What a Pair

The landlords were a couple, she managed the kitchen and he managed the bar. They were both hideous alcoholics and it became clear pretty quickly he was violent towards her as well. One night, he threw her down the stairs. Another night he made a mistake in an order that went to kitchen and a huge fight broke out between them in the middle of the restaurant. Eventually she went back into the kitchen and he to the bar. A moment later he stormed back through the restaurant, into the kitchen and hurled two pint glasses at her showering everyone in the kitchen with shards of broken glass, including me. I should have quit that night, I still don’t know why I didn’t.

They hired another couple to work there who eventually ended up moving into the top floor of the building (the landlords lived on the second floor). One night about three months later the couple who moved in packed their bags and left in the middle of the night without a word. It turns out that this had happened twice before to the same landlords when they were at a different place. They couldn’t understand why it kept happening to them.

Comments (17)

zomboidMarch 4th, 2011 at 2:13 am

erm…bit short on detail

JillMarch 4th, 2011 at 8:30 am

Are we missing the end of the story??? Hmmmm

JillianMarch 4th, 2011 at 8:55 am

WHY did no one call the police? That’s the definition of domestic violence. :/

BillyMarch 4th, 2011 at 10:33 am

somebody should call the police that this got posted

JBMarch 4th, 2011 at 11:39 am

Why didn’t you call the police???????????? You’re putting them in more danger by “protecting” them and not calling the police. :-( :-(

sashathebritMarch 4th, 2011 at 3:19 pm

Moar plz.

BillyMarch 5th, 2011 at 2:47 pm

I have to admit though, I would have easily given this story 4-5 stars if it ended with: “So, I called the police and the husband got 3 months in prison for domestic abuse and the wife fired me for getting her husband arrested.”

clever nameMarch 7th, 2011 at 10:59 am

Yeah, I was going to say that there is not point in helping a Victim if they don’t want to be helped. Sounds here like she didn’t mind being smacked around. Not that that is in any way ok, but some women just, stick with it. Whatever.

CourtneyMarch 7th, 2011 at 2:42 pm

I guess it’s pretty common to call the police on someone else’s domestic violence and the victim denies everything, but when there are witnesses to repeated incidents I think the police would have to file charges.
Also, calling them “landlords” completely threw me at first.

BillyMarch 8th, 2011 at 11:12 am

clever name – Yeah, I saw an 8 year old getting beaten by his mother the other day and he wasn’t even trying to defend himself. If he’s not going to help himself, I’m sure as hell not going to step in either!

I think domestic abuse goes a little bit beyond “wanting to be helped”. Most of the times the abusee fully belives that there is no possible help available to them.

clever nameMarch 8th, 2011 at 2:48 pm

Billy- now you got it!

nachturnalMarch 9th, 2011 at 7:41 am

clever name — Kewl, so when you’re in a situation where you have no financial independence, no friends because you’ve been gradually cut off from what friends you did have, can’t even leave the house or take a shit without telling your partner, and any transgression, no matter how slight, gets you an asskicking, we’ll just tell you that you just don’t want to be helped enough, shall we? How about when you have children with this person and they tell you that if you leave, they’ll hurt your kids — and actually do? When you genuinely feel like you cannot tell anyone, because there’s no-one to tell, and even if there was they wouldn’t believe you anyway?

Your opinion exemplifies exactly why domestic violence is unreported, and completely ignores the fact that there are people out there that are manipulative and cruel enough to break what may have started as a reasonable, sane person, into someone unable to “help themselves”. Not everyone who’s a douchebag enough to beat up their wife is stupid enough to do it in a public place, and unfortunately very many of them are model citizens, making it even harder for the victim to prove that s/he was being abused. Not everyone who commits domestic abuse does so physically, making the proof even harder to obtain — not that that makes a difference, as there are ways of causing immense pain without ever actually causing a mark. And not everyone who’s in that situation is “okay” with being slapped around.

BillyMarch 9th, 2011 at 2:33 pm

didn’t I just say that same thing?

Anyway, I’m excited for the what story we get next month…

EllereMarch 10th, 2011 at 8:32 am

Billy, did you just compare an adult woman to an 8 year old child? Wow. Thanks.

Having had friends who were in bad relationships, there really are times where you can’t do anything. They won’t leave. They are not 8 year old children, you can’t phone child services and have them intervene.

You can support them (but never say a bad word about the boyfriend or they will cut you out of their lives) and hope they come to their senses, but adults are adults and phoning all the police in the world isn’t going to change that.

BillyMarch 10th, 2011 at 12:35 pm

No…I compared watching someone abuse a woman and do nothing to watching someone abuse an 8 year old and do nothing.

The point being that nobody should watch abuse and do nothing. People being abused whether they are a child, animal, adult, man, woman, etc often cannot help themselves due to the severe nature of the abuse on a person’s psyche.

Personally, I find it very selfish of you to value your friend’s relationship with you over your friend’s life as a whole. In fact, I find it pretty disgusting that you stood there watching friends getting physically, emotionally, and mentally abused and did virtually nothing to try and help them. I will gladly lose a friend if it means they have a shot to gain their life back.

ClaireMarch 15th, 2011 at 10:40 am

Billy FTW

hellcatMarch 23rd, 2011 at 9:31 pm

Yeah, I…am shocked to be agreeing with Billy.

Ellere, of course it’s true that you can’t FORCE anyone to leave if they don’t want to, but the comment that originally started this was clevername’s – she basically said if the dude smacked his wife and she didn’t leave then she probably didn’t mind being smacked, which displays a shocking lack of understanding of the dynamics of abusive relationships and human behavior in general. Billy was just trying to clear that mess up, if I understand correctly.

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