Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured)

Whenever we get a phone call from DH’s relative and it’s not a holiday, it is always always bad news.

This most recent time was possibly the worst.

His youngest daughter (who is probably in her early 20s) went back to her abusive ex-boyfriend.  Relative and his two sons went over.  Ex-boyfriend threatened them with what they thought was a gun, so relative and one of the sons jumped him.  There was no gun.  They went home.  A few hours later they (all three, even the guy who did nothing) were arrested and charged with something that google tells me would identify their state of residence to you if you looked it up.  Daughter is denying any abuse or past abuse, although there is text-based evidence of previous abuse from before.  And apparently when she sent out the text saying she was getting back with him, two of her friends without communicating with each other separately called the police department to ask for a wellness check because they thought she was being kidnapped.

He’s worried about jailtime.  He’s worried about losing his job– he was finally making middle class money.  They were finally paying down debt.  They just bought another new-to-them car.  Things were going more ok than usual.

It’s so hard to know what to do when someone is being abused.  From my reading, these confrontations, particularly when both members of the couple are in the room, almost never work.  They tend to give the abuser power over the abused whether he wins or loses the confrontation.  The internet is full of conversations of people saying the only thing that works is supporting the victim and waiting and waiting and waiting.  Which is horrible and frustrating.  When it’s a minor, removing her from the situation sometimes works, but with an adult that’s considered kidnapping if it’s against her will.  It doesn’t work like it does on TV.  And abusers are often good at using the law to their advantage.

It’s such a difficult situation.  My heart breaks for the relative, it bleeds for the abused daughter, and I’ve been giving DH a lot of hugs.  Things never run smoothly for this family.  And there aren’t a whole lot of second chances.

What can we do?  Well, basically pay for part of the relative’s lawyer.  He makes too much for a public defendant, but the boys both have public defenders.  (Apparently, the one who did the jumping has a good one.)  The concern is that we don’t know how much this will end up costing– the internet suggests that even in a rural area this kind of charge could go up to 45K, which is a LOT.  The second boy has a bad public defender, but he didn’t DO anything (plus he’s legally blind and on disability).  But the second boy wants DH’s relative to pay for a private defender, which would be twice the money DH’s relative doesn’t have.

Update:  DH sent his saved up allowance which was $2K.  The relative talked to lawyers and found one he liked for a $10K flat fee up front.  But he doesn’t have $8K.  He’s looking into getting a home equity loan, but that’s going to take longer than he has time for.  He’s going to ask for more time to raise funds at the plea trial.  He’s also looking into high interest rate credit cards (their credit is shot) and payday loans, which are insanely high interest.  There aren’t low cost pro-bono attorneys for this kind of arrest in his area.

Now I’m not sure what to do.  We do HAVE $8K (or will after DC1’s summer classes get reimbursed via 529, but we can temporarily take out of our emergency fund before then).  We don’t have the $20K that would be needed for both the relative and his second son, not without selling something (or waiting until I get paid in October and then again in November, which would be too late) or dipping way too far in our unpaid summer emergency fund for me to feel comfortable.  Sending over the remaining 8K wouldn’t be painless.  That’s real money.  I’m expecting Japan related expenses for DC1 and of course we still need to book hotels etc. for our own trip.  And I screwed up on a work expense that I may have to eat myself (#travelcurse).  And I like having more of a cushion for emergencies.  I think if he doesn’t get extra time to raise funds, we will probably end up sending it, because if he ends up in jail, that entire family is going to crater.  We can’t loan the money, we can only give, because loaning never ever works out.

Update 2:  The relative’s current plan is to refinance to a lower rate and 5 more years and pull out 20K to use the same firm instead of public defenders.  (There’s a discount for the sons because it’s the same case just different lawyers.)  The main concern is if the refinance can get done on time or if the law firm can take some money down and proof of assets + refinance.  That makes me feel a little better about not dipping into our emergency fund for this.  I still don’t know what the right thing to do is and there’s always a general underlying worry that we’ll make things worse in some way.  But I guess we’re on call.

Update 3:  higher interest home equity loan was approved in time.  Daughter’s boyfriend and daughter didn’t show up to a restraining order hearing so that was dropped (which is good news). Relative has had DH’s check for a week but hasn’t cashed it yet.