I’m feeling guilty because I’ve been extremely angry at our ex-landlady, as she hasn’t sent us a check for the deposit. (We need it desperately – our first mortgage payment came out a month early, and we’ve had to buy so much for the new house.)
Phil called her today, and it turns out that she is in the hospital after a very severe beating by her boyfriend (the one that beat her so badly with his walking stick); she is going to press charges against him this time, and then leave the country. (And no, small thing though it seems under those circumstances, she doesn’t have our deposit money.) Poor lady.
As badly as I feel for her, I do have a hard time sympathizing. This isn’t the first time. Last time she had bruises and cuts that would turn your stomach, having been beaten like a stray dog…and still she went back to him. At what point do you start incurring responsibility for what happens to you in life? Poor Kay…it breaks my heart knowing that this won’t be the last time, unless she changes the choices that she makes. I would happily spit and fry Dave for doing it…but in a sense, she allows him to.
Horrible things happen in the world. And everyone has to take responsibility for saving themselves. Or not, as the case may be.
Poor Kay.
I’m not sure I take quite the same view – I don’t see it as she ‘allowed him’ to beat her up…what I think happens is that she truly believed it would never happen again, he swore he wouldn’t, and she’s known him 20 years so she must have had some grounds for believing him.
You know me – I’m not advocating that he’s not responsible, he is, and he should be put away for it – I offered a signed statement from me to say I knoew he’d done it before…but at the same time she was foolish to trust him…but with her bad luck, severe illnesses – perhaps he’s the only friend she’s got…
The fact that she’s now going to spend the next 30 days in a womens safe house/shelter seems to prove that…I just hope that when he appears in court in a months time, he’s held in custody…and then imprisoned.
I felt very bad discussing money owed to us when she doesn’t have enough to cover the cost of a prescription for painkillers, and that she’s niaive and trusting enough to let her new tenants take advantage of her…but she’s TOO nice a person…and for that should she lose out…?
In a perfect world no. But this isn’t a perfect world is it?
A question –
How many times has this kind of thing happened with this couple? If it is more than the two times you have mentioned here, imo – she is responsible for not seeing to her own safety.
While I will always have sympathy for someone who is kind-hearted, I will stop when they become stupid and fail to protect themselves.
Call me harsh, but I’ve been there. And for me all it took was the threat of physical harm. I didn’t stick around for the beating I knew was coming.
Technically, they’re not a couple – that’s what makes this even worse…they’ve been friends for 20 years, got together about 18 months ago as she needed to rent the house she and her ex-husband lived in to pay off debts he’d ran up whilst drinking himself into oblivion, (aside from the young persons version of alzheimers that he has, and that even tho they’re divorced, she’s the only person in the world who cares for him), she moved in with D (the asshole), we moved into her house, and they seemed happy…tho he was moody – his son had died in a motorbike accident some months previously…
Christ – there’s sooo much background to K, it’s impossible to do in such a small space…
But – basically – D drank one night – unusually – and whiskey makes him mean, and he beat her with a walking stick…she said she wouldn’t go back to him, and for a while she’s lived in a room she’s rented…but she said 20 yrs was along time to throw away, so they’d be friends…which in turn led back to her staying over…
She went out to a family 40th birthday, went back to his place, and he’d drunk so much he couldn’t remember why she wasn’t home, got annoyed and beat the shit out of her, then tried to burn down the RV that she owns…