Ja, what she drunkenly told me was in confidence as far as talking to random strangers is private.
I would not have told anything to the cops except she was unfit to drive. I have to respect her privacy and autonomy.
There may be variations of this in the men’s room as well, because men can certainly be DV victims. It’s a bigger problem in the LGBT+ community than many people realize.
Accept your helplessness.
I feel every bit of this. I’ve had friends and coworkers (and random people at the bar) who I just can’t help.
I’ve got a random woman former coworker who’ll call me up for coffee, show up a half hour late, or one time an hour early. And tell me stories that merely hint at an out-of-control life (Wait, she ‘had to leave’ another apartment? But she was living with Fiancé Number Two since the latest divorce, wasn’t she?). And luckily I figured out that I was powerless to help at all, BEFORE I got entangled in her drama-of-the-month. But I used to just listen and keep my questions and my need to know what’s going on in check.
And lately I haven’t even been doing that, as she hasn’t called in ages, and I never call her.
I pray and hope that means her life’s under control and she doesn’t need to vent.
But I doubt I’ll ever not wonder whatever happened to her. And now you have one of those, and I hope you can look back on this as a bullet dodged (maybe literally).
When I was in college in the early 1990s, I lived in an apartment that shared a wall with a bigger unit occupied by several women with whom I worked, and their roommate, who was in an abusive relationship. One morning, I was awakened by him slamming her against the wall and screaming at her. I didn’t call the police, which got me a lot of heat at work, but first of all, I didn’t want the police showing up and they say “Oh, there’s nothing going on here” and she gets beaten up worse, or killed, and second of all, I didn’t really have any big desire to have him somehow figure out I called, and break my door down or go after me in some other way. Was I selfish? Probably, but I value my life too.
The roommates told her in no uncertain terms, “Either he goes, or YOU go” so SHE MOVED IN WITH HIM (big surprise) and I later heard that he was arrested on a bridge because he was smacking her around on that bridge in broad daylight, and a cop happened to be driving by. This was obviously before cell phones. I sure hope she eventually got rid of him.