tl;dr: Friend (26f) met a guy online (27m), he shows many emotionally abusive traits and red flags. He makes her feel bad about herself, but she insists she wants to pursue a relationship with him. She consistently brings up his negative behavior to me and I am frustrated at this point because she will take no advice. I don't want her hurt or to get in a bad relationship but she won't listen, she also continues to bring him up. I'm at a loss for what to do.

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My best friend is diving head first into an abusive relationship knowingly. She has never said a positive thing about this guy to me, every day - and I'm not exaggerating, literally every day she shows me or tells me something he's done that can range from.

-Accusing her of being a liar or untrustworthy because she did not reply as quickly as he'd like

-Berate her for hours because she did not do something up to his approval

-Tell her that he loves her and wants to be with her and meet up in person and then when she mentions wanting to meet up acting cold to her and accusing her of being clingy

-CONSISTENTLY making her feel stupid or straight up accusing her of being stupid or not being able to take a joke

--Note: His "jokes" are him saying things like "I'm going to go find a new girl" or similar asshole things.

She bought him food one time because he mentioned he was hungry and had no money and nothing in the fridge and guess what? She got told she was awful for doing that and how could she put him in "that sort of situation" by having to answer the door for the delivery driver. I will admit he later then apologized for that one.

Now here's the thing, this guy makes it clear he does not want to be in a relationship that they should just be friends without a label who constantly say they love each other. He, however, leads on and hints that he wants more than he wants things to become more serious. When my friend reciprocates that feelings she's made out to be a villain for "hurting him" because it hurts him they can't be together in person yet.

He also ONLY wants to talk if she can give him undivided attention. Ex: If she works late he will ignore her because she can't watch a movie with him at that time. However, if she needs to talk to someone or wants to hang out he claims she's clingy.

I know this isn't physical abuse, but IMO its mental abuse. She consistently feels like shit, like she isn't worth anything, and sadly was so happy the other day because he was treating her nice and she said it herself that this level of kindness would not happen for a while.

Another thing I'm concerned about is that she's taking up his bad habits. He is an alcoholic, he gets smashed every night and when he can't he gets pissed. My friend has been drinking every night, not getting totally wasted but in an almost peer pressure sort of way and seeing as both of her parents are alcoholics as well, I'm concerned for her. This is all new behavior btw.

I have told her this, she constantly complains to me about him and I don't hold back and tell her exactly what I think is going on and here's the thing - She AGREES, or at least she consistently says "yeah, you're right" and then goes back to following him around like a lost puppy dog.

I don't ENJOY being constantly pissed off and worried about my friend. But now she just casually brings up all this shit every day and never takes my advice. IRL we pretty much are each other's only support so I feel like I can't really not help her but at this point, my anger is transferring to him to her.

SHE understands what's going on. SHE has no obligation to talk to him. But, she also enjoys being around him and the idea of him, at this point I see no reason to continue to help her. I hate to say it but she knows very well what's going on and we've talked about the warning signs of mental and emotional abuse and she honestly doesn't care enough for herself to do anything about it. He's not threatening her to stay, if anything he actively tells her to gtfo of his life (Then does a 180 and reels her back in with niceties).

I guess at this point I feel conflicted. I don't want to support her if she continues on in this relationship It would hurt, she's my only real friend but she doesn't care enough about herself to listen, so I can't do anything anyways. But at the same time, if anything worse happened I'd just hate myself, I don't want her to get hurt. I don't want her to suffer. But at what point does my responsibility as a friend end and hers begin? How can I get her to see what's going on without her getting hurt by him? On top of that, I'm just getting so snappy with her when it comes to talking about him, I don't get why she brings him up if she doesn't take my advice, I don't want to snap at her but I'm just so frustrated at this point.

She's such a smart, wonderful, kind person and deserves the world, but I guess their "love" is all that matters.

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