New neighbour wants me to be friends with his wife

[AlTempleton]

New neighbours moved in a few months ago. I saw the husband not long after they had moved in and we introduced ourselves and exchanged pleasantries.

I didn't meet his wife for a while, but then about a month ago I was cleaning my car and they both came out with their baby and came over to introduce the wife. He did all the talking - told me her name, that she's a SAHP, she doesn't know anyone here - and she stood there nodding and smiling as he spoke, but not actually saying anything herself. He explained her English is limited but she'd love to make some friends, she's very lonely at home alone when he's out at work, and that I should go round for tea with her once restrictions are over. I said something noncommittal like "that's very kind" and left it at that and didn't think anything more of it.

However I've just bumped into him again, this time on his own, while I was coming back from walking my dog, and he reminded me about having tea with his wife and reiterated again how lonely she is. He also said we can go in each other's gardens from next week. I said something like, oh well work's very full on at the moment but thanks, that's very nice of you.

I have a feeling now though that he's not going to drop it and that he's got me lined up to be a friend for his lonely wife. This is probably really mean of me, but I just don't want to. I'm working full time and I have a generally busy life, but also I just don't want the pressure of being the person who has to resolve this stranger's loneliness. I've only met her that once when he brought her out to meet me, but I have bumped into him loads of times as he's gone out to work, gardening or he's going for a run. I only ever see her sat at her living room window staring out. It feels like I've been earmarked to resolve the issue of her never going out.

I want to very politely shut this down as I don't want to have to vaguely keep saying things like "work is full on at the moment" every time he brings it up because I think that's not going at stop him asking me, particularly when restrictions are lifted.

Any ideas please? (Or am I just a horrible person??)

@Ideasplease322

Oh dear god - now not wanting to have an awkward coffee with a neighbour who you can’t communicate with is being aggressively unpleasant.

Men are so lucky - they wouldn’t give this a second thought.

This exactly.

Men are not made to feel like rotten old meanies if they're not super friendly and welcoming with new neighbours.

WOMEN though, oh but they must be KIND. And NICE.

Fuck me, some of the posts on here are depressing as hell. Trying to make the OP feel like shit for not becoming the new neighbour's friend. Horrible, manipulative, passive-aggressive behaviour. Plain nasty and controlling. The patriarchy rules for sure. No-one would try to make a MAN feel this way.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

He's an oddball for sure OP and one who clearly has a very strong sense of entitlement. He's evidently offended at your temerity in saying no - despite having no difficulty in asserting it himself loudly and clearly - and shown you he's one of those people who are best avoided because life's too short.

Job done. Incidentally, I'm glad your husband was with you.

Well that's the other odd thing - I haven't actually ever said No yet. I just said things like "that's kind of you".

I took my husband because I didn't want it all on me and the wife to be the ones making friends. I thought it would be better for the four of us to get together instead. That way his wife would also have the support of her husband with her, particularly if she struggles with English. Obviously I was wrong!

My husband now thinks the male neighbour doesn't want to be bothered with making friends with us, he just wants me to be friends with his wife and to leave him out of it.

@AlTempleton

So that was odd.

I thought the suggestion of taking flowers to her was a nice one so I cut some daffodils from my garden and my husband and I just took them round next door. The man answered the door and I said "Hi! We've brought these from our garden for your wife, and we also wanted to invite you both round next weekend to have tea and cake in our garden with us". And he just said "No thank you". So my husband said that it didn't have to be next weekend and it could be another weekend instead of he preferred, but he just repeated "No thank you". Then he smiled at us and shut the door.

So now we're back home, a bit puzzled!

Ah ha, so this man doesn't want any contact or communication with your HUSBAND. He just wants YOU - the woman - to jump when he says 'how high?' Can't control and manipulate men, only women.

Next time this man says anything to you, just a breezy 'please do fuck off' will suffice. You owe him and his wife NOTHING.

It’s okay - he’s a man. He doesn’t have to be kind😂😂😂

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

He's an oddball for sure OP and one who clearly has a very strong sense of entitlement. He's evidently offended at your temerity in saying no - despite having no difficulty in asserting it himself loudly and clearly - and shown you he's one of those people who are best avoided because life's too short.

Job done. Incidentally, I'm glad your husband was with you.

100% this. ^

@Ideasplease322

It’s okay - he’s a man. He doesn’t have to be kind😂😂😂

@MrsFin

Oh come on OP! The woman is lonely, she's your neighbour. Have a cup of tea with her! You never know, you might like her!

This. I can't believe how much you are overthinking it. It won't kill you or interrupt your busy schedule too much to have a cup of tea with a lonely isolated woman. How hard-hearted are we as a society that you are getting so many responses encouraging you not to be kind? Have a flipping cup of tea with the woman. Suggest to her husband that he researches mother and baby groups and ESL classes locally. Meanwhile, be a nice neighbour. You never know when you might need the favour to be returned.

@IrmaFayLear

Strewth - it’s a lonely woman who would welcome a cup of tea with a neighbour.

Is sparing five minutes for someone now considered weakness ? I hope I am teaching my dd to be friendly and kind. Not a pushover, but certainly not aggressively unpleasant to everyone as a default position.

@IrmaFayLear It's not weakness, but neither it it her responsibility to shepherd befriend lonely members of the community. And come on, it's not just 5 minutes, is it!! She would be over there for a lot longer than that! What is she going to do? Look at the clock and fuck-off after a few mintues of arriving?? Of course it will end up taking more time than that. Feeling sorry or obligated towards someone is not a great start to a relationship that's meant to be equal, anyway. Sometimes it's part of the mixture but there must be want to connect there as well.

Women are so often trained to be lovely, supportive, kind. We're so prone to being guilt tripped in being other people's social & emotional support, quite often at great costs to ourselves. Women end up with most of the caring responsibilities, buying Christmas presents for the relatives of boyfriends they hardly know, and even are expect to be nice in the face of our single sex rights practically handed away from our government. I believe in being an ethical person, but this kind of conditioning where women are expected to constantly 'be kind' starts young and I believe in the end it hurts women more often than it helps us. Everybody says 'but I teach my son that too'!! But no....they don't, not really, not in the same way.

@littleredberries

Ok, I am that wife. I hope you read my post. I emigrated to my husband's country and we have a 14 month old. My level of his language is still extremely basic and I have only a 1/4 chance of understanding what people are saying around me. We live in a village population 100 people and I left all my friends behind back in the U.K. I'm also a SAHM. My daughter likes to go out for walks in the village several times a day, and there are neighbours in the village who avoid me (because they don't speak English), neighbours who avoid me because young children intimidate them; there are also neighbours who will say "hello" and leave it at that... then there are neighbours who say I should visit them for coffee, I ask "when?" and they give a deliberately noncommittal answer. Finally, there are the neighbours who try to talk to me despite their poor English, and even one or two that who have taken the time to improve their English due to my presence, who are stellar. But even amongst the neighbours that talk to me, perhaps some days they don't want to. Perhaps I've just caught them in the road after a bad day at work. They see me and then quickly duck into their houses, or pretend not to see, pretend not to hear that I said hello, and that's actually really quite painful. Of course I rationalise with myself and remind myself it's nothing personal, but - naturally - they sense my desperation for human contact. Sometimes they rise to the occasion, sometimes they don't. Of course I'm not owed anything from them, I've learned to deal with my new reality, and now I'm well adjusted to it. Now, I do my best to sense what mood my neighbours are in before I hesitantly say "hello" to them. So you, I would say, are like one of my friendly but non-committal neighbours. In the beginning my hopes were higher and it took a couple of months to realise I would not make connections with these people. But I can tell you something you could still do, that would really help this woman...

Because her life is really tough. All she has is her husband, the demands of motherhood, and the demands of starting somewhere so very new. Language barriers are so detrimental to mothers because we can't advocate for ourselves well, or even our children. My husband had to come to every single prenatal appointment, every child checkup with the paediatrician, and the feeling of helplessness, powerlessness, as a mother, is so destructive. Having to ask him to read every vaccine leaflet for me because I can't etc, makes one feel so bad as a mother. Even when I had ppd, I had to ask my husband to come with me to translate for my doctor! It was humiliating to have him repeat every desperate word of mine for me. It took time to get over that shame. Please do not underestimate how much your neighbour is struggling.

There are still ways you can welcome this woman without devoting your time and energy. I can tell you exactly what would have helped me, if one of my friendly (non-committal) neighbours would have taken just a minute...

Send her a note with recommendations for places and people she can turn to, and make your position clear. Say "Hi, I'm sorry but I don't think I can help you much more than this, because I don't have a lot of time. I thought you'd like to know about..." and then include a list of places she can go to after corona, services she can connect with, or even recommend another neighbour?
The note makes it clear that she should adjust her expectations, at the same time it is helpful. It's worth considering that the husband might be really struggling to connect her to the right places - mine did, and he tried very hard and beat himself up about it when opportunities were missed. He became a parent and husband by 21 and we had moved to a completely new state in his country, so he had so much on his shoulders all at once, and he didn't know the area either. Figuring out parenthood when only one of you is fully integrated is SO hard.
A shortcut to knowing the lay of the land in our area would have been super helpful... like mother and baby clubs etc etc... I really hope you could spend just a couple of minutes making a note with some suggestions?

I hope my post has helped.

I'm sorry to hear of your experience, littleredberries, but I can't help wondering why you expected a whole village to look after you when you didn't, from what you say, offer anything to them? That's the way you make friends, whether you can talk to them or not? In Spain I broke down the barriers by helping look after a neighbour's dog and doing some DIY for a couple of older people. We communicated through mime a lot of the time but these days there's Google translate etc.

And with the ability to learn practically any language online for free, no one these days has any excuse not to be able to have the basics for a quick conversation in the street.

I do understand how difficult it is but part of the solution is to stop being passive and hoping people will rescue you and start doing something pro-active to solve the problem. Otherwise, as you've experienced, people see you as a burden.

I find the comments suggesting "just go round for a 20-minute cup of tea as a one-off #BEKIND" to be quite cruel, to be honest.

If I'm giving someone hospitality in my own home - digging out the teapot, maybe baking a cake, maybe getting nice biscuits in - and that person practically walks in with a stopwatch and makes clear this is a one-off and something they're doing on sufferance and to never expect any friendship ever again - well, I can't imagine how much that would hurt me. I would make me feel like nothing.

Yes, of course there are ways to keep things more casual and we all have acquaintances or friends we only see occasionally, and it's nice and light. But that's different from marching in with the attitude that this is a one and done deal and something you're only doing out of obligation.

It also feels very narcissistic to act like bestowing someone with your regal presence one time, like a visit from the Queen, is going to have any kind of impact on anyone. That's not aimed at the OP, her idea of having them round for cake to see how they get along is lovely. But the posters saying "just go to hers for tea and make clear it's a one-off." LORDY some of you think a lot of yourselves!

Just because someone's a neighbour doesn't mean you have to be friends with them (thank goodness)! It's awkward that there are never "natural" opportunities to speak to her casually, just for a moment or two, in passing. At least that way you could gauge how well she understands you and drop some hints about how she must be looking forward to meeting some other mothers in the area, etc. However, if her English is too limited, it might not even be possible to have that level of conversation, which would make it painful to attempt!

I think I'd be prepared, the next time her husband brings this up, to suggest that there might be local groups she could join. If he's so worried about her making friends, he can do the actual research himself, but maybe this would be the nudge he needs to realise that you're not the answer to his problems.

It's quite presumptuous of him to assume that just because you're a woman living next door, you'll obviously want to be good friends with his wife (with whom you probably have little in common, and who may not even be able to communicate with you).

Also, by the way, I sometimes get lonely and I feel isolated, but I would never, ever expect anyone to socialise with me because of this, nor would I think it was in any way their responsibility!

Having read many posts on here, it seems that lots of people are keen to use the hashtag “behind” on social media but aren’t actually keen on acting on it. It’s sad.

BTW, did he tell you what to wear when you met his wife? Was it a baby doll nightie?

This. I can't believe how much you are overthinking it. It won't kill you or interrupt your busy schedule too much to have a cup of tea with a lonely isolated woman. How hard-hearted are we as a society that you are getting so many responses encouraging you not to be kind? Have a flipping cup of tea with the woman. Suggest to her husband that he researches mother and baby groups and ESL classes locally. Meanwhile, be a nice neighbour. You never know when you might need the favour to be returned.

Another one not bothering to read the updates.

This thread is bonkers. We have threads on here about men abusing their wives that don't get anywhere near this number of heated replies.

@littlepattilou - you are embarrassing yourself. You clearly have an axe to grind and think it’s a show of strength to be nasty, but I repeat you are wrong. Ironically you seem to think that adopting the worst traits of some men makes you a strong woman. Nope. It makes you just a common or garden jerk.

And to chime in with the other comments, if some random stranger knocked on my door claiming to be a neighbour, saying "there's another neighbour - no I don't know her either, complete stranger to me! but can you please go and be friends with her" - I'd assume they were either scammers/potential burglars, or had just escaped from a local psychiatric unit.

For all the be kind people, why should the OP spend time researching baby groups etc when the neighbour could do it for his wife? "Be kind" works both ways, and the OP has the right not to go out of her way if she doesn't want to.

Perhaps the neighbouring wife is an introvert and her husband an extrovert. He may think it would be “good” for her to meet people, she may actually feel quite differently. His “nice” idea may be her idea of hell, it would be mine! You might get a feel for this when they visit as per your plan OP. She may well be very grateful for your maintain a distance.

Oh god, what don't some people understand? If the wife herself was doing anything to form a friendship then it would be a different kettle of fish! Not many people I know would be falling over themselves to do what a man tells them, just because. It's weird. And sad for the wife to be treated like a charity case, as PP put it, some posters must think really highly of themselves if they imagine a one-off personal appearance from them is a big treat.

If he is concerned that his wife is lonely and struggling to make friends he should invite OP and her DH over for tea in the garden not ask OP to host which is just rude and it does suggest a certain unpleasant attitude to women that they can be bossed about and told what to think and do.
He didn't ask OP to host. He asked OP round to their garden for tea.
OP repeatedly made it clear that she didn't want to go.
Perhaps the wife told her husband to stop pushing for OP to visit as she didn't want to be a charity case. Perhaps the wife told her husband that she didn't even want to sit in her garden with OP, as OP was a total stranger and seemed unwilling to socialise.

No I wouldn't want to hang out with a stranger who made no attempt at conversation or friendship just because her husband told me to.
I feel for the wife but if he's worried about her he could pay her more attention or find some local activities for her instead of palming her off on op.

The solution to making friends in a new place is to host surely isn't it?

You invite people over, they are usually so polite and British that they go even if they don't want to and then they owe you an invite back. If they don't like you they don't issue a return invite and then you know. Rinse and repeat until you find a few that you genuinely like.

That's how it goes around my area anyway. In normal times one may pop in to say hi to a new neighbour and check if they need some sugar or whatever but it's then on them to invite you to a housewarming if they want to get to know you more. I would not be repeatedly visiting and checking they are OK as they may not want that and nor do I.

It's a mixed nationality and quite migratory community in our city suburb and there's often someone new at baby group or the school gates. They would usually be welcomed and probably invited to group stuff like a play in the park after school. Step 2 is then for them to invite someone who looks likely as a possible friend back for a coffee and see how it goes.
It would be very frowned upon to try to get yourself invited to someone else's place unless they'd asked you.

Totally not your job. If he wants her to integrate he can do the sodding research. Why must OP? Is it because she is a woman so must ‘be kind’?

[quote IrmaFayLear]@littlepattilou - you are embarrassing yourself. You clearly have an axe to grind and think it’s a show of strength to be nasty, but I repeat you are wrong. Ironically you seem to think that adopting the worst traits of some men makes you a strong woman. Nope. It makes you just a common or garden jerk.[/quote]
You are the only one embarrassing yourself here luv.

Pipe down, there's a poppet.