Cant connect to internet

ok,,, i'm really new to this and banging my head on the table, please excuse my lack of technical terms,, i have a old packard bell easynote and its windows xp,,, my laptop which is not wireless is plugged into the modem thingy,,, and my daughter can pick up this modem with her laptop which is wireless,, i thought,,, i wanna be able to sit on the sofa with me laptop so i bought one of those dongle things,,, ok so heres my problem,,, when i go into network connections and choose a wireless connection,,, mine and my neighbours come up on the list,,, they both have passwords for security,,, when i click the neighbours it asks for the password (i dont know it) BUT when i click on mine it says nothing,,, there is a password set up,,, i know what it is,,, but it just keeps saying its connecting,,, but never does and never asks me for the password,,, i know that it should and i know the password as we only set it up a while ago and my daughter and husband have managed to set there's up,,, and i'm assuming it's something wrong on my computer as it asks for one if i try to connect to neighbours,,, so does anyone know why mine wont work,,,PLEASE HELP ME