A couple of months ago, my ex asked me to help with an errand. I said yes. It wasn’t a big deal, and we’d ended things on decent terms. Helping felt like an ordinary thing to do for someone I still wanted to treat kindly.
I understood it as a one-time favor. Once it was done, I figured that was the end of it.
Then the same kind of request started coming every week. There wasn’t a conversation about making it a regular arrangement. Nobody asked whether I could keep doing it or whether it still worked for me. Somehow, the help I’d offered once became something my ex seemed to count on.
At first, the difference was easy to overlook. Each request resembled the original small favor, so it felt a little awkward to object. We were getting along. I wanted to stay polite. But after a while, I noticed that I no longer felt as though I was being asked.
When I finally brought it up, I tried to explain that it was starting to feel like an obligation. I hadn’t agreed to keep helping every week, and I wanted that distinction to matter.
My ex got upset and said I was backing out on them.
That phrase has stayed with me. Backing out suggests we had a plan together, something I’d committed to and was now abandoning. I keep going back over the original favor, trying to find the point where I supposedly signed up for all the ones that followed.
I understand that they may have gotten used to the help. I can also see how my continuing to do it might have made the arrangement seem settled. But I thought I could raise the subject without being treated as though I’d broken a promise.
Now I’m left feeling used, then questioning whether that’s too strong a word. I wanted us to stay on good terms, and I still do. I just thought there would be room, somewhere between one week and the next, for them to ask whether I was still willing.
