Her only hope is that she comes to her senses and realizes (sooner rather than later) that this man is going to hurt her repeatedly. Abusers always say what they “need” to say to the abused person to make them stay. In this case he’s offered her a “deal.” Even though, she always had the option of calling the police.
It doesn’t matter how strong or independent of a woman she once was. This man has abused her and messed with her mind to the point that she is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him. She probably thinks that he loves her and to a woman who is desperate for love, sometimes a shitty, abusive man is better than no man in their mind. But that kind of thinking will just garner her more abuse. As long as she stays with him, he has absolutely no motivation to change. And people that abuse are usually so effed up that they can’t change anyway. He is likely to abuse the next woman that comes along, even if she leaves him.
The only thing that you can do is offer to help her. Offer to help her move, or find a new place to live. You should give her this link for the The National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Here is a site with a checklist to be able to spot the signs of whether a woman is being abused.
It sounds like she is trying to defend him and trying to make it sound like his and her situation are “different” than anyone else’s abusive situation. It’s not different. He’s manipulated her mind and she’s scared shitless and still loves him. That’s a horrible combination. She needs to leave him as soon as possible and leave no traces of her whereabouts, then she needs to get into some type of therapy to help her to make better decisions about her life.
Does her family know about this situation? Sometimes it takes a familial intervention to get someone out of one of these situations, but it won’t work unless you have a united group of friends and family and a professional to help guide them through the process. Plus law enforcement officials need to know what is going to happen. It’s best to have a law enforcement person (even if it’s just a friend) present at an intervention of this kind. And there has to be a specifc plan for where the woman is going to go, who is going to collect her things, how she will quickly change her contact info and possibly get a new identity if she needs that, and what law enforcement is going to do to prosecute the man.