Lynn, I have been enjoying your posts all month long and appreciate your dedication to informing us on many tender and delicate issues.

You asked if anyone had any questions, so it's time for me to post.

If you had a daughter who was going through mental/verbal/financial abuse (not yet physical)and she was saying "I can handle it Mom, he's not hitting me...I've only been married a year, I'm too embarrased to leave." how would you handle it?

Here's more of the scenario, she is a Doctor who works ten to twelve hours a day, 5 days a week. He doesn't work period. Why? He is a professional cook, Ex Army, certainly qualified. She has a daughter almost teenager. He drinks and gets violent, breaking things, physically fights with his "friends" who don't hang around after. Usually on weekends(her days off and daughter visiting dad/dad's family)he wants to have a good time, and go drinking with or without her. He want's a divorce on the week-ends and Monday it's I'm sorry day and the cycle continues.
Back to her reason for not leaving...I've only been married a year, I'm too embarrased to leave.
If the Mother shows any disapproval, the daughter refrains from "telling" her what happens and keeps it to herself. If the Mother listens, the daughter confides in her and tells her how the week went with him.
As a Mother, how would you handle the situation with your daughter?

What's a Mother to do?

chick