Let us imagine a scene. You have invited your friend Jean over for coffee. When you have served the coffee, you notice that her face is swollen.

'How did you get that awful bruise on your face?' you ask.

Your friend looks very uneasy. Her body language spells out deep embarrassment.

'Oh, I tripped and fell against a door-post' she stutters. You inspect the bruise and suggest she should visit the surgery to get it treated. But all your advice seems to foster only a growing panic in your friend.

You suspect that it is not just an accidental mishap that has caused the bruise. So you try a gentle question about her partner Fred:

'Did Fred hit you?'

After various evasive replies your friend admits that he did.

You offer another question: 'How often does this happen?'

You find out that it has been happening now over quite a long period, whenever they quarrel.

This is the time to explore various options:

Would your friend Jean, and Fred her husband, agree to see a marriage counselor? If they are religious people, would they agree to go and see their Vicar or parish priest?

What does Jean know about Fred's early years? Was he abused when he was a child? Often abused children become abusers themselves when they become adults, as if they are trying to compensate for the scars that still hurt.

If counseling is not an option, because Fred adamantly refuses to have other people prying into his private affairs, then it may be that Jean should consider a separation. No woman should have to put up with physical abuse from her partner.

Of course, there are very important issues here. Does your friend have children? Is she financially utterly dependent upon her husband? Is she capable of getting a job and looking after herself? It is a sad fact that many abused women are unwilling to contemplate leaving their abusive husbands or partners, as the prospect of leaving fills them with a sense of deep insecurity. They also hope that matters will improve. They hope that their husbands will change.

One option your friend might be willing to consider would be going to stay for a while in a refuge home for abused women. A short stay there could have some good effects:

(a) It might bring home with very great impact to Fred that if he wants to save his marriage then he must change his behavior.

(b) It would provide your friend Jean a breathing space to find a new job or consider what she really wants to do.

(c) At the refuge home she would find many others in a very similar situation to herself and from their shared experiences she could gain sympathy, support, advice, counseling of a very practical kind that would enable her to decide upon the next course of action.

Then if your friend Jean decides that leaving Fred is the right course of action, there is the need for devising a practical plan. Some women can simply pack and leave, especially if they have money of their own.

A preliminary question is whether your friend Jean should tell Fred that she simply cannot put up any more with his violence and will leave. That option might provoke Fred to renewed violence, or at least a storm of verbal abuse that would be very upsetting for both of them. If this seems to be highly probable, then Jean ought to leave Fred when he is away from home.

If your friend Jean has a job, then it is important for her to tell her colleagues and staff at her place of work that if her husband calls and demands to see her, his requests should be refused as she does not want to see him.

It is important that if Jean decides to leave Fred that she should not disclose where she is going.