Looking for advice for my friend

Hello Everyone, I am new here. There seems a lot of information, but my friend and her family are currently in crisis.

I'm seeking advice / opinions and realise the laws may be different where you live. However, any experience or stories, of positive results for women and children escaping an abuser will be invaluable to her in the counselling and grief process she is going to go through.

The summary of the story to date:
She: - lives in Canada
- lived Common-law with her ex husband for 11 years
- has two young children from this relationship
- works, and makes a reasonable salary
- is an admitted alcoholic, in recovery / relapse / AA and counselling right now.
- relates stories of abuse from her biological parents
- has experienced abuse in most of her relationships
- is living at a seperate physical address from the former family home
He: - is employed in a family business
- currently resides with the children
- has verbally abused her (as she relates conversations and has shown me text conversations)
- has physically abused her (I have photographed last Friday's 'session')
- has been raping her for 11 months
- states that in order to see the children, she must give him sexual favors
- has been continuning another relationship with another woman, openly in front of her for a year
or more

I'm sure that a lot of people will see familiar patterns.

Steps she has taken:
- counselling for her addiction issues
- we are firing her old attorney, and I'm hiring counsel from a firm I've worked with for many years, and had very positive results with
- we are working on obtaining visitation (supervised right now, she knows that she is not fit when she is drinking) orders per the court
- we are working on obtaining a protection order against her ex, barring all physical, and telephone contact.

We'll be relying on the help of a government agency here to provide the supervised visitations.

Ok, I'm sure in a forum where so many stories will share so many things in common with my friend's situation, I may be speaking redundantly.

I've furious about her situation and the fact she covered it up from her friends and family for years, but today she told me that 'she's done, and ready to do whatever we have to do to get my children'.

Advice or suggestions would be very much appreciated by us both.


Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hi, minou! It's great that she's getting her life together and she won't put up with his abuse anymore. It sounds like what she's been through is absolutely horrible.
You could tell her that she can come here to post her story if she likes. She could look into therapy for abused women (it might be free in Canada, tell her to look for special programs even) and/or she could go to a rape crisis center or shelter for abused women, where she might find advice or maybe even counseling/therapy.