Things that come back to bite you where the sun don't shine

No sooner have I finished my post about the blast from the past that trouble is on the step of our front door.

My hubby has great social skills. He is very generous and helpful. Always there for friends and family. Usually to such an extend that it looks to me as if he is being exploited. Which he certainly was in the past. He can see that now. It is by no means his fault. He was born and bred like that. Always friendly, always helpful but sometimes that comes back to bite you in the a**.

Here is an account of what happened.

When we lived in Ireland we met a great deal of people. My husband had many friends in his job and some of them moved back to Germany. So did we. We settled in nicely. Found a great apartment. Bought a car, furnished the whole place and generally tried to make our life as cozy and comfortable as possible. Now that wasn’t easy and I admit it was easier with two incomes than it would have been for a single household. Anyway. One of my husband’s colleagues (he started shortly before the hubby left the company) decided to come back to Germany as well. Started out in the same company that employs the hubby and me. Now we live about five minutes from work by car. There is very few public transport to that place but it isn’t as remote as you’d think either.

We helped him find an apartment in our house. We vouched for him with our landlady. We helped him move, we lent him things, we cooked for him while he was waiting for his kitchen to be put in, we lent him the car, we took him to work and back on a daily basis. And what did we get back? Zero, zilch, nada, nothing, nichts…Now we didn’t expect anything except a Thank you maybe. No thank you. No money towards the gas. No gift on either our birthdays though he did attend the party and ate his way through everything. No kind words. Instead we got to wait several times in work for him to finish with work before chauffeuring him back home or shopping.

As a thank you we learned from our neighbors that he had plans to move out again. Two months after moving in mind you. Now this is where things got ugly. The neighbors knew he wanted to move but he did not tell us. We should have been the ones to know first. We vouched for him. He has a one year contract and 90 days notice. We were pissed off. Not that he was moving but at the sum of all things.

We like our landlady. She is awesome and we could not have been luckier to have found her or happier to be her tenants. She is fair to say the least and also goes out of her way to help you feel comfortable. It was like a fecking lottery win.

My hubby approached him and asked when he intended to tell us he was moving. He said he wasn’t really happy there and he did not know he had to involve us in his decision process. He didn’t but wouldn’t it have been the right thing to inform the people that helped you first before telling a random person? Lesson learned. Life is private now and help is only administered to friends and close family or extensive examination of the particular case. Are we so wrong in feeling exploited? I can tell you we are certainly fed up.