Husband Helping Neighbor

In My Humble Opinion
61

Following this discussion - what do YOU think? Ought your husband have expected an offer?

I thought decent neighbors helped each other out. Never crossed my mind that money would change hands. Except if one was hired - like hiring the neighbor kid to mow the lawn. Or hiring a neighbor to do a specific job they had some expertise at.

But in terms of, “Hey neighbor, could you give me a hand?” Or “Hey neighbor, could you use a hand?” Your husband’s expectation of an offer of payment - and his expression of displeasure at not receiving one - strikes me as odd and unneighborly. Especially when your husband appears to have offered to help instead of being asked.

If you think your husband is out of line, do you anticipate ever telling him that? Cause IMO it kinda sucks that your husband has a mildly negative impression of this neighbor, when IMO the neighbor did NOTHING wrong.

62

I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of this thread. It made me realize that whenever I encounter this kind of thinking, and hear stuff like, “I wouldn’t have accepted but…it would have/should have, at least been offered!”, it never fails to strike my ear as a titch petty.

This thread has caused me to examine why that is. After some thought I realized that when dissected it’s really about being denied the opportunity to publicly and magnanimously turn down whatever is offered. So it’s about the ego stroking that comes from loudly declaring, “No, no, that’s okay, there’s no need truly!”

That’s what I’m hearing as petty, I think. An ego that needs that stroking, that reinforcing just one more time please. I helped, I shouldn’t be denied the ego stroking of your fawning over reciprocity, and my magnanimously denying it’s necessity.