What Do You Do When You Push Away Someone You Love Because You Were Both Too Young And Scared, Only To

What do you do when you push away someone you love because you were both too young and scared, only to find them years later in an unhappy, physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive marriage? Is it right to try to convince her to leave? If I never stopped loving her, does wanting her to be safe and happy - even if it’s not with me - make me a terrible person? If she reached out to me after so long and still has feelings enough to want me back in her life as someone she trusts and loves, does caring for her enough to tell her she needs to run before it’s too late make me seem jealous? I do not want to be in her equation to stay or flee this overly-gender-roled, traditional, “christian”, repressive, abusive, marriage. I want her to be happy. I grew up in a household like that. My father using my stepmother as a brood mare and refusing to let her do anything outside the house. She always hated my brother and I. She was always cold and mean. It wasn’t until years later I found a bottle of anti-depressants she’d had hidden away in a spice cabinet (a place my father would never look). It took me years longer to realize the damage you sustain when you force yourself into a relationship with someone who isn’t who they claim, someone who wants you to change everything about you, someone who only wants to use you. It was killing my stepmother. It almost killed me. How could I on good conscience not want someone I still love to save herself from becoming warped, worn down, trapped in even something so binding as marriage. Before we even broke up, I knew leaving her was a huge mistake. I knew there was a risk she could be caught up in a near-shotgun wedding with some piece of trash who had no perspective outside his sheltered, “christian” life. I wanted to believe it would never happen. I wanted to believe she’d grow up, too, and find someone who loved her the way I should have, the way I would now that I’ve grown, too. Wanted to believe after these years she’d found that. She found the nightmare of my childhood... Is it wrong to want her to save herself? Is it wrong to tell her to stop rationalizing against his threats, his (for now) limited physical violence, his deception from who he was in dating to a 180° as married, his constant control and belittling, his refusal to acknowledge how hard she works as a nurse going to school part time while trying to stay physically healthy (This guy’s a fat POS, by the way [Not to belittle those who are overweight/big; he actually ridicules her for working out while he sits around on his fat ass eating food he expects her to prepare for him and refuses to do anything around the house after his cushy, 9-3, bank job.].), and his unconscionable mentality he is perfect and she should be changing for him? I cannot physically help her. We are far apart. I want her to be strong and make the decision for herself. She can, but she’s afraid. I would pay for her plane ticket away from there. I would drive there, if I could make it in time. I need her to be safe from that kind of life. Yes, she chose to marry him. She got caught up in her dreams as a young girl. Before you could really see what was happening, she was in this. She’s been married two years now. The first went by so fast. This last one has seen her finally realizing where she is. In this last year, she changed the most from what I remember. She’s still gorgeous, smart, wonderful, caring, loving, but it wasn’t until now she learned what I learned from my own abusive relationships. I regret letting her go enough in the first place. To lose her entirely to... that... would be too much.