I’ve been living with my housemate Ashley (22) for the last two years, and we’ve just signed the lease for our third year together. We also have two other housemates, Maria (23F) and Peter (23M). Maria and Peter are both working full time, while myself and Ashley have just started our final year in the same class at university. We were all also friends prior to moving in together and we all get on very well together for the most part.
Ashley started dating Charlie (24M) early in 2015, I think around February or March, and we all met him after a few weeks. From the very beginning none of us liked him very much – he was loud and overbearing, but also seemed pretty desperate for us to like him? It was very strange, he’d agree with every opinion we’d have and just seemed to suck up to us a lot. Nothing serious, just VERY eager to make a good impression. She seemed head over heels for him though, so to each their own, and we didn’t mind him coming over as long as it wasn’t all the time.
Now, just after Easter this year me and my housemates planned a big night out for one last blowout before we had to settle down to study for our exams. We went out with about 10 of our college friends, and Charlie came as well. The first few hours actually really went really well, everyone was getting on well, including Charlie. At around 1AM Ashley came up to me in a foul mood because she said she’d seen Charlie flirting with some random girl. I scoped it out and they just seemed to be chatting but Ashley was not happy, and told him she wanted to leave. He seemed happy enough to go (he was working the next morning so wasn’t drinking heavily, and was surrounded by drunk students), so they left at around 1.30AM.
About ten minutes later I decided to go as well as I didn’t feel well, and I got a taxi home with Maria at 1.40AM. We got back before Ash and Charlie as they walked, and we just went straight to our rooms. I’d just gotten into bed when they came in, shouting at each other. Ashley stormed straight up to her room and Charlie literally ran after her after slamming the door. I don’t remember the exact argument, but she had confronted him about “flirting” and he was furious. She tried to lock the door so he couldn’t come in, but he forced his way into the room and immediately we heard slapping noises and her screaming, and we ran straight in from our rooms. He didn’t realise we were home and we caught him holding her down on the bed, hitting her. He tried to defend himself but obviously there is no defence for it, we’d heard everything. Maria ripped him off her (she’s 5’10 and he’s only 5’6), and he left when I called the police. Ashley broke up with him the next day but refused to press charges. She had a tough few weeks after but she seemed to recover, made it through her exams, even went on a few tinder dates.
Which bring us to my problem; we all moved back into the house three weeks ago, after being at home for the summer. Ashley told me her first night back in the house that her and Charlie had worked things out over the summer and they were giving their relationship a second chance. Since then he has stayed over twice a week with her, and we are all absolutely miserable and on edge while he’s here. She knows that we hate him and she’s bringing him around anyway, even though we all immediately voiced our concerns. She said that she had the right to have a guest stay at the house if she wanted to – true, it’s in the lease – and that since he’d done nothing to us it’s none of our concern. Frankly guys, I’m terrified of him. I’m only 4’11 and I couldn’t defend myself against him. Every time he sees us he does this weird creepy smile or stares us down the entire time we’re in the room with him. He’s making us all extremely uncomfortable in our own home, and none of us know how to deal with him. We’ve all made a case to Ashley but she’s sticking her head in the sand, saying we’re being childish, imagining things, or that we have a vendetta against him (well, duh). She’s acting very cold towards us, and we’re worried about damaging our relationship with her.
What can we do in this situation? How can we ban him from the house? she’s sticking to the terms of the lease exactly and he’s not actually doing anything besides trying to intimidate us. Any advice welcome guys. We’re all a bit clueless with how to proceed when she refuses to acknowledge the problem.
TL;DR: Housemate keeps bringing man who assaulted her and terrified us into the house against our wishes. Don’t know how to get rid of him as she refuses to see any problem with his behaviour.
2 comments
What would happen if you stopped making it about your feelings and instead made it about her sense of safety and agency in an abusive relationship? Because this is very much behavior that abuse victims engage in as a way to keep themselves “safe” from having to accept that they are running the risk of putting themselves in more danger by leaving the abuser.
Well as much as you’d like to help her; you have to protect yourself first or you won’t be able to help anyone.
It sounds like she isn’t good housemate material anymore.
You can choose to not engage with him. And be quite open with her, ‘I’m sorry friend, that our distrust of him puts you at risk. That’s why we don’t trust him. And frankly, I see no love between you, just trauma bonds and a wilfulness to prove that you don’t need help. The further you put yourself at risk, the more we feel we cannot be safe in our own homes. Time will come where we will need to choose our home over your safety.’
The other poster suggested a much kinder approach. But I lived in your shoes once. My friend cost me 3.5k because her bf at the time broken all the light switches and fittings in the house. It put a black mark against my rental history.
And to this day she claims that he was her gentlest bf who never hurt her and that I’m misremembering all of the severe abuse that I witnessed with my own eyes.
And then it goes on and on coz she just keeps picking the same kind of loser again and again.
Protect yourself first. This relationship is just some trauma cycle she’s playing out and without self realisation and therapy; she’s not going to come to the light just coz you shine a torch on her problems.