To have told NDN that dh won’t be helping her anymore?

[Babycarrierdilemma]

NDN has a young baby. We live on the second floor and she has been knocking or messaging every day wanting dh to help her up and down the stairs with the pram.

She has asked twice for a lift to an appointment next week as said she couldn’t manage the train alone. I told her that he can’t take her and she should sort out a taxi to which she said she cant manage car seat / pram and baby alone.

I had 2 carriers from when dc were little so I took them round and gave them to her said I didn’t have instructions but I was happy to show her or could send her the link to YouTube for each one. I said to her that we can’t help her anymore as it’s really getting too much. It literally is as I’m fed up of the daily requests and it’s almost like learned helplessness?

She messaged dh that evening upset and he’s told me I’ve been really unkind ??? It’s caused an argument and I’ve had to say it’s now a deal breaker if he continues to let her disrupt our lives this way?

What on earth possessed you to raise this as an issue with the almost-complete-stranger instead of your husband (who you presumably have a long-term relationship with)?

It sounds like big red flags all round but you've lost the high ground by confronting the wrong person!

Where will it end ,will she need picking up from these appointments next week?

Helping her down a flight of stairs is impacting on your daily life? 5 minutes? And your DH doesn’t mind? How incredibly mean spirited.

Sorry but you are totally off the mark here.

He isnt a doormat or victim in amy sense.

He is "getting something out of this" and is actively choosing this because he like it.

He likes the attention, the being needed, he likes playing the white knight, and the ego stroking / ego boost.

He needs to cop on.

Just no op.

Your husband hasn't got your back and the neighbour knows exactly what she is doing!

Be very careful...

Gosh no that's ridiculous, I don't mind helping anyone out now and then but she's taking the piss and your DH needs to be firmer, she's not your responsibility

Quite. I doubt your DH would be quite so helpful if your neighbour were male

I must be reading this wrong

OP isn't doing the "helping"so it's up
to her DH if he want to help her

Contacting your DH to manipulate the situation behind your back is such a huge red flag that it overshadows everything I am about to say. I wouldn’t want the woman who did that having much if any contact with my family. But anyway.

I have some insight into this because I had a baby in an upper floor flat with no lift, and I don’t drive and have physical health issues affecting my strength. I wasn’t a single mum but I do have some insight into the challenges. It is hard and there was lot I had to accept I couldn’t do. I chose not to ask any neighbours for help since I thought it was rude to disturb them, and I would have felt stressed by doing so. If I had been a single mum with no support then I might have had to ask once or twice but only if essential medical etc and no other support could be found.

I will say that if she doesn’t have any physical disabilities (and if she has she should be explaining them in this context I think) then she should be able to find a workaround if she thinks it through and has appropriate equipment. You need a light and one hand fold pram. If she drives she needs to have the car seat in the car waiting (block window if in area where might be stolen) and to be able to carry the pram down or leave it by front door. Or leave the pram in the car boot if she has a car, and always carry child upstairs or down without it. Carriers etc. I wonder hat her plans if any are.

I assume if she moved in to a second floor flat with no lift and a five week old, then she had no choice of where to go? If possible she needs to move. In the meantime there will be limitations on what she can do and if help is needed she should be asking anyone else she knows before bothering strangers. She can’t have had my expectations of help from your DH, for all she knew your place was unoccupied or had no resident able to assist. From what you say she sounds massively entitled to the help if she is contacting your DH complaining, and happy to have contact with him that excludes you or your opinions.

Yes it sounds like he's got White Knight complex, rescuing damsels in distress, it's quite common amongst men and some women really play up to it...

Tell her to get a baby sling and put Baby in that. Easy to get around with

Have you read the OPs posts? She asks them to go and get her shopping delivery from downstairs! That's a fucking piss take!

It’s multiple times a day, including going downstairs to get her damn shopping. It’s ridiculous.

Well you sound lovely.

I am not saying that it WILL happen, but your husband sounds exactly the sort that would fall for this bollocks, and Little Miss Big Eyes is very manipulative.

So make sure that while things are ok (ish) start your file. Savings, where are they, who has access. Income, who earns what. Pensions, again who has what etc.

