My (42M) oldest friend (41M) seems to be in a really toxic marriage with his wife (41F) and I don't know how to help him.

I'm starting to get really worried about my buddy. TL;DR at the bottom. Throwaway, obviously.

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I've known "John" since we were in elementary school. He's my oldest friend and he's always been a funny, intelligent, thoughtful, slightly quirky guy, who is good at his job and takes his sports and fitness seriously. In his 20s he had a LTR with a girl we all liked but it just kinda petered out after a few years. After that he had one or two relationships that perhaps weren't brilliantly judged but hey ho.

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John's job took him all over the country and when he was about 30 he met his now-wife, "Lynn". When I first met her I thought she was a bit stand-offish but he seemed really happy so I didn't think anything of it. They eventually moved back to near where we grew up (where I still live) and got married 5 years ago.

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The wedding was a bit weird. She has an enormous family from where she grew up and they all came, but didn't really make any effort with the rest of us, as in, they seemed almost hostile without specifically saying anything. Afterwards it came out that they felt that they'd done "all the work" for the wedding, which was objectively not true, but she, as far as I know, has never said or done anything to correct this, or the notion that John's friends and family are "lazy." (I won't bore you with the details but a most of the organization was done by John's family.)

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Fast forward a few years and John and Lynn now have 2 little boys. They had a hard time conceiving and Lynn put all the blame for this on John (I understand that it was actually a bit of both, although more him), and in particular she has blamed his family for the fact that as a kid he lived somewhere where environmental issues might have contributed to his fertility problems (there is actually no evidence for this but she won't let it go, even now they have the kids - she says the difficulties they had "ruined" her life).

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I have kids around the same age as John's and I'd love it if they could become friends, but it's really difficult - she's incredibly protective of them and arranging a visit is such hard work. If you go into the house you have to immediately wash your hands and she won't let other children touch her children. I shook his hand once and he said that he'd have to go and wash his hands now. She's a nurse, and I find this odd as everyone else I know in healthcare is actually the opposite of this. If my kids have a slight cold then she will turn us away. Their boys don't have any health problems to justify this, and while I can understand being protective when it's been hard to have them, this seems to be on another level.

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I know they argue a lot, and in front of their kids. I was there once, and she in particular was yelling about how she basically wasn't happy. It was incredibly awkward and their eldest, who was about 5, was just playing in the same room like nothing was wrong. He seems completely desensitized to it.

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John's family are the sweetest, kindest people, but I know they've lost their patience with Lynn. It's really hard for them, like me, to spend any time with him because she makes his life hell if he socializes without her, but if she's there then she's really cold and often openly rude. John has nieces and nephews but they aren't really getting to develop relationships with their cousins for reasons like those above. An example is an incident where another child in the family got a toy that her son had, and she got furious about this because it was "copying" - as if her child was the only one to have this (fairly common) type of toy. Some of his relatives basically won't talk to her any more.

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John is a shadow of himself. He's put on weight, and while I can see his old spark hasn't completely gone, he seems really unhappy, but it's very hard to get him to talk about any of this (partly because it's hard to see him, especially without her). A bunch of us organized a weekend away (all the male buddies from high school) a few months ago and he had to pull out at the last minute because she wouldn't let him go. The most I've got out of him is him acknowledging that she can be "a problem".

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I want to help my friend, but I don't know how to and would appreciate advice. I know that one of the obvious solutions if that he stops letting her control everything and asserts himself more, but I can see that she is capable of making his life miserable if he does and I can understand him wanting to try and keep her calm as much as possible. I also can see that he should probably leave her, but he really loves his sons and it seems highly likely to me that she'd make it as hard as possible for him to see them. She'd most likely retain at least 50-50 custody and I'm sure would try to turn her kids against their dad.

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I have also wondered if she is depressed or lonely (she is far from her family/friends now) and tried to be sympathetic about that, but she's really snappy about anything like that. My wife had PND and I do understand it can be difficult for moms, especially with small children, especially with a limited support network locally (although her mom comes to visit often). I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt but it's really hard when she's like this.

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What can I do?

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TL;DR - my friend is in what looks like a really toxic marriage, and has 2 kids he really loves. It's difficult to know what he thinks about it because it's hard to get near him. He seems really down but I think he's trapped. How to help him?

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[Edited for typo]

Submitted March 02, 2019 at 05:17AM by firstthingcomestome https://ift.tt/2EthaQZ