You can take the approach of saying “we’re pretty busy, have you talked to the FRG about having people from your husband’s unit to help,” but I am like your husband in that I enjoy helping people and supporting deployed Families regardless of gender. If you demand your husband stop helping her it will merely serve to create unnecessary tension between the two of you, as he seems to like to help where he can. So, another option, one that I would likely opt for, would be for the two of you to go over and help her out … even if it’s just a light bulb. You can talk to her and keep her company while your husband does the work, or you can all three pitch in. In the process, she will learn some of the skills she may lack, and her calls for assistance will likely diminish substantially.

I would feel I was being disrespectful to my wife if I continually went to a woman’s house to help her out and would feel uncomfortable to be alone in her house while her husband was away. So, this may be a solution that makes everyone feel better about the situation and still lets our deployed Families know we care, we understand, and we are a community that takes care of its own. Think about what you would want if you were in her position — maybe you have been and are just more independent? Don’t misplace your emotions and focus on the wrong issue — that generally just makes you treat the wrong symptom.

SHE SAID:  Given what you have told me, I don’t think you are out of line. I have been on both sides of this issue; being a married woman whose husband helps out a neighbor as well as being a single woman in need of help. Whether you are single, or your husband is simply not available due to deployment or extended duty, there is a line, and I think your neighbor has crossed it. Now, I guess the question is, what can you do about it? Here are your options: Continue to change her light bulbs, clean out her litter box, take out her trash, whatever she asks, with the understanding that this is a temporary situation and when her husband returns, she will no longer need your assistance. I’m not sure this will be the case, as she may continue to look to you, or should I say your husband, to help out when her husband is simply not available.

You can tell her no. Doing this will require your husband to be on board and, from what you’ve told me, I can only imagine that his willingness to help her out without boundaries may be causing some anxiety and frustration. Which brings me to my point —  since your husband is willing to assist her, it is his behavior you have to modify, not hers. He has to be willing to tell her that he is unavailable to help her with routine repairs and if she truly cannot “change a light bulb,” she has a family support group through her husband’s unit that can assist with what she needs.
 This is a predicament, but I fear your biggest mistake, or your husband’s biggest mistake is assuming that it will stop once her husband returns.