Get help now
Marriage distress is painful, and it is not the same thing as danger. This page is for danger.
If anyone is in immediate danger — being hurt or threatened right now — call 911 in the United States.
Outside the US: call your local emergency number. The services below are United States services and they do not cover every country. If you're somewhere else, search for your national crisis line and your national domestic violence service — nearly every country has both, and they are free.
Crisis and suicide
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US)Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free and confidential, 24 hours a day. Text and chat are available in Spanish. Options for deaf and hard-of-hearing callers are at 988lifeline.org/deaf-hard-of-hearing-hearing-loss.
- Veterans Crisis Line (US)Dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255, or chat at veteranscrisisline.net. You do not have to be enrolled in VA benefits or health care to use it.
Domestic violence
- National Domestic Violence Hotline (US)1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Free, 24 hours a day, and it serves men. Local providers: thehotline.org/get-help/directory-of-local-providers.
- Deaf HotlineVideo phone 855-812-1001.
- StrongHearts Native Helpline844-762-8483.
If you're the one who has been frightening her — if you've punched something, blocked a door, taken her keys or her phone, or she has said she's afraid of you — say that out loud to someone instead of to no one. That's different work from anything on this site, and it comes first.
Start here: Intervention programs for abusive behavior, from The Hotline. They will also talk to a person about their own behavior on the number above.
Child safety
- Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (US)Call or text 800-422-4453. Free, 24 hours a day.
Legal help
If anything has been filed or served, if there's an order, if you're being asked to sign something, or if money or children are being moved, you need a lawyer — not a coach. If cost is the barrier, start with these directories:
- Legal Services Corporation — find legal aidlsc.gov/about-lsc/what-legal-aid/i-need-legal-help
- LawHelplawhelp.org
Court orders and legal restrictions
If there is a protective order, no-contact order, custody order, or any other legal restriction in place, it must be obeyed — all of it, whatever anyone thinks of it. Marriage Crisis Plan cannot give legal advice and will not help anyone work around an order. Questions about what an order actually permits go to a lawyer.
An order doesn't mean there's nothing left to work on. If contact is forbidden, contact comes off the list, and the work is built around lawful conduct and what a man can actually control. An order is the other person's boundary with a court's weight behind it, and it gets treated that way.
This page is a list of phone numbers. Marriage Crisis Plan is not a crisis service, does not monitor this site, and cannot respond to an emergency. The services above are answered around the clock by people who do this every day.
All numbers and links on this page were verified against each organization's own website on 1 September 2026.