TLDR: Even a lot of "wonderful" people absolutely suck. It's just heartbreaking how hard it is to find people who won't support an abuser.

15ish years ago, I was abused by a partner (we were all in our early/mid 30s). I'm polyamorous, just to put into context some of the things I'm going to write.

I had a person who I considered a platonic life partner (she felt the same way about me). I'll call her Clara. She had another person (Mai) who she decided was going to be her platonic life partner, if she was going to be polyamorous. For further context, we had a ton of polyamorous friends, but when we met, we were both monogamous. I decided that polyamory was a better fit for me. As she and I got closer, she decided it was a better fit for her too, about a year after I decided. Her other platonic life partner, Mai, was already polyamorous and was thrilled when Clara and I also decided that polyamory was a better fit for us.

Long story short, Mai was controlling and abusive. She was super-sneaky and "good" at it, in that we had a relationship (somewhat romantic, but not sexual) for over two years before the abuse started, and then it started really, really subtly. Always couched in "looking out for me". She tried to make me dependent on her, she tried to get rid of the friends I had before I met her by spreading lies about them, really, really horrible lies, including accusing one of them of rape and another of serious abuse. She tried to control my other friendships and my relationship with Clara. She tried to break up me and my main partner (who is now my husband). Ultimately, I went NC with both Clara and Mai. It is my understanding that Clara finally, finally saw Mai for what she is, moved far away, and also went NC with Mai. On one hand, good for her, but OTOH, she can get fucked for her years of excuses and enabling. I never want to speak to her again either, and I regret the years I spent with her.

All of us had a mutual long-distance friend (Elena) who was aware that we had a "falling out", but Elena thought it was all "interpersonal drama" and didn't want to get involved. In part because Elena was long-distance, I didn't push it.

Elena recently came back to town, and we met for drinks. She was also seeing Mai. She asked if I would be up to doing a dinner with a group of folks, including Mai, and I said no, sorry, I never want to see or be near Mai again. I let her know kindly but firmly that my feelings about Mai were never going to change.

Elena and I met up for drinks. She finally asked me for my views on what happened, and I explained it all to her. Elena explained literally ALL OF IT away as "Mai has autism" (she was apparently recently diagnosed). "Mai has autism and she did things that 'weren't great' because she didn't know how to handle fearing that Clara might replace her with you".

I'm sorry, but no. That is such horseshit. It is such absolute horseshit. Even if it's true, you don't accuse people of RAPE to try and control others. You don't accuse people of serious abuse and psychological harm because you're jealous of them. You don't hide people's medications and try to make them physically dependent upon you because of your fucking insecurity.

I told Elena all this. And she was sympathetic, but at the end of the day, her view was that it all really sucked and was really sad, but Mai didn't know how to deal with her feelings, so she did what she did and hey, she's in therapy now and it's definitely getting better.

As a result, I don't really consider Elena a friend anymore. We were pretty close once. We had already drifted away from each other to a degree. But it's just a bit heart-breaking to me because I KNOW that Elena considers herself an ally and a person who is anti-abuse. And I guess she probably is, some of the time.

But when it came to being someone close to her, and I guess someone with "good enough" excuses for their abusive behavior, it's...ok. It's acceptable. It's understandable.

It really breaks my heart. It makes it hard to try to open up to new people and find new friends. I have a couple of very close friends, and honestly, the majority of people I've opened up to and tried to be friends with...even when they look great "on paper", they're the same way. They excuse abuse. A lot of them turn out to be struggling with substance abuse. I'm in my late 40s now, and I guess part of it IS that people who were managing or masking their substance abuse better at an earlier age can't do it anymore. And then they act abusively.

At this point, I am grateful for the four people who I consider truly, truly close friends. I just realized, writing this, that every SINGLE one of them has gone through what I have gone through: realizing that someone close, someone who they really, deeply love, is abusive and they made the hard choice to cut them out. Even though it meant losing friends, losing family. I'm probably really lucky that I have four people who I feel that way about.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. I guess it's that if anybody else is struggling with so many friends turning out to make exceptions for that "special abuser" in their life, well, I feel you. It seems like that is currently the norm, and it's really sad. I'm sorry we all have to deal with this, and I'm sorry there are not better legal and societal structures in place to keep all of us safe.