I know that sounds like I think he is cheating, I am absolutely sure that he isnt.....but it isnt out of the realms of possibility in the future. Little Miss Big Eyes has her big eyes on him, and he sounds like a fucking idiot with a White Knight complex who will fall for it. So you know what they say......."Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." And as someone who has been through it, a full eye on all the finances etc is an essential thing to have anyway, it means that you will never be blindsided.

Be very careful OP she knows what she's doing and your DH is too daft to see it...

Oh this is absolutely not going to end well !

And you sound clueless. She isnt needful, she is needy. Big difference.

He needs to stop being someone else’s doormat is what I want to say to him but I won’t .

You need to resolve this as an issue between you and your DH and stop seeing your new neighbour as the cause of it. She may or may not be needy and manipulative, but that wouldn't matter if you and your DH were on the same page and secure in your relationship.

What I'm reading is that you are feeling insecure, and jealous, and maybe also resentful that she's asking for and getting help that you didn't get (because DH was at work). You only want DH to do your bidding, not hers - 'doormat' is very telling, and derogatory. Whereas he wants to help her, and he's enjoying helping her, and he doesn't want to be anyone's doormat.

Your problem is not with her, it's that you chose a guy who is lovely and helpful, to her at least, but he hasn't got the memo that you think all of his time and attention should belong solely to you.

I'd do some soul-searching then try to share how you feel about yourself with DH, and take it from there. NOT your opinions about him, or her, or how they should be behaving to make you feel okay.

I’d be really interested to learn your DH’s reaction if you told him that you’d heard the neighbour on the phone saying something along the lines of “I’ve got myself a lift with the fat/balding/gap-toothed old neighbour, stupid old fart thinks he has a chance with me.”

And if he’d be so keen to help out if he realised she didn’t see him as a hero, just a gullible middle aged man?

I often think these “white knight” men who love to rescue damsels in distress think of themselves as a young Harrison Ford, rather than the reality that stares back at them in the mirror and what the “young damsel” actually sees.

Genuinely not suggesting you do this, just musing on how perfectly average men see themselves in young women’s eyes.

Why are you speaking for him? It's up to him if he wants to help.

My friend who had a similar situation (2 floor, no lift, single mom, c section) was chaining the pram base by the stairs inside the entrance of the building (wasn’t on anyone’s way) and was going up and down with the baby in the pram bassinet. Your neighbour is a bit over the top

So the OP thinking he is a doormat is derogatory but you saying that "You only want DH to do your bidding" isnt? It implies that she sees herself as some sort of Queen and him as her servant, which clearly isnt the case.

You say that he is enjoying helping her, I am sure that you are right. But why? Because she feeds his ego. The OP doesnt do that because she sees their relationship as one of equals, he does his bit, she does hers. Ego prefers "Oh you are so wonderful".

he hasn't got the memo that you think all of his time and attention should belong solely to you.

Nothing the OP has posted suggests that this is the case. Just that she is pissed off that Mr Wonderful left her, at the same stage post partum, to manage without him and yet ask "how high?!!" when NDN asks him to jump.

I think if anyone needs to do some soul searching its you, about how you made that frankly olympic record breaking leap.

Oh I had one of those. A neighbour came running out of her house screaming one day because her baby was injured. I'd never met her before but took her to the hospital. She told me she was all alone. She'd had her baby with a married man but he was still with his wife, and no support to her.
I helped another few times, then she needed something fixed so DH went over. Then she started asking him for help with lots of little things. We pulled back a bit, then she knocked in to say she was moving and could she have DH's number so she could ring him to go around to help in her new place. I gave her short shrift and said he was too busy to help anymore. DH was relieved and I was glad she was gone.

Won't add to the already spot on responses, just saying that I'd have been furious at DH giving out my phone number to her. I'd be blocking her. And to be honest, given how snidey she was messaging your DH to complain about you, I'd be going round to get my slings back too.

She's being ridiculous. I lived in an upper floor flat with no lift when I had my first baby and I just used a sling all the time. I never once asked a neighbour for help, my DH worked away from home so although I wasn't single, I was alone with baby for long periods of time, so practically speaking, may as well have been single. She can get her own sodding shopping, as long as baby is placed somewhere safe, there's nothing stopping her going up and down the stairs a few times to bring everything up.

I'd be annoyed at her, as you are. I could get once or twice needing help, but the constant daily, multiple times a day - absolutely not. Your DH is a twat to treat you this way about it.