And life goes on

I've had an interesting scenario lately with my next door neighbor. She lost her job, has two small kids and a boyfriend whose entire family has been staying with them in her little one bedroom apt. None of them work and she is the only one looking for a job. Well, she finally got up the courage to kick the family out of her place, they did nothing but live off of her anyway, but the boyfriend continued to hang around. I think, simply to use her car, which she would continue to let him do inspite of the fact that on more that three different occasions he took it out and drove it around till it ran out of gas and then just left it there. He'd call her and say, "your car is out of gas but I am not putting any more gas in it so if you want it you have to go get it." Now, why would you keep letting the looser borrow your car? Well she does and myself and another neighbor have been involved in driving around trying to help her find her car when it has been abandoned. (that was another thing, he could never really tell her where he left it). Well, she finally found a job and she came home from her job last night to find that looser boyfriend had pawned her television for $20 for cigarette money and supposedly for gas money. But of course he has not been able to find the money to give it to her. So she spent the next hour trying to call him to go get her tv back or to bring her the money. Of course he did neither and he also stopped answering her phone calls. I've told her she can do better than him. I asked her why she would continue to be with a guy who would steal her tv and her gas from her car etc...she refused to answer and she refused to call what he had done stealing. She then went into her crying routine telling me that her tv was all she had. I usually have some sympathy with her and have been willing to help her with gas on certain occasions, but this time I knew she really just wanted me to drive her accross town to get her tv and also to give her money for gas since she didn't have any money left. Not having a tv of my own, I couldn't find much sympathy for her on the need to have a tv right away, which she insisted she did. I write all this, not to complain about my neighbor but becuase I wonder how to show help and support to someone who has so many obvious needs but at the same time is willing to manipulate and not really change if she is getting what she wants. How to show her compassion with out condesension. How to help her and not just enable her to continue in her current lifestyle? I told her that I didn't mind helping her if it was b/c she was working on getting things straight but beyond that I couldn't do much. I hate feeling manipulated but I also want to stay sensitive to needs and bondaged mindsets.