Well off friend always complaining

[Sunintheskyforfree]

My friend and her partner have a household income about four times that of mine and my partner’s.
She knows this but is always complaining she can’t afford stuff, has no money, hasn’t got as much as her friends, even implies that I am living a luxurious life compared to her (eg saying she can’t afford to get a drink when I am getting one).
I tend not to complain about money because I know I have a comfortable life and lots of privileges compared to many other people.
She also knows that even my low paying job is under threat at the moment.
i know she has family wealth, pension, savings and no debt so it’s not like she has wild expenses I’m not aware of.
She is my best friend and I love her it’s just the lack of gratitude really gets to me!

Is she a real best friend or a Mumsnet best friend?

The two things are very different.

A real best friend, you should be able to say "Honestly Vera, all you do is complain about money lately, knock it on the head."

A Mumsnet best friend, you can't communicate with at all as they're never honest with each other - preferring instