drop in visit - ok or not?

unihockey

Mon, Oct 22 2012, 11:03 am

Because I wanted to say "sorry" [even though I still am mad at him] because I do regret that he didn't get help for his kid. I emailed him motzai shabbat to say, "I'm sorry I was sleeping and not really with it earlier; I've been having sleep-deprivation migraines and shabbat afternoon is my only napping time, but I hope everyone was ok and I'm thinking about [kid]."

I was hoping that it would (a) make peace, but also (b) make him aware that shabbat afternoon naps are not to be interrupted again.

OTOH, I'm realizing that maybe (b) won't get through since he wasn't with it enough to know to stop knocking, or to take "no" as an answer gently the first time.

I don't want to have enemies in our little community, and their family does host a lot of things and is pretty generous, if pushy. It's a touchy situation. They annoy me, and the mom of the family is kind of bossy and mean to me too about other things (YELLED at me "you have to go to store X it has better prices!!" when we were, I thought, casually exchanging shopping ideas - she really took it personally that I went to store Y). Once we were at a bris and the mom was really upset and I said, "yes it feels horrible right now but I promise you every day gets better and look at my biggest now, age 14, you see how he's healthy and strong and not crying k"h, that will happen..." and the woman in question came over to me right in my face and said, "you don't say it's horrible; you are giving her ideas let me do this right". Stuff like that.
Or like the time we were arranging chessed meals and signing up for things and I signed up for dessert and she said that wasn't really essential and could it be something else (but I knew the woman who needed the meals loved my desserts).

I always feel like she's trying to establish herself - by some nice things, like all the hosting, and by some not-so-nice things, like being bossy and putting other people down. So I'm really torn. I suspect that if she had come instead of her husband, to my door, that (1) she would have come right in - I realized to my chagrin that it was unlocked when I finally came to the door and (2) she would have barged in even if I said please wait a few minutes, so in one sense it's lucky it was her husband.

unihockey

Wed, Oct 24 2012, 8:02 pm

sequoia wrote:

I am disturbed by the fact that your dh didn't run after the man and stop him. He should not have exposed you to such a thing.

I think there were three ingredients to that:

1. My DH feels guilty saying "no" to someone in need, particularly to this guy who invites people a lot, and who had just had a men's oneg that DH attended the previous night. (One of our first fights ever was in our first year of marriage when DH gave a homeless person a ride and I thought he had been swindled or at least been very at-risk of violence during that ride, not to mention my icked-out feelings about the car.)

2. My DH wasn't 100% sure if I was still sleeping

3. My DH was taken by surprise, and was watching my little one so wasn't ready to drop and run. Wink