By Iblal IqbalPart of: Hidden Forms of Abuse: Recognition, Protection, and Recovery
The most useful way to help someone being emotionally abused is to stay in their life without making them choose. Emotional abuse works by narrowing a person’s world until the only voice left is the one hurting them. So a friend who keeps turning up has already undone part of it.
We wrote this page for you, the person trying to help someone being emotionally abused, not for them. It covers what to say and what quietly backfires. It also explains the one application you can lawfully make on their behalf in England and Wales, and the point at which our non-molestation order specialists can step in.
Key takeaways
- Emotional abuse is domestic abuse in law. The statutory definition expressly covers “psychological, emotional or other abuse”. It applies between people aged 16 or over who have a personal connection (Domestic Abuse Act 2021, s.1).
- No offence carries that name. When it reaches a criminal court, the charge is controlling or coercive behaviour, which carries up to five years (Serious Crime Act 2015, s.76).
- You cannot apply for their court order. Only a person associated with the respondent can apply for a non-molestation order. That means them, not you (Family Law Act 1996, s.42).
- There is one application you can make. Clare’s Law lets you ask the police about a partner’s past. GOV.UK confirms that a worried friend or relative can apply for a disclosure on behalf of someone you know.
- Children in the home are victims too. A related child may see, hear or experience the effects of the abuse. That child is a victim in their own right (Domestic Abuse Act 2021, s.3).
Urgent help for someone being emotionally abused
If you believe someone is in danger right now, call 999. If the person at risk ever has to call 999 from a mobile and cannot speak, the Silent Solution system takes the call. A 20-second recorded message asks them to press 55. Only then does the call go through to the police. The official guide is clear that pressing 55 does not allow police to track your location. On a landline, the Silent Solution system does not apply at all.
Helplines will talk to you, not only to the person suffering the abuse. Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247. In Wales, the Welsh Government’s Live Fear Free helpline is on 0808 80 10 800, also 24 hours. It says in terms that it is there for a family member, a friend, or someone you worry about. For male victims, the Men’s Advice Line is on 0808 801 0327, Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm. Galop’s helpline for LGBT+ victims is on 0800 999 5428.
What are the signs someone is being emotionally abused?
From the outside you rarely see the abuse itself. What you see instead is the shape it leaves. They check their phone before answering you and have stopped making plans. They also explain their partner’s behaviour before you have asked about it.
Home Office statutory guidance lists the behaviours involved in emotional or psychological abuse at paragraph 68. They include repeated belittling and public humiliation. They also include the silent treatment used to create fear, sleep deprivation, and threats to harm other people or pets. You will not witness most of that. These are the changes friends and relatives tend to notice instead:
- They have gone quiet. Replies get slower and shorter, and group plans stop being possible.
- They check before they answer. Small decisions, including whether they can see you, go to someone else first.
- They defend their partner before you have criticised them. The defence arrives before the complaint.
- Money has become strange. They cannot spend their own wages, or have no idea what is in an account in both names.
- They describe themselves the way their partner does. Forgetful, too sensitive, difficult, lucky to be put up with.
- The children have changed. Quieter around one parent, watchful, or suddenly the family peacekeeper.
None of this proves anything on its own. That said, our guide to hidden forms of abuse explains the wider picture. Our pages on gaslighting and the silent treatment also cover two tactics you may be watching without a name for them.
How to help someone being emotionally abused: the first conversation
Say what you have seen, and say it once. Then make clear you are not going anywhere. The first conversation is not about a decision. Its aim is to make you the person they come back to when they are ready.
- Pick a moment where they are alone and unhurried. Not in front of their partner, and not by a message that could be read by someone else.
- Describe behaviour, not the person. “You went quiet when he took your phone” lands very differently from “he is abusive”.
- Ask, then stop talking. “How are things at home, really?” followed by silence does more than any argument.
- Believe the first version. People test you with a small disclosure before they risk a bigger one.
- Say the sentence that matters. “Whatever you decide, I am still here.” That is the one they will remember in six months.
- Leave a number, not a plan. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 is theirs to call when they choose.
Statutory guidance is blunt about why this takes time. Victims may blame themselves or fear the consequences of leaving. They may not know where to seek help, or may fear stigma and shame if they try. Patience is not passivity here. Rather, it is the strategy.
Your instincts, and what actually helps someone being emotionally abused
| Your instinct | What it does to them | What helps instead |
|---|---|---|
| Telling them to leave | Adds one more person issuing instructions | Asking what they want to happen next |
| Confronting the other person | Removes their cover and raises the risk at home | Keeping your concern between you and them |
| Collecting proof for them | Creates material a court may never accept, and may invade privacy | Encouraging them to keep their own dated notes, safely |
| An ultimatum | Costs them the last friend they have left | Staying reachable with no conditions attached |
| Going quiet when they go back | Confirms what they have been told about you | Getting back in touch first, as if nothing had happened |
How to help a friend in an abusive relationship without making it worse
When you help someone being emotionally abused, two things reliably make it worse: confronting the other person, and gathering evidence yourself. Both feel like action, but both move risk onto the person you are trying to protect.
