TLDR: neighbors want to hang out with us all the time, we aren’t clicking with them friendship wise. We only have our kids in common. Neighbor husband is inappropriate and it overall just seems like not a good fit. ETA they are several houses down, not next door neighbors.
My husband (40-ish M) and I (30-ish F) have newer neighbors who come from a strict Christian background. Our toddlers happen to be the same age and play together well. They are nice people, but we are finding they’re a package deal. When a play date is suggested by either of us, they rush at the idea that we all hang out (spouses and kids). They always suggest we find sitters so we can go out for double dates without the kids too. We personally enjoy making time for double dates when it’s with really good friends of ours.
I am interested in making time for one-on-one mom/tot playdates. My husband has his friends that he is happy with and likes having good neighbors, but doesn’t want to be signed up to hang out with them all the time. And I respect it / agree with him.
To be blunt, at our ages my husband and I are busy with work, hobbies, our families and of course our toddler. We’re fortunate to have friends near and far that we make time for. We’re very social people, yet we are selective about who we spend our time with. That is how we live our life now and we’re happiest that way.
Our neighbors have been sounding kinda desperate to hang out, they will walk by our house all the time to see if we’re home and kind of just take up our space and time when they see us outside. Again, fine with that in small doses. We like hanging out with our own kid but without another family always coming over.
Fast forward to this week. The neighbor wife keeps texting me ideas of ways we can all to get together soon, all the time. They invited us over for a kid-free movie night at their house which is not our bag so I politely said no thanks we’re busy. They seem to want to have a play date every week and it’s just not something we can or want to make time for. I mentioned earlier that they are religious and it’s because my husband and I are very much not. We are open to having friends of all kinds, but we just don’t seem to click with them like we would the people we prefer to spend time with.
The neighbor husband makes a lot of inappropriate sexual jokes around us (and for being strictly religious I kind of see this as a red flag from my own experience/past religious upbringing). Our kids are usually within earshot of these jokes and are of age were they repeat everything they hear. His parenting style is also stressful because he’s constantly interrupting our conversations to verbally reprimand his kid for doing the same things my kid is doing at the moment (climbing safe things, screaming outside while playing, etc). I really like seeing the wife once in awhile, however they are a package deal.
From speaking to my husband, it feels like we both are doing them favor by hanging out with them rather than enjoying our visits like we do with our real friends. How do we let them down gently? I already told her we were very busy with our schedules and can’t make time for frequent play dates. They are persistent. I know they are newer to this area, the clingy-ness is getting to be too much. Thoughts?
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