When I opened up to some friends, a couple I’d known for years, about my husband’s abusive behaviour, they said, “We don’t want to pick sides. He’s always been so nice to us.”
Those words cut deep. What I heard was that my pain was an inconvenience, and that their comfort mattered more than my well-being.
They thought they were being fair, but neutrality in the face of abuse is not balance or peacekeeping. It validates the abuser, invalidates the victim, and sends a message that your suffering is not real.
Neutrality may look like diplomacy or emotional restraint, but to a survivor, it feels like abandonment. It says, Your pain makes me uncomfortable, so I’ll turn away and call it fairness.
The Illusion of Neutrality
When people insist they “don’t want to take sides,” what they often mean is that they don’t want to face the possibility that someone they know is capable of cruelty. But neutrality has no place when harm has occurred. Silence doesn’t protect peace; it shields the person causing the damage.
As one woman shared, “What they mean is ‘I don’t believe you.’ And if they can’t believe you, they are not a safe person for you to be around.” Another said, “By not choosing sides they made it clear to me MY LIFE has no value to them.”
Neutrality may sound balanced, but it’s a form of complicity. As Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
The impact of neutrality runs deep. It takes away trust, safety, and belonging, forcing survivors to rebuild alone. It mirrors the emotional tactics of coercive control, minimisation, self-doubt, and gaslighting, where each polite silence seems to whisper, Maybe it wasn’t that bad.
The False Promise of Fairness
People love to repeat, “There are two sides to every story.” It gives the illusion of objectivity, as though fairness means dividing credibility equally. But not every story has two legitimate sides. One survivor captured this clearly:
“There are two sides to ‘he’s a slob, I can’t live with him’ or ‘I can’t relax at home, she wants a show home.’ But threatening to kill someone, punching next to someone’s face, or choking them – those aren’t behaviours that have two sides.”
Abuse is not a disagreement between equals. It is one person asserting control while the other struggles to survive.
True fairness means looking beyond appearances and asking who holds the power and who lives in fear. When people treat an abuser and survivor as equally responsible, they erase the reality of coercive control. In doing so, they protect the abuser and silence the survivor.
When Compassion Protects the Wrong Person
What makes neutrality especially harmful is how easily it can masquerade as empathy, but directed at the abuser. Friends and relatives may listen to the abuser’s justifications and begin to feel sympathy. They might say, “He’s under so much pressure at work,” or, “He had a rough childhood, he doesn’t know better.” They may view his drinking, trauma, or mental health struggles as explanations for his behaviour and convince themselves that everyone is hurting in their own way.
At first glance, this seems compassionate, but it completely misses the truth. Abuse is not an accident of emotion; it’s a deliberate choice. Many people endure hardship or trauma without ever choosing to harm others.
Understanding why someone behaves a certain way does not excuse their actions. When bystanders internalise the abuser’s self-pitying narrative, they reinforce the illusion that both people are equally damaged, rather than seeing that one person is systematically destroying the other.
The Deepest Cut When Family Stay Neutral
Nothing wounds more deeply than family members who stay friendly with the person who caused you harm. The people who should instinctively defend you instead become bystanders, or worse, allies to the abuser.
Survivors often describe relatives who defend or excuse the abuser, insisting they “don’t want to get involved.” But when family members refuse to choose, it doesn’t feel neutral. It feels like desertion by those who were supposed to be your safe place.
One survivor shared, “After my husband horribly discarded me, leaving me alone with two small kids abroad, my sister reached out to him with support because ‘it must be difficult for him too.’” Another said, “My own father sided with my abusive ex because they were buddies.”
When family remain neutral, it strikes at the heart of belonging. For many, this becomes one of the deepest griefs to carry, realising that home is no longer where you are protected, but where silence shelters the abuser.
The Emotional Toll of Silence
Each time someone chooses neutrality, a survivor loses another safe space. Over time, the isolation reshapes how they move through the world. Many begin to censor themselves, question their own reality, and withdraw further from others.
One survivor described it as “a social death – they protect his reputation while I disappear.” Another said, “I had to cut contact with everyone who was mutual with my ex. People went so far as to give him information about my life after we split.”
When people stay silent, the abuser’s version of events spreads unchecked while the survivor’s truth fades into disbelief. This erasure can become more painful than the abuse itself, because it strips away what survivors fight hardest to reclaim, their voice.
In time, many realise that holding on to those who look away only deepens the wound. Letting go becomes the only way to find peace.
Releasing Those Who Refuse to See
Eventually, survivors come to accept that some relationships cannot survive honesty. Letting go of people who remain silent or neutral becomes an act of self-preservation, not resentment.
As one woman shared, “It really cooled off our friendship, because I didn’t feel like I could confide in her after that.”
Releasing those who stay on the fence means recognising that neutrality is never safe and that not everyone deserves access to your story. It also means accepting that moral courage is rare, and many will choose comfort instead.
In time, survivors rebuild smaller, safer circles around people who have shown integrity. As one wrote, “It does help you find who your real friends are, even though it is a very painful discovery process.”
Another said, “The second I realized old friends wanted to stay neutral was my sign they had already chosen a side.”
Letting go can feel like starting again from nothing, yet there’s quiet power in that decision, the strength that comes when someone finally decides they’d rather stand alone in truth than surrounded by silence.
Choosing Courage Over Comfort
When survivors reach out for help, they are not asking others to fight their battles. They are asking to be seen, believed, and assured that their pain matters. More than anything, they are seeking acknowledgment that what happened was real.
Standing with survivors means aligning with truth, safety, and humanity. It means choosing their well-being over social politeness or the illusion of fairness.
Courage isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it is simply saying, I believe you, and refusing to look away. Because silence is never neutral. When you stay neutral in the face of abuse, you are not standing in the middle, you are standing in the way.
* Quotes are drawn from survivor experiences shared publicly on the Shadows of Control Facebook and Twitter pages and have been lightly edited for spelling, grammar, or clarity.
