A friend of mine is a "single" parent to three children. She lives in a council house and her ex partner has his own place five minutes away. They've been separated for around two years now and in that time her ex has continued to come and go from her house on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day. He has the majority of his meals there, does diy, watches sky sports, etc and they continue to go on holiday and on days out together.
I realise that what ever they decide to do is their business and that would be all good and well if my friend didn't spend all of her time ranting on about how hard life is as a single parent. Every time I see her it's the same old thing, how tough it is doing it all on her own, how she has no money, how she never gets out of the house. When in reality she gets out of the house every weekend to go out socialising with friends as the children's dad takes them from Friday dinner time until Sunday lunch time. He also comes and minds the children at her house during the week so that she can go to the gym and out with friends. Oh and pays her a very generous amount of child maintenance that doesn't get counted towards her benefits.
I am sick to death of hearing her especially since she has a very easy life, but also because I have another very close friend who is a genuine single parent and she is really struggling. Her husband of 15 years upped and left her and her two children last year and he hasn't been heard from or seen since. He cleared out their joint bank account, left her with nothing and she ended up having their house repressed as she couldn't afford to keep up the mortgage payments, even though she was working. She is on the bones of her backside, has no family support, her friends (other than me and one other person) have deserted her as she can't afford to go out and see them regularly and in general she is feeling really low. The thing is all three of us are friends and visit each other's houses and my friend who in my opinion has it easy is not only annoying me but she's getting to our other mutual friend. No wonder really, she's sick of hearing her go on and on about how hard she has it when she herself has absolutely zero input from her children's father, no help from family, no Csa etc. We are both now distancing our selves from her as she's becoming impossible to be around. AIBU to want to do this?
AIBU?
To think that she needs to realise how easy she has it compared to some other people
Sophie0 · 14/08/2016 14:58
I *think you'd be better off disappearing from this thread.
This type of dilemma normally brings about a unanimous"mind your own"
You might want to grab a flameproof vest op
But I would do the same
The funniest thing about all of this is that you are declaring "Oh woe is me"
Do what you want. I'm sure your 'friend' won't care, once she finds out how much her life annoys you, because it's different to your other friend's life.
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As long as you're happy what's the point of comparing somebody to anybody else. If you don't like someone, fair enough, but beyond that, let it go. Otherwise this would mean that you yourself would never be allowed to complain about anything because - shock horror - you have a husband who has stayed with you! 
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