feel so helpless sitting here on the sidelines unable use my experience to help both him and my niece. My wife has been trying to get him to talk to me about what I learned and to formulate a plan. But he's just not open to it. What should we do? How can we convince him to come up with a plan and start taking steps?

I feel like he could at least be laying the legal groundwork for a future escape by documenting evidence now. Getting doctor's notes from his physician and psychologist, writing journal entries, making recordings and describing them in evidentiary affidavits of abuse, etc. etc. That way when he's ready he could use the evidence to attempt to get a restraining order and emergency temporary custody orders which would protect my niece from complete alienation. I mean, I know that realistically he has ZERO chance of getting primary custody: he's a dad, he's black, and custody courts are notoriously biased. But with an emergency order he might force his abuser to allow overnights on weekends so then at least my niece will have a dad ... not just a scared and unwelcome visitor who writes a check every month. These are the things that I *WISH* somebody had told me when I was in the thick of it, but he doesn't want to hear it right now. How can I get him to hear it?

My mother-in-law hasn't been taking the situation very well. Sometimes when she calls her son (my brother-in-law) she's heard him get physically and verbally abused. My wife taught her how to record calls and I instructed her that in addition to recording next time she should write what she witnessed in a journal immediately after a call (and to describe the contents of any relevant recordings so the digital files have a paper trail with a date on it).

What's your advice - What should we do? How can we reach him and convince him to make a plan for himself and his daughter and to start gathering evidence?

Posted by hendrixski | 13 December 2020 | Link