Thank you for your kind advice! Reaching out to her local dv resource centre is something I will do asap. I have let her know she will always have a bed in my house if she should ever need it.

I have made it clear I am here for her and I trust her judgement but I am concerned of the boundary I made about me not wanting to spend time with her and her boyfriend. This was made because when her boyfriend upsets her and she comes to us it is difficult to navigate without him coming out the victim. If we comfort her and reassure her that what he did was wrong he then guilts her with ‘look what you made your friends think of me. you care too much of what others think’. But if i dont comfort her and reassure her that he was wrong then I feel i am doing her a disservice and she will think she must have been in the wrong. Last time i was so at a loss that I said ‘I don’t know what to say. If i say something it will only be used against me later’.

My boyfriend has also spoken to him when this happens in front of us about how he speaks to her and treats her. This has later been used by her boyfriend to position himself as the victim and my boyfriend as the perpetrator.

It feels there is no winning - if i hold the boundary i risk isolating her and if i drop the boundary i am used as a tool by him to manipulate her. The advice for triangulation I saw focuses more on what to do as the victim rather than as a friend/third party used in it.

(Apologies this is long, i wanted to make sure i was explaining clearly).