This sounds funny -- but it isn't, not at all. Quick backstory:
My Uncle Ray was the second-born of twins, and may have been deprived of oxygen for a few minutes. He is of low-normal intelligence, and suffered shell-shock (what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) in WWII... as well as the death of his twin brother.
As a result, he has always been extremely timid. Not shy -- he loves to talk to people, and he's funny and sweet. But he's terrified of conflict and confrontation. Even a simple family argument causes Uncle Ray to quietly slip out of the room and hide away somewhere.
Uncle Ray never dated, never married... just lived at home, worked a factory job, and took care of his mother until she died in 1992. Family members set him up with a tiny apartment in a senior center, and he lived quietly for several years.
Then, at the age of 79, he met a girl.
A woman, actually, about ten years younger, also a resident of the senior center. For the first time in his life, Uncle Ray was in love, and he was acting like a teenager in all the worst ways -- isolating himself from his family and letting his obsession with this woman completely control his life.
He had always made an annual trip to Texas to visit us, and he did so shortly after he and this woman became a couple. While he was here, she sold all his belongings, moved him into her apartment, and canceled his lease on his own place. When family members discovered this, Uncle Ray could only look down at the floor and say, "It's okay with me." But many of the things she had sold were keepsakes from his beloved mother, and we all knew he was only protecting this woman.
And so it has gone for years, this woman running his life, keeping him almost entirely incommunicado -- and Uncle Ray is simply too weak a personality to prevent it. Family members have talked to him about it, and he admits he's unhappy, but says, "I can't leave her, I love her."
Anyway, now all of a sudden we find out this woman is beating him. A neighbor heard what was going on and called the police, who came out and did the full domestic abuse routine -- but the next day, this woman simply moved them both to another apartment in another town.
As you can imagine, we are all livid about this. I want to get on a plane and go up there and explain things to this woman myself. I want to talk sense into Uncle Ray, get him out of there, and move him in with my cousin and her family, who would love to have him.
But there are family members back there who have better legal standing to handle it simply by virtue of residence, so it really needs to at least start with them. The trouble is, none of them is stepping up -- so I want to figure out what ought to be done, lay out a plan of action, and present it to them.
Does anyone know what can be done? It's a classic domestic abuse situation, except that it's a fragile 84-year-old man getting slapped around by his younger live-in girlfriend. And he has the abused-spouse's classic lack of will to get himself out of the situation.
Please... any ideas? I almost want to hire some tough guy to just go have a menacing chat with her... "If Uncle Ray gets so much as a hangnail, you'll be brought up on charges," that sort of thing.
Help?
My Uncle Ray was the second-born of twins, and may have been deprived of oxygen for a few minutes. He is of low-normal intelligence, and suffered shell-shock (what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) in WWII... as well as the death of his twin brother.
As a result, he has always been extremely timid. Not shy -- he loves to talk to people, and he's funny and sweet. But he's terrified of conflict and confrontation. Even a simple family argument causes Uncle Ray to quietly slip out of the room and hide away somewhere.
Uncle Ray never dated, never married... just lived at home, worked a factory job, and took care of his mother until she died in 1992. Family members set him up with a tiny apartment in a senior center, and he lived quietly for several years.
Then, at the age of 79, he met a girl.
A woman, actually, about ten years younger, also a resident of the senior center. For the first time in his life, Uncle Ray was in love, and he was acting like a teenager in all the worst ways -- isolating himself from his family and letting his obsession with this woman completely control his life.
He had always made an annual trip to Texas to visit us, and he did so shortly after he and this woman became a couple. While he was here, she sold all his belongings, moved him into her apartment, and canceled his lease on his own place. When family members discovered this, Uncle Ray could only look down at the floor and say, "It's okay with me." But many of the things she had sold were keepsakes from his beloved mother, and we all knew he was only protecting this woman.
And so it has gone for years, this woman running his life, keeping him almost entirely incommunicado -- and Uncle Ray is simply too weak a personality to prevent it. Family members have talked to him about it, and he admits he's unhappy, but says, "I can't leave her, I love her."
Anyway, now all of a sudden we find out this woman is beating him. A neighbor heard what was going on and called the police, who came out and did the full domestic abuse routine -- but the next day, this woman simply moved them both to another apartment in another town.
As you can imagine, we are all livid about this. I want to get on a plane and go up there and explain things to this woman myself. I want to talk sense into Uncle Ray, get him out of there, and move him in with my cousin and her family, who would love to have him.
But there are family members back there who have better legal standing to handle it simply by virtue of residence, so it really needs to at least start with them. The trouble is, none of them is stepping up -- so I want to figure out what ought to be done, lay out a plan of action, and present it to them.
Does anyone know what can be done? It's a classic domestic abuse situation, except that it's a fragile 84-year-old man getting slapped around by his younger live-in girlfriend. And he has the abused-spouse's classic lack of will to get himself out of the situation.
Please... any ideas? I almost want to hire some tough guy to just go have a menacing chat with her... "If Uncle Ray gets so much as a hangnail, you'll be brought up on charges," that sort of thing.
Help?