Do not confront them. Suppose an abuser learns that someone outside the house can see what is happening. The usual response is to tighten control of the phone, the money and the friendships. As a result, you will have spent your friend’s safety on your own sense of having done something.
Do not record or gather evidence on their behalf. The Family Justice Council published guidance for people without a lawyer in May 2025. It warns that covert recordings of another adult “might be seen by the court as an invasion of privacy of the recorded individual”. The court “may even decide this amounts to harassment”. In general, courts also do not approve of covert recordings of children (Family Justice Council guidance on covert recordings). Material you collect is usually worth very little. Worse, the other side can turn it against the person you collected it for.
Keeping a record safely
What does help someone being emotionally abused is a record they control. If they want to keep dated notes, they can keep them somewhere their partner cannot reach. That might be a notebook at your house, or an email account on a device they do not share. You can hold the notebook. But you do not need to read it.
Perhaps the pattern you are seeing matches what our page on narcissistic abuse describes. Or perhaps you cannot understand why they keep going back. Either way, trauma bonding and DARVO explain more of it than any advice to “just leave” ever will.
Can you report domestic abuse for someone else?
Yes. Anyone can report domestic abuse to the police, and you do not need the victim’s permission. Call 999 if there is an immediate risk, and 101 if there is not.
What you cannot do, however, is control what happens next. The offence of controlling or coercive behaviour is in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. A prosecution turns on the effect on the victim, which usually means the police need an account from them.
The prosecution must show four things. First, the other person behaved that way repeatedly or continuously. Second, the two of them have a personal connection. Third, the behaviour had a serious effect: a fear of violence on at least two occasions, or serious alarm or distress. That distress must have a substantial adverse effect on day-to-day activities. Finally, the other person knew, or ought to have known, that it would have that effect. The maximum sentence is five years. Since 5 April 2023, the two people no longer need to live together. So the offence can now cover an ex-partner or a relative (SI 2023/406, reg. 3).
Reporting without their knowledge has a cost. If officers arrive and your friend is not ready, they may deny everything. They will usually work out who called, too. Before you do it, ask a helpline what a report will actually trigger in that force area. If you genuinely fear for someone’s life, make the call anyway.
When there are children in the home
If children live in the house, there is a second route. A local authority must make enquiries where it has reasonable cause to suspect that a child in its area “is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm” (Children Act 1989, s.47). A call to children’s services from a worried grandparent, neighbour or teacher is a common way to trigger that duty. Our page on domestic abuse and child contact explains how the family court treats it afterwards.
Clare’s Law: a check that helps someone being emotionally abused
Clare’s Law is the most useful step a friend or relative can lawfully take alone. The formal name is the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme. GOV.UK confirms that a worried friend or family member can apply for a disclosure on behalf of someone you know. The disclosure is about that person’s partner or ex-partner.
Two things about it are widely misunderstood, and both matter before you apply.
- The answer is unlikely to come to you. Home Office statutory guidance on the scheme deals with third-party applicants. It says a third party who applies “will not necessarily receive a disclosure as a more appropriate person to receive disclosure may be” the person at risk, or whoever is best placed to keep them safe. In other words, you are starting a process, not buying information.
- It takes about four weeks. The Home Office works to a 28-day timescale from application to answer. It is not a same-day safety measure, so it sits alongside a 999 call, never instead of one.
Section 77 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 put the scheme on a statutory footing. As a result, police forces must have regard to the guidance. Apply through the police force covering the area where the person at risk lives. Our guide to Clare’s Law sets out the process in full.
Before you act on their behalf
A Clare’s Law request or a report to the police changes what the other person knows, and when. Whether that helps or raises the risk turns on facts a guide cannot see. What has already been said? What evidence exists? Is a protective order the safer first move?
Book a free initial consultation
One of our specialists will give you initial advice on your situation.
Can you apply to court on their behalf?
In most of England and Wales, no. Only “a person who is associated with the respondent” can apply for a non-molestation order. A friend, colleague or neighbour is not an associated person (Family Law Act 1996, s.42).
The same door is shut on an occupation order, which decides who can live in the home. The applicant needs an entitlement to occupy it, or home rights in it. They must also be an associated person in relation to the other occupant (s.33). There is no fee for either application, and GOV.UK states plainly that there is no fee when you apply.
Domestic Abuse Protection Orders: the pilot exception
The one exception is the DAPO pilot. Domestic Abuse Protection Orders are in a pilot before national rollout. In a pilot area, a third party can apply for one on someone’s behalf with the court’s permission. The forms are DA1 and DA2. GOV.UK lists the pilot areas and start dates. Greater Manchester and the London boroughs of Croydon, Sutton and Bromley started on 27 November 2024. Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar, Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees followed on 5 March 2025. North Wales came next, on 28 April 2025. That covers the Isle of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham (GOV.UK guidance on DAPNs and DAPOs). Outside those areas, the same guidance tells people to apply for a non-molestation order at their nearest family court. It also notes that the police can apply for different orders.
A non-molestation order does not carry a power of arrest. It does something stronger. Breaking it is a criminal offence in its own right, carrying up to five years (Family Law Act 1996, s.42A). That distinction matters if you are trying to help someone being emotionally abused and you are the person they will ring at 2am. The answer then is 999, not the family court.
