Learning to be nice....

 
I'm an emotional person. When I'm happy it's obvious and when I'm not happy it's even more obvious. If I don't like someone I can't help but show it - no matter how hard I try one day I just snap!

The hubby is a sweetheart. He will give his biggest enemy the best seat in the house and speak to them as if he were speaking to an old good friend. Don't get me wrong, he will not talk about them behind their back and he won't be pretending he likes them - he genuinely does. In fact I'm usually the one who will be the meanie and he will ask me to be nice.

For a long time I knew this about myself but now that I live with someone who is the complete opposite I feel even more ashamed. Case in point: We have a neighbour. A little boy aged about 8. The hubs and I love kids so when we moved to this apartment we were glad to find a kid who was friendly. His mum doesn't give him enough attention so we thought we'd reach out to a boy who felt unloved. He would come over to our place and we'd give him a drink and he'd talk with the hubby. We soon found out that when he got back home he'd discuss a lot of things that had taken place in our house. What he'd seen, what we own - you get the picture? Since we're farmers we have a lot of food and he began to ask for it and we'd get no thank you from his parents. RUDE!!!!!!

Then he started knocking on our doors at all sorts of hours. As long as he saw the car in the drive way he'd come right up. 9 am on Sunday mornings, 3pm on Sunday afternoons, 9 am on Saturday mornings. I mean we are 'newly' weds - can you give us some space??!!!

Needless to say, I was not amused! I immediately began to cut him out of my life. I mean, I don't want a gossip in my house or someone who is snooping around to see what we can give him. And I'm not sure what his parents ask him about us. Generally, I don't trust the kid.

The hubby on the other hand is as sweet to him as he has always been. He's been able to show him the boundaries in a very diplomatic way. While I resorted to 'the angry eye' he would sit and talk with him on the stairs and let him know that we're busy getting ready for church or we want to relax after a long day at work. Me? I didn't want to see him near me.

Now, I know that he's just a kid and that it's probably his very rude parents fault that he is the way he is but it does not change the fact that I don't want him taking all sorts of information to them. Therefore, I don't want him in my house.

But let's face it, I need to learn to be nice to the kid. The fact that I 'ignore' him just makes him think that all women are mean. To be honest when we get home and he's playing outside his eyes light up when he sees my hubby. And yes, sometimes I shoot him the 'do not disturb' look but he's just a kid and I need to learn to be nice. The hubby has clearly set the boundaries so we don't get visits at odd hours so now I need to smile at him, ask him how he's doing. You'd think it would be easy but it's not. Especially for an emotional person like me.

They say that you become more like your spouse the longer you are married - I really hope that I pick up on the quality of always thinking the best of people and being nice to people no matter what they do to me because they probably don't know any better. Lord, please!!!!

Do any of you struggle with being nice to people you don't trust? And how do you deal with it?