If These Walls Could Talk
Janet: 2021 On my walk that morning, I took a different route through our new neighborhood. We had a rather small but neat house on a street of pretty new homes. I turned a corner and saw huge houses with large trees, landscaped yards with newly planted spring flowers, and circular drives. It took my breath away, the statuesque beauty and elegance said money, wealth, and happiness? With all that well ordered structure were the people happy? I wondered “if their walls could talk, what would they say?”
By the summer of 2022 we’d moved. My husband had lost some money in the market, we had to sell the house we loved, and rent a home in a much older neighborhood. I stopped wondering about this new neighborhood filled with people like me, some brown, some black, some old and some young. I know them. I know the walls of these homes of the “average” resident, each member of a house, struggling to meet reduced budgets, needs a car to go to the job that pays for “barely making it.” Those cars fill driveways and streets. Parties, lawnmowers, loud music, and yells of anger punctuate the cultural air around us and seep through the single-pane windows of our rental.
I don’t wonder about who lives in these houses because I’ve experienced both love and violence in a neighborhood just like this one.
I think about my first marriage
and how hard it was to get away.
I kept going back because he promised it would never happen again. By the time we divorced I’d already been shunned in our community.
Marie: It’s a myth that well educated and wealthy people are happier, and unaffected by violence. It’s like saying blondes have more fun – we don’t buy that at all. In fact, victims are more isolated in the suburbs – no one can hear or witness the abuse. Victims in affluent areas sometimes ARE the lawyers, the judges, the professionals, and for this reason, less likely to report. Friends and neighbors want to be blind to the issue and fall away when support is needed most.
Why do they stay?
Think about it for a minute…
In most cases, leaving is the most dangerous time in the relationship because the fear and anxiety is escalated and the abuser is unpredictable. Seventy percent of deaths by domestic violence cases occur after the partner leaves – or attempts to leave. Many people stay because they believe the abuser can change. But sometimes there is economic dependence on the abuser, guilt over the failure of the relationship, lack of emotional support or even death threats. To say that leaving is a difficult process is just not enough.
Janet: Marie is right! I think about my first marriage and how hard it was to get away, how I kept going back because he promised it would never happen again. By the time we divorced I’d already been shunned in our community. A decent looking single woman was a threat. They thought I’d steal their husbands. Carpools to soccer were cancelled and while I worked to keep us in our home, they whispered and talked to their friends in front of my girls. We’d go to the pool, and they’d leave while I pretended to love the solitude. We knew, everybody knew, the children knew, and it hurt. Maybe the girl I was, trapped inside the silent walls of abuse, would have felt more normal if my neighbors had greeted me instead of shaking their heads and walking away.
Marie: Can we become more perceptive neighbors? Can we be mindful and make eye contact? Say ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good evening?’ We may never know what the walls hear but we can take that morning or evening walk and say “Hello. How are you?”
We think different walls would tell similar stories once there’s violence in the home, but we can take time to connect with the human and not reject.
One on one, will we change?
Look out for our next Blog 11/02