Suspicious of neighbours behaviour towards my DH

[Stace88]

The couple who lived next door to us when we moved in broke up a few months ago and the man has since moved out.

The woman who lives there rarely spoke with us before but since breaking up is always chatting to my DH when she sees him. I can be stood next to him and she doesn’t look at me and aims any conversation towards him. She also refers to him by his name but doesn’t ever say mine.

That alone isn’t what my post is for. In the last couple of weeks she has made comments to DH - she saw him get back from the gym and asked him if he’d be her personal trainer (note - DH isn’t in bad shape but is a once a week gym goer and certainly isn’t a PT!). DH politely replied and she said she hasn’t had any workouts since becoming single and added ‘if you know what I mean’ with a laugh - fairly obvious what she was insinuating.

Yesterday, I was out all afternoon for a friends’ baby shower so my car wasn’t on the drive. DH told me he was pottering in the garden when our neighbour called his name over the fence and asked if he could help her with moving something in her garden which was too heavy for her, DH said yes and she told him to go down the side gate.

When DH went round she was wearing a bikini and in his words had clearly not been doing any gardening. He moved a pot at her request and then she asked where I (“your missus”) was. DH said I was out for the afternoon and she then asked if he fancied having a drink with her in her garden. DH politely made his excuses and came home.

I trust DH completely but feel like our neighbour is starting to stray into CF territory and I worry what her intentions are. DH thinks I’m being silly. Do you see where I’m coming from?

This! Spot on.

@Stace88 - I agree with this poster. But he needs to shut the neighbour down, one way or the other - better from him than from you

This is for your husband to deal with. He needs to tell her to fuck off and that he isn't interested. Of course he's flattered and it would be the convenient option for the 'jealous wife' to march round and give her an earful but that's playing straight into this nasty woman's hand. Your husband knows this too I'm sure, but if you deal with it for him he can keep entertaining her shenanigans.

She sounds like a right trollop.

And do not tell him you said that to her. But by the sounds of it her reply would probarly be she could get him to rise to the occasion 😀

I would probably do this but I’d also read my dh the riot act. ‘Dh Blind Freddy could see this woman is blatantly coming onto you and you’re not usually a stupid man. At what point is your inability to tell her you’re really uncomfortable with her advances actually also you telling me you have no respect for our marriage and my feelings? I am going to go round and tell her, but let me be clear that since you can’t articulate it or acknowledge it if you step foot on her property again that that will be you saying you don’t respect our marriage. Not saying something to her is a choice you’re making and not one that feels good to me.’

I agree. But why is chatGPT replying - bot account?

This is when I say a prayer that my husband is socially awkward and would have said no and walked away to the PT question 😆

But also in a similar situation I insert myself in to the conversation and say oh HI MIRANDA, my names GINA incase you FORGOT, oh yes Tim has been at work this week. Anyway we have to go, have a nice day.’ No way in fuck would I stand there mute and get ignored by some random woman chatting up my husband.

DH also now has a back injury so is unavailable for any house help or garden help. Suggest she looks online to try to make local friends!

Call her out on it when he’s next to you. “Aren’t you embarrassed to be this obvious, neighbour?” And “Do you even know my name, or just his?”

There a saying ‘never shit on your own doorstep’ which this woman obviously is not aware of.

The DH definitely needs to handle this as she sounds the type who will enjoy that she’s upsetting the OP or she wouldn’t be so brazen with a married man living right next door.

That he thinks the OP is being silly is concerning though after he said he felt uncomfortable himself. Sounds like he liked it and then felt guilty so ‘confessed’. He also should have picked up on her ignoring you and brought you into conversations when they happened so that is a bit disrespectful.

I’d be telling him to tell her straight next time she tries anything on that he knows what she’s up to, is not interested, and out of respect for his wife he won’t be helping her again.

Then I’d keep a very beady eye (and probably have a front door camera looking over the front of the house and one looking over the back just in case of anything sinister when I was out)!

I’ve never been cheated on to my knowledge but many posters on here have said they totally trusted their DH and never thought they’d cheat. It sounds like the OP’s DH has a willing partner parading herself in a bikini right next door if he was inclined to be tempted, so I’d be on guard big time in her shoes.

DH thinks I’m being silly.

@Stace88, I would absolutely take issue with your H’s dismissal of your concerns and his denial of this woman’s agenda. Her thirsty moves on him and rudeness to you are blatant and he must see that.

*Blanks you and won’t utter your name, yet laser focuses on H and flirts.
*Approaches as he returns from the gym and asks him to be her PT.
*Infuses sexual energy into their conversation via her ‘work-out’ innuendo.
*Uses moving a pot as a pretense to present herself in a bikini.
*After verifying your absence, asks him to have a private drink as she parades in said bikini.

Her brazen behavior is appalling and I don’t buy that H is clueless about her intentions. My husband would have distanced himself if she was ignoring me while gushing over him, and would have definitively shut her down after her sexual come-on. After that play, I can’t believe H actually went over there and gave her the opportunity to make another move.

He knows what she’s doing, @Stace88. I think he is flattered/intrigued/validated by having two adoring and competing women. You’re being triangulated by his entertaining and reporting her antics but then diminishing your valid responses with ‘Don’t be silly’.

Tell him that he needs to nip this immediately or there will be consequences.

He is a grown man why on earth does he have to do anything, it all sounds like carry on film

I would actually like the mature grown up i want the world to think i am ans just carry on with my life, she is attention seeking so why on earth fall for it he is not a piece of meat is he?

Why would he be telling OP everything that’s happening if that were the case ?

Well he needs to grow some balls and start being the type because if you do it for him she will do it all the more, only this time she’ll be making comments about how he better not let his wife see him talking to her.

DH isn’t the type to bluntly (or even softly) tell her to stop it

Yet he has no problem with telling you that he thinks you're "being silly" while also passing on every detail of the neighbour's flirting 🙄 .

It sounds like he's enjoying every second of this.

"It sounds like he's enjoying every second of this."

With the enormous caveat that we don't personally know the husband, I seriously doubt this statement is true.
A small part of him may well be flattered by the attention, and I don't think anyone can reasonably blame him for that, but from all the OP has said her DH comes across as generally confused and uncomfortable by the neighbor's behaviour.

My guess, and it is just a guess, is that he either doesn't fully understand what is happening or does but doesn't fully comprehend the implications of it.
His dismissing of the OP's concerns as being "silly" are completely unfair, but symptomatic of a man who wants to not believe the situation is in any way serious. I have a suspicion that were the neighbor to make a brazen, open advance on him he'd be surprised.

The problem here, OP, is this is only something he can sort out.
The neighbor is clearly is trying to compensate for feelings of undesirability following the loss of her partner but, as capable as you are, any attempt you make to intervene will be useless. Unless he actually intends to go through with an affair with this woman, which I doubt, then he must stand up, take your concerns seriously, and then shut down her advances himself. She will not accept anything else.

Get a male friend to come round and chat to you both but completely ignore your husband. Make sure he mentions he’s split up from his girlfriend and drops some tacky innuendos into the conversation. Then, as he’s leaving, make sure he asks you to come round and help him sort his laundry because he’s struggling with getting the washing machine to go on full spin. Bonus points if he can take his t shirt off ‘because he’s hot’.

Then perhaps your husband will realise that you’re not being silly. He needs to block this woman - walk away if she comes over to speak to you both; refuse all requests for help; and make sure his face shows disdain, disgust and pity every time he sees her.

What, he’s not the type who can say “look, I’m sorry but I’m happily married and not interested”? Really?
What’s he going to say when the neighbour says “would you like to come inside for a shag?” Is he going to just say yes because he’s ’not the type’ to let her down?

He knows op but maybe he is embarrassed or secretly pleased! But I would write down what you have said here and tell him to shut it down and stand up for himself because it will be more embarrassing if you have to do it. And when she does it in front of you I would turn it back on her ask her outright about her conversation towards dh maybe.

My guess, and it is just a guess, is that he either doesn't fully understand what is happening or does but doesn't fully comprehend the implications of it.

I'm sorry but this is hilarious!

This is actually good!

And yeah this is deffo not true.

He either really hates confrontation or he actually quite likes it and doesn’t want it to stop. Maybe a bit of both. Either way it’s shitty of him because he’s valuing her feelings over yours!

Have a quiet word with her. Tell her to stop what shes foing. That your DH told you about her being in a bikini etc that it sad she's trying it on with him because he's very happy and completely uninterested in her.

Laugh a little.

But be firm when you speak yo her. I'd add that you both have a giggle about it all...

She is toxic, be careful but get to her now before she goes full on...