The Couple Upstairs
This week I read a story about a woman who was killed along with several of her friends by an abusive estranged husband. Women are killed by men in alarming numbers. People say just leave him or get a restraining order and things like this still happen. After reading this news piece about this young woman (Meredith Hight), I decided to post a story I wrote a while back.
The house was dead silent.
It's my preference when alone. I usually sit in silence to browse the internet or write for awhile. But it was summer and the evening breeze passed through my window, so I decided to take a moment to lay down.
“Shut the fuck up! You always doing this shit!”
“Calm down.”
“No I will not calm the fuck down. I will--”
CRASH
She threw something and it fell. His footsteps responded to her anger as he walked out of the room. Her yell traveled into the next room, but I no longer could hear the exact reasons for her anger.
I live in New York City, which means I live in a cramped city. I am sure you are imagining it as you read this. Crowded subways, busy streets, Times Square! Buildings with ten, twenty, or thirty floors and hundreds of people living their lives under the same roof. Living under people is something I am accustomed to. A cat lady lived above me when I was young and then it was the Haitian family whose kids’ loud stomps would give me impromptu headaches as I did homework. Hearing snippets of people’s lives is not unheard of in the city, in fact it's expected. A party, a baby crying, and a couple making love are just a few things you hear when you live under, next to, and on top of people.
That summer night I heard the couple upstairs arguing, I thought nothing of it. That was between them, I don’t know their situation, and who am I to judge? I just turned on some music to drown out their argument. But it became more than just that one summer night. It turned into summer mornings, autumn noons, and winter nights. The arguments louder and fiercer than the first. The sound of things falling, the sound of bodies hitting the floor, and the sound of me sighing, as I look up at the ceiling. By the time autumn came, I discovered there was a child whose whimpers could be heard after the arguments fell silent.
In 2013, New York City law enforcement responded to 284,660 domestic violence incidents and I could only imagine how many more have not been reported. In domestic violence cases, most of the time the victim will return back to the abuser at least once. It's a cycle that involves manipulation and guilt. In the case of the couple upstairs, I didn’t even know who was the abuser or victim. Some days it appeared as if they switched roles. So, why didn’t I think over the course of those seasons to call the police? Go upstairs and see if they were okay? Did I not care?
I did, but I felt out of line and helpless. I didn’t know these people, I wasn’t their family or even their friend. I was crossing a boundary that went beyond the sheetrock and wood that separated their floor and my ceiling. Even in familial situations, sometimes the family will stay quiet and do nothing about abuse they know is occurring. I know because I have seen it happen.
I was implicit in the violence that occurred upstairs.
Here is the truth, we are all implicit in the violence that happens within intimate relationships. We play a role in the ways violence is recycled and used to manipulate and demean someone’s self worth. It's more than just the physical. It is the mental, the spiritual, and the emotional violence that occurs as well. Our society has a tendency to normalize these behaviors. We even praise it sometimes, saying things like ‘She text him twenty times in a row, she must love him!’ or make memes that say if your significant other is not obsessed with you, you have the wrong partner. ‘Women can hit men, it's not the same as men hitting women.’ The use of manipulation, control, and guilt as a tactic to control your partner is so inherent in our rhetoric that we use it as a measuring tool. If a boyfriend lets his girlfriend have male friends, he is doing something wrong. If a girlfriend lets her girlfriend go out to the club without her, she should be worried. A significant other has the right to ask for passwords to phones and social media profiles. We don't glorify trust, we don't glorify space, and we don't glorify healthy relationships.
Allowing a boyfriend to go to the club without his girlfriend should be normal. Not needing to spend every waking moment with your significant other should be normal. Setting clear boundaries in your relationship and talking about it should be normal. Yes relationships are hard work, but they shouldn't be violent in any capacity.
Respecting a person’s autonomy and space is necessary for a successful relationship. If there is no respect, there should be no relationship. The emotionally violent tactics that lead to physical violence can seep into a relationship that lacks respect. I am no expert on relationships but I know that respect for another person should be present in any relationship you hold with another human.
We are implicit in domestic violence. We promote unhealthy relationships, we tell women they are supposed to be controlled. We tell men they are not victims. We cannot keep turning a blind eye. We must educate ourselves on signs of domestic violence. Reach out to our friends and our loved ones. We can't keep turning a blind eye, we can't keep our opinions to ourselves. Victims feel a loss of control when being apart of violent relationships and by allowing our society and ourselves to do nothing; we take part in that loss of control. We take part in that violence.
As for the couple upstairs, I will never know what happened to them. But I will always know that I accepted their violence, I normalized it so that I could disengage. I was an active participant. For that I am truly sorry.
One day I hope they get the silence and peace that I was aiming for on that summer night.