Helping a friend leave an abusive relationship: the part people get wrong
Leaving is not one decision. Nor is it automatically the safe option. Control that has been slipping tends to be at its most dangerous just before the abuser loses it. That is why plans made in a rush, on a good day, tend to fail.
The practical way to help someone being emotionally abused leave is to take the friction out of a decision that is not yours to make:
- Hold things, not decisions. A spare set of keys, copies of passports and birth certificates, a charged old phone, some cash at your house.
- Agree one code word. A single word in a message that means “come and get me”, with no explanation needed.
- Assume the phone is not private. Location sharing, a shared cloud account or a family phone plan can show where they went and who they called.
- Get the legal advice before the move, not after. Where the children sleep in the first fortnight can shape arrangements for months.
That last point is the one people most often discover too late. A protective order, an occupation order and the children’s arrangements all interact. The order of the applications changes the outcome. That is a conversation to have with a family lawyer before anyone packs a bag.
How to help my daughter in an abusive relationship, or a son, sister or parent
Family have one advantage a friend does not. When you help someone being emotionally abused as their parent or sibling, you can usually keep showing up without it looking like an intervention. You also have one disadvantage, which is that your fear is visible, and fear reads as pressure.
Parents of an adult child tend to arrive at the same three questions, and the law answers them clearly. You cannot apply for her order; she must. You can, however, make a Clare’s Law application about her partner. And grandchildren in the house are not bystanders in law. A related child who sees, hears or experiences the effects of the abuse is a victim of it (Domestic Abuse Act 2021, s.3).
The relationship may have left her unsure whether what she is living with counts at all. If so, we wrote our pages on toxic relationships and reactive abuse for her rather than for you. They are often easier to send than to say. Where the behaviour has followed her out of the relationship, see domestic harassment and stalking.
Is your help reaching someone being emotionally abused?
Two questions, and no score at the end. It is a way of seeing which of the useful things are already in place, and which are not.
There is no score. Anything you cannot tick yet is worth raising with a specialist. If you believe someone is in danger now, call 999.
The calls a checklist can’t make for you
- Whether what you are describing meets the legal definition of domestic abuse, or is heading there.
- Which order fits their situation, who has to apply for it, and in what order the applications should be made.
- What reporting it will actually set in motion where they live, and what it will not.
- Whether raising the children with a local authority protects them or hands the other parent an argument.
These turn on the facts, and they are far easier to get right before anyone acts.
Book a free initial consultation
One of our specialists will give you initial advice on the situation, including where you stand as the person trying to help.
Questions about helping someone being emotionally abused
How do you help someone who is being emotionally abused?
Stay in contact, believe what they tell you, and make clear your help has no conditions attached. Do not confront the other person and do not set a deadline for leaving. If you want to do something concrete, a Clare’s Law application about their partner is the one step a friend or relative can take alone.
What should you not say to someone in an abusive relationship?
Avoid “why don’t you just leave”, anything that makes them defend their partner, and any ultimatum about your own availability. Each one costs them a little more of the outside world. That is exactly what the behaviour sets out to do. Ask what they want to happen next instead.
Can I report domestic abuse for someone else?
Yes. Call 999 if there is an immediate risk and 101 if there is not. You do not need the victim’s permission. Be aware that a prosecution for controlling or coercive behaviour usually needs an account from the victim. A report made without their knowledge may not lead anywhere, and they may trace it back to you.
Can I apply for a non-molestation order for my friend?
Not in most of England and Wales. Only a person associated with the respondent can apply. That means the person suffering the abuse, not you. In the areas piloting Domestic Abuse Protection Orders, a third party can apply with the court’s permission. The forms are DA1 and DA2.
Should I collect evidence for them?
No. Family Justice Council guidance warns that a court may treat covertly recording another adult as an invasion of privacy, or even as harassment. Courts also generally disapprove of covert recordings of children. A dated record kept by the person themselves, somewhere the other person cannot reach, is worth far more.
What if they keep going back?
Expect it, and do not withdraw when it happens. Leaving an abusive relationship is rarely a single decision. A friend who reappears after each return is the reason many people eventually have somewhere to go. Get back in touch first, as though nothing had happened.
Helping someone being emotionally abused? Get the legal picture before you act
Helpers do most of their damage with the best intentions. They confront the other person, gather proof, or push a decision before it is safe to make one. Which steps help, and in what order, depends on facts only a conversation will draw out.
Book a free initial consultation and one of our specialists will give you initial advice tailored to the situation. That includes what you can and cannot do as a third party. Read how our team assists and advises on a non-molestation order.
General information about the law in England and Wales, not personal advice.
Expert Tip
The people who best help someone being emotionally abused are rarely the ones who did something dramatic. They are the ones who were still there a year later. If you take one step this week, make it the quiet one. Agree a way of contacting each other that the other person cannot see. Say out loud, too, that your help does not depend on them leaving. Then get advice on what you can lawfully do, before you feel forced to improvise.
Iblal Iqbal, Partner & Family Law Strategist
