Am I Not Smart? Or I'm Too Good

Hi
I can understand your situation with your neighbor.I think you should give ur neighbor unrejectable reason when you need her help like "need to draw money for urgent sickness or like so.Coming to ,u helping her I suggest you help her when you can and without a hitch of hesitation reject her when you can't.Afterall I believe "what goes around comes around ".If u do good you will get good.well may or may not be from ur neighbor but surely in another way.

 

Talk to her straight n tell her how u feel... or avoid her so she knows what wrong she has done..

 

Been there .I don't have a solution.one thing that worked for me is reducing the conversation to bare minimum.Talk but don't be too friendly and too soft kind of way.
Some of my neighbor used to call me just to vent out their family frustration and mostly asking for some help.i help but just in case if I ask help once in a blue moon there won't be any regret on their side for not helping me.Thy make number of calls even if I don't pick up.
My DH said probably I'm being too nice with all and i needed to be little straightforward.And say no.so now I do that.
We give the impression to other people that they can ask for help and we will help them.
I broke that impression about me.
So you don't give impression to other people that you are a foolish helping person instead you help only if you can.selective help.
I became thick skinned.Added a little stone to my heart.Learnt to say NO.Will help only if I am absolutely needed ,only if my DH agrees.

 

Some people are brought up that way.they extract whatever they can if it's free.they have no regret and no shame.they are just selfish and only know how to extract help for free to ease their work.
We can only change how we react or respond.
Most of them if you analyze does not have a supporting husband or the wife is not ready to discuss with husband about these helps or ask for help from DH or does not have cozy relationship between DH and wife or no independent thinking.
I have few instances where they left theor kid with my kid for play and the whole family went shopping without even intimating me that they won't be home.i needed to go to hospital that day and found their house locked.i asked their kid and she informed me that she was asked to play in our house till they return from shopping.
Her H ,grand parents didn't fret about not informing me or asking my plans or leaving the child at another home till 10p.m .
That was my last call and i changed my approach from then on .

 

I want to ask you something. When she said its an emergency on call, Couldn't you actually ask her what emergency? Knowing her nature you could have got that cleared on call and maybe ask her to drop the baby at your home since you have some XYZ work which cant be unattended. In any kind of emergency its common for people to tell what it is about atleast briefly.

This way you could have been guilt free since you took take care of the baby as well as be clear that you didnt have to go out of your way to help such a person.

 

Okay in this case, after going there, you saw what the emergency was about. You should have shown your displeasure about her behaving this way and shown slight irritation. That time, you should have said, Okay come with me,drop your baby at my home and come back ,pick her from my home. I have loads of work to be done and need to get XYZ before evening.

Only if she knows that you will show irritation and displeasure ,she will have some hesitation before saying emergency for such things.