So, my last journal was some sort of tongue-in-cheek dialogue about how much my life sucks. Click a journal or two before that and I'm talking about how I'm going to appreciate things more.
This one is yet more navel-gazing, but in the form of a story about my next door neighbors. If you click back a few more journals, you may find some reference to them as my meth neighbors. Turns out they're actually my domestic abuse neighbors.
Last weekend she came over crying and asked to use the phone. There was much hysteria and something about "because I love him." I'm sure you know where this is going. Later in the week she told my husband that her husband had beat her with a belt and she kicked him out. The next evening we're sound asleep in bed at 3am when we hear a crash, the dog starts barking, and the husband starts yelling. So we called the police and he left.
By Thursday she had taken him back.
Today she comes over crying, asking to use the phone. The husband has apparently taken their one year old child and taken off. We left shortly after, and by the time we got home the car was back in the driveway and all the doors are closed and the lights on next door.
Here comes the navel-gazing.
I'm stuck between feeling sorry for this woman and trying to help her, and wanting to lock the doors, draw the blinds, and stay as far away as possible. I know that abused women need help and support if they're ever going to leave their spouses, but I also know the average abused spouse leaves between three and seven times before it actually sticks. I'd like to offer to watch the kid for her when it gets bad, but I also don't want to get drawn in. I didn't ask to be part of this, I just moved in next door.
So I have mixed feelings of guilt that I'm not doing more, pity for what she must be going through, depression that this sort of thing still happens, but mostly just relief that I've found someone that I'm so compatible with that treats me so well, and that I never got sucked into that cycle of abuse.
There are other things going on in my life, too. I quit my job with the miserable soul-crushing commute. I had brunch with friends. I had really fantastic cupcakes. I still have a really cute kitten and a really miserable dog. But more on that another time.
This one is yet more navel-gazing, but in the form of a story about my next door neighbors. If you click back a few more journals, you may find some reference to them as my meth neighbors. Turns out they're actually my domestic abuse neighbors.
Last weekend she came over crying and asked to use the phone. There was much hysteria and something about "because I love him." I'm sure you know where this is going. Later in the week she told my husband that her husband had beat her with a belt and she kicked him out. The next evening we're sound asleep in bed at 3am when we hear a crash, the dog starts barking, and the husband starts yelling. So we called the police and he left.
By Thursday she had taken him back.
Today she comes over crying, asking to use the phone. The husband has apparently taken their one year old child and taken off. We left shortly after, and by the time we got home the car was back in the driveway and all the doors are closed and the lights on next door.
Here comes the navel-gazing.
I'm stuck between feeling sorry for this woman and trying to help her, and wanting to lock the doors, draw the blinds, and stay as far away as possible. I know that abused women need help and support if they're ever going to leave their spouses, but I also know the average abused spouse leaves between three and seven times before it actually sticks. I'd like to offer to watch the kid for her when it gets bad, but I also don't want to get drawn in. I didn't ask to be part of this, I just moved in next door.
So I have mixed feelings of guilt that I'm not doing more, pity for what she must be going through, depression that this sort of thing still happens, but mostly just relief that I've found someone that I'm so compatible with that treats me so well, and that I never got sucked into that cycle of abuse.
There are other things going on in my life, too. I quit my job with the miserable soul-crushing commute. I had brunch with friends. I had really fantastic cupcakes. I still have a really cute kitten and a really miserable dog. But more on that another time.
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I'll send you my digits.