My husband is alienating our neighbors and the money that comes with them

by Janice
(Los Angeles County )

My husband is a carpenter who has been working in our little community on odd jobs for the last 8 years. Recently there have been some neighbor problems. We have a new menacing neighbors and our other neighbors have been reported to the county for property infractions. So things are a bit tense. We have an unusual shared space with the infraction neighbors who have been long time friends and they have asked us to change the dimensions of a building on the shared property. It is a very vague situation and made us uneasy about our relationship with our friends. My husband has always had giving an helpful presence in the community. Recently he has been combative with the menacing neighbors, bull headed and stubborn with the infraction neighbors, and today at a job he is working on for one of our community members he told her that he could only work a half day because there was a football game on TV. Most of the money he makes comes from jobs in our community and I’m afraid that this poor attitude will loose future jobs and our standing in the community. The lady he is working for had others scheduled behind my husband’s work and my husband told her that she needed to reschedule the other work so that he could watch this game. Yes it is a holiday but I feel that he took the job so it is bad practice for him to do that to her.

I am worried about this bad attitude and am mad that he would do this at a job. Am I over reacting? If not, I don’t know how to approach this without it turning into a big unproductive fight. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts?