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The Voiceless
(by Wayne & Tamara - March 11, 2008)
The Voiceless
I am a third person looking into a problem plaguing my best friend. She and her husband have been married four years, and they have two beautiful little boys, 3 and 3 weeks.
Over the years, her husband will go on drinking binges and come home with a nasty temper. He belittles her and tears her down. Sometimes he’ll disappear for two or three days at a time and refuse to discuss his actions when he comes home.
I remain quietly in the background and offer a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on. I give her advice the best I can, keeping in mind the only way things will change is if she takes matters into her own hands.
Recently I’ve been put into a situation where I fear not only for my friend but for her two little boys. I was called to her house the other night by her parents because her husband came home drunk, verbally abusive, and shoved her. The police were called.
By the time I arrived her husband had driven off, drunk. Talking to the family I learned he has driven drunk with the 3-year-old, grabbed that child by the collar, and tried to feed the baby milk too hot for a newborn. All this is on top of the normal disregard he shows my friend.
I don’t want to call child services. I want to find just the right words to use to make my friend take a stand. She’s afraid of being a single mom, though she has an incredible support system of family and friends. She is trying to save her marriage. First she thought having kids would change him, then maybe a new house, and now a second child.
Angie
Angie, your friend chose this man, then she created children in a vain attempt to control him. She’s betting her kid’s lives that somehow this marriage will work out. It’s almost as if she put her children on the felt of a roulette table and asked, “How many spins can I get for these two?”
The optimistic scenario is that her husband will get his behavior under control within a decade. The likely scenario is he will never get treatment for alcoholism. The main question about the children is, Will this be a quick tragedy like an automobile accident, or a slow tragedy like the production of two damaged adults?
For all you know, your friend now sees those children as a barrier to working things out with her husband. You cannot truly know her mind. She knows she walks a fine line with her support system, and she knows she must be careful about what she says.
So she says enough to get pity and cooperation, but not so much others will act. It would be nice if those near and dear to her would act, but it is being near and dear which keeps them from acting. While you hope to find the right words to get her to save the situation, often only a third party has the power to do the saving.
Your friend gave birth to a child in an attempt to fix a drunkard; then she did it again. Where did she get that advice? What book was that in? Unlike many women in her situation, she has a support system. But she won’t use it. The only advice your friend is willing to hear is, “This is how you get to have this man.”
Her judgment is impaired, and impaired people don’t get to make decisions. She brought you harmful knowledge and made you an accessory. If no one else is willing to act, then you must.
If it helps, believe some part of her soul which is still intact spoke to you, hoping you would do what she will not. That part of her looks to you to save these children.
Wayne & Tamara
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