{"id":75687,"date":"2011-12-17T02:22:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-17T07:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/75687\/wife-beats-husband-real-life-stories-upstairs-neighbors\/"},"modified":"2011-12-17T02:22:35","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T07:22:35","slug":"wife-beats-husband-real-life-stories-upstairs-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/75687\/wife-beats-husband-real-life-stories-upstairs-neighbors\/","title":{"rendered":"Wife Beats Husband: More Real Life Stories from my Upstairs Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe I should have yelled, \u201cYOU WANT ME TO CALL THE COPS?!?\u201d<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

Waited for an answer.\u00a0 They certainly would have heard me given the paper thin floor between our two dwellings.<\/font><\/p>\n

See, last night, I think I did the right thing.\u00a0 Certainly everyone I\u2019ve talked to said I did the right thing, but as I write this, I am enjoying my first day free from what has been a dismal 20 months of being without a car or a license due to a legal mess I\u2019ve been in.<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ve gotten the upstairs neighbors into a legal mess of their own now, and I can\u2019t help but wonder if it really was appropriate for me to the call \u201cThe Man\u201d<\/span> given the circumstances I was witnessing.<\/p>\n

To the truth, my morass of woe and lack of freedom over the last 20 months were NOT brought on by the courts.\u00a0 The courts have been merely imposing the consequences upon me caused by my own actions, failures and addictions from my old life.\u00a0 I did it to myself. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The woman upstairs has done it to herself too.<\/p>\n

Last night, I was sitting at the computer, watching TV, just a normal. The upstairs couple started arguing, fighting.\u00a0 They fight a lot.\u00a0 Screaming.\u00a0 The woman up there in particular, gets into this hysterical state where she screams at her husband in this banshee-like, crying wail that is very dramatic, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Last night, it was very audible.<\/p>\n

\u201cTHIS IS WHAT YOU DO TO ME?!?\u00a0 THIS IS WHAT YOU THINK OF ME??!\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I dunno what the guy had done, but this sounded a lot more serious than complaining about him not taking out the trash.<\/p>\n

Then the physical stuff started.\u00a0 Thump thump thump, I hear pounding footsteps.\u00a0 There are \u201caaaarghs\u201d and sounds of conflict.\u00a0 Then the husband starts yelling back.
\n
\n\u2018STOP IT!! STOP IT!! YOU\u2019RE HURTING ME!\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Not that it really matters, but it should be noted that the husband is an atheltic 6\u20191\u201d or so, maybe 175 pounds.\u00a0 The wife is maybe 5\u20198\u201d, 135.<\/p>\n

He continued to loudly plead for her to stop whatever physical beat down she was giving him.\u00a0 This just kept going.\u00a0 He also added something interesting in his efforts to get her to stop.
\n
\n\u201cI\u2019M RECORDING ALL THIS!! YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT?\u00a0 ALL OF THIS IS BEING RECORDED!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t the only one recording it.\u00a0 Perhaps it was because I\u2019m a bit of a voyeur; not in a nasty way, but in a I-record-everything way, but I was recording the audio of this confrontation descending quite clearly from the steps leading into the sub-basement.\u00a0 I have it all on camera.<\/p>\n

No, I am not posting it on YouTube\u2026 Eventhough I could.<\/p>\n

I kept the camera rolling and called 911.\u00a0 While describing what was going on to the dispatcher, things quieted down.\u00a0 I later learned it was because the wife had stormed off and drove away.<\/p>\n

Half an hour later (WTF?!?), the police show up.\u00a0 I dunno what the conversation they had with the husband entailed, but I know they wouldn\u2019t have gotten involved at all if I had not poked my nose in their lives.\u00a0 The cop determined there was enough there to cite the wife (via the mail) for domestic violence.\u00a0 Washington State has some of the toughest domestic violence laws in the country, and she is facing actual jail time if convicted.<\/p>\n

\"\"I woke up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water.\u00a0 Peeking out the back window, I saw that the wife\u2019s car was back.\u00a0 I guess the cops noticed this too, because at about 4 AM, they started pounding on their front door.\u00a0 No response.\u00a0 Then they started pounding on the back door. Still, no one upstairs stirred, and they couldn\u2019t help but hear it. Then more pounding on the front door and shouts of \u201cKing County Sheriff\u2019s Department!\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to have to pound on this door knowing there are kids in there.\u201d
\n<\/strong><\/em>
\nSee, the deputy had shared this sentiment with me during our obligatory \u201cyou called this in?\u201d interview that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if they beat each other up till their black and blue,\u201d the deputy told me, \u201cbut there are two young children in that home, and that changes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

That struck me as sensible, but in an objective sense, sort of odd.\u00a0 The laws that are on the books about spouse-on-spouse violence do not come with harsher penalties if there are kids in the home, nor should their absence ameliorate the crime.<\/p>\n

Maybe if this woman hadn\u2019t been the mother of his children, he would have stopped her from beating on him with a stiff right cross to the chin.\u00a0 Kudos to him for not doing so.<\/p>\n

Look, I agree with everyone who posted comments in my poll that the gender of the victim shouldn\u2019t matter when it comes to domestic violence.\u00a0 It\u2019s just as bad, whoever\u2019s doing it.\u00a0 There is a difference though in that when the victim is the wife, she is almost always at a physical disadvantage which prevents her from stopping it, whereas when the victim is the man, he almost always could stop it through violence of his own.<\/p>\n

So, anyways, by the fact that they never did open their door to the police when they came back that night, my doubts about the appropriateness of my report are deepened.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t talked to the husband about this yet, but I can imagine him saying something like, \u201cDude!\u00a0 What the fuck?!?\u00a0 You\u2019ve got my family caught up in the legal system now!\u00a0 My wife, whom I love very much,\u00a0 is facing jail time, and even though I was telling her to stop it, stop it, I was in complete control of the situation!\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t in any danger!\u00a0 Thanks a lot for screwing up my family!!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Damn.\u00a0 What have I done?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

* * *<\/font><\/p>\n

Oh!\u00a0 New car and drivers license!! Yes, yes! I got em\u2026 but don\u2019t comment on that.\u00a0 That humongous life event will be getting its own blog AND VIDEO soon.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe I should have yelled, \u201cYOU WANT ME TO CALL THE COPS?!?\u201d Waited for an answer.\u00a0 They certainly would have heard me given the paper thin floor between our two dwellings. See, last night, I think I did the right thing.\u00a0 Certainly everyone I\u2019ve talked to said I did the right thing, but as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}