Ain’t life grand! asked:


I live next door to a woman who has teenage sons and husband works heaps. She is a full time house wife but seems to be constantly on the go with projects. When I first had my baby she popped in to see if I needed help and was a great support and then she became critical and overbearing. I am not the most confident and strongest person you’ll ever meet and don’t often stick up for myself when I should, so these types of people get the better of me and it gets me down because I feel robbed and abused in some way. She gives me her opinion when I haven’t asked for it and she twists everything around so she makes out I have the wrong end of the stick and not her. In cases when this has happened I have checked it out with the source and I was right in how I originally understood the situation. Meanwhile, she gets me all hyped up about people taking advantage of me and how naive I am to have walked into that one. She plays one up-man-ship all the time, even to the extent of copying my style of writing in emails to her. She challenges me non stop about what I do, what I say. I did make some progress with this but feel as if I have gone backwards. But I am beginning to feel that I have allowed this to go on too long and I don’t know how to get our relationship to a stage that I can manage it so I feel safe mentally. As I said, I did make progress for a few weeks and joked back at her and tried being overly kind when she called and boasted that she cooks this and does that. I have even stood my ground on some of her opinions only to have her insult me. Yesterday, she came round and teased me for having rollers in my her and then said my house smelt like milk or some sour thing. We have a mutual acquainance who needs to leave some luggage at her home and this person asked if they could leave it at my home to later pop into her when she returns home from her trip. I said ok. Somehow, my neighbour understood that as me taking the luggage and not her for keeping and I said I had agreed to no such thing and that I would pop it over to her and she said I was being taken advantage of and that just because it didn’t suit the other person to bring it sooner why should I have to do the running around. I actually didn’t mind and hadn’t thought of it like that so I started to feel used by the other person. I then got into it with the other person about clarifying who was taking her luggage etc and it turns out I was right in what I thought and my neighbour has got it all mixed up. So in short – I just feel I have no mental defence against this woman. She ups her game every time I become stronger. She gets to me when I am vulnerable (time of the month) and I absolutely **** it. I know I just can’t get rid of everyone I don’t get on with in my life but how do I just keep this person as a neighbour you just say hi to without her getting offended or noticing too much that I am backing away?

asked:

Okay, soo a lot of people have told me over the years that I have no spine (my mom, my boyfriend, other family have told me this)…

Well last year my boyfriend and I took a trip to Florida. We bought luggage to take this trip because neither of us had any. We bought a 4 pc set, big bag, medium, carry on, and then another carry on type bag w/out wheels.

Well a month after we got back my friend of 10 years asked to borrow our carry-on sized one to take on vacation. I let her borrow it and have yet to see it. Its been 6 months. I’ve mentioned it a few times.

My boyfriend paid for the luggage. His mom is taking a trip in 2 weeks and asked to borrow the carry on becuase she has to change flights and it would be easier if she could just have a carry on. When she asked if she could borrow it is when we realized my friend still has not returned it.

Shortly after my friend came back from her trip, she moved out of her house into her fiances house. Her mom also moved out of that house into a new house since. I’m afraid that they might not even have the carry-on suit case anymore!!

How would I handle that situation? The luggage was pretty expensive. My boyfriend would not make me buy him new luggage (we live together, we kind of share everything we have anyways) but I would feel really bad about it. Plus we’re taking a trip in October that we wanted to use the carry-on for.

I kind of feel like if she no longer has it, she should replace it (just the one carry-on piece) but how would I go about saying that in a way that doesnt sound rude or something?
I need the suit case next week.