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?

Indeed.

I can't imagine him devoting this level of help and "kindness" to 90 yr Ernie the partially sighted doubly incontinent man next door....

It's not the requests alone that are problematic - it's the entitlement to them and the fact that she already seems to have formed a little club of two with your husband regarding this matter. She seems unbothered that her requests are clearly driving a wedge between you.

He needs to be very, very careful because this sort of thing can be relationship breaking and some men are fools to a pretty damsel in distress. I'm afraid there's not much you can do about this because you've already made yourself very clear on the matter.

Yeah, like is always said in work place "friendships", its never fat Dave from Goods Inwards is it?

This reminds me of the wisdom tooth story on TikTok lmao 🦷 biggest reality check ever for an old man

And also she is asking for his help with every little thing and feeling entitled to it, rather than trying to manage herself and only asking in an occasional emmergency. It would feel quite different if someone was genuinely in need but it feels that she is manipulating the situation and your husbands kindness .

Dont have tiktok, tell me more!

My dh is a helper too, and mostly it’s a sweet trait, but one of our biggest rows was because he was blurring boundaries with dd’s dance teacher. Or rather because he disregarded my concern that she was interpreting his behaviour as interest and, given she was the only qualified instructor in our area, that could impact dd’s hobby.

I’ve got a really low tolerance for disrespect, and he came very close to finding himself on her doorstep, gift wrapped, and a bow round his neck.

It took him a while to stop sulking wake up and cop himself on and I’m willing to believe that he had been genuinely oblivious and wasn’t seeing the signs. He pulled back graciously and found his boundaries and ultimately no harm was done.

Even though I’m sympathetic I think you’ve overstepped here op, and shouldn’t have spoken for him. That was a serious tactical error.

But her last little stunt has raised the stakes because that is deeply disrespectful of your marriage. Any genuine person would have realised they were massively over stepping and backed off. He’s perfectly entitled to be furious at you, but he also needs to make a wise choice to either support his wife or enable little miss homewrecker.

I presume your husband has a voice and can speak for himself?

Some guy left his wife of 23 years for a much younger girl and his name was saved as wisdom. He was very flattered, thinking it was a nod to his wisdom by being older.

Then his daughter showed him a video of the girl complaining on TT that she was so poor she had to f*ck an old man shaped like a wisdom tooth lol

I’d tell her to stop being manipulative and that her baby isn’t the very first one on the planet, and it’s time she learned to help herself. Suggest that maybe that a ground floor flat or one with an elevator would suit her better, and she wouldn’t disrupt her neighbours when they are trying to work because she can’t handle her daily living requirements.

YANBU. I had twins and got zero help from the neighbours (l didn’t expect any!) and l am fine. She sounds a right pain

If hé thinks that ask him how he plans to make up for not being there for you every day to carry the pram up and down stairs when you had a baby?! Say he must be horrified to think how unkind and absent he was, now he thinks he must do for a stranger what he happily abandoned his wife to work out on her own with his baby. I’d be furious.

Tread carefully OP. My exH developed saviour syndrome for a vulnerable woman and dismissed my concerns. They are now married with a child of their own.

I fear this isn't going to end well. They've already made you the third wheel outside their little twosome. She presumably is home most of the time, DH wfh and there are times when he's in the flat on his own. I'm not sure an ultimatum would make things any better, they'll just cosy up even more in making you the bad guy.

I'm afarid you do need to take heed of the earlier advice to get your ducks in a row. Hopefully you won't need them. But I suspect that - at some point - you might.

Yeah you need to be a united front on this. The last thing you want is him starting to help behind your back and them developing a weird secret.

Is he planning on carting the pram and shopping up and down stairs indefinitely?! She needs to learn to be self sufficient or she's in for a hard ride.

She is being a CF, but I also don't think you should be talking to her on your husbands behalf. You should be talking with your husband. You can ignore the message she sends you or when she knocks.

That is fucking hilarious! Last laugh to his ex wife!

I'm also getting those vibes😬

OP do you know if your DH is verbally reinforcing her by saying - let me know when you need help or brushing off any thanks or acknowledgment of help with offers to keep helping her? I think she’s being a CF but I wonder what she’s being told. I don’t like how you’re being made out by both of them to be the bad guy. He’s liking being her rescuer a bit too much when ger demands sound way past normal or reasonable. Difficult. Can you be the one to respond to her requests & then when you show up get her to do it herself while you show her how you managed up the stairs for eg with the baby carriers? So she gets the msg she’s got to do it /can do it herself & gets bored of the attention/protection of having your DH saving her?

Quite.
There's nothing altruistic about him choosing to constantly help a young pretty woman

I bet he would t be ducking out of work every day to help 85 year old Mildred get her shopping trolley down the stairs

This is absolute bollocks. If people in wheelchairs manage to catch a train, then there is absolutely no reason why an able bodied adult pushing a pram would be unable to catch a train. How many train stations don’t have lifts, these days?

Your DH wasn’t bothered about being there to help you when you had a small child? Presumably you had to manage yourself while he was working. But now some helpless single mum clicks her fingers and he goes running? And how dare she go running to him to complain about you? And how dare he tell you that you’re being unkind? His loyalty should be to you and his family, not some random neighbour who expects him to come running every time she clicks her fingers.

I think I would insist on sitting down together and having a proper conversation about this. Tell him that her constant requests for help are intrusive and inappropriate and his desperate desire to play the saviour is inappropriate. Tell him that you have just watched her run to him to tell him what a mean woman you are, and instead of saying ‘that’s my wife you’re talking about’ he’s agreed with her! Ask him how he would like it if the single dad on the ground floor needed you to show him how to work an iron or change a nappy 4 times a day and you couldn’t wait to rush down there and show him? Would he be talking about the importance of kindness then? No of course he bloody wouldn’t. I’d also remind him that he’s free to do whatever he wants, but that you’re free to decide what you will and won’t tolerate. And weird little friendships like the one they’re developing is not on the cards.

She's living in the wrong accommodation by the sounds of it.

She has her sights on him. Ultimatum time, DH needs to put your feelings first and block her number.

Interesting he is honing in on you “not being kind” rather than NDN being needy and a CF. No doubt she is stroking his ego by viewing him as knight in shining armour. Ignore her calls and suggest your DH not be cornered into doing things for her.

If he can't see that she's stirring up trouble and trying to drive a wedge between you by texting him privately to complain about something you said, he's either a fool or he doesn't want to see it. Don't let him minimise that manipulativeness and paint you as 'unkind'.

Loyalty to you should matter more to him than coming to the rescue of some random (pretty, young) neighbour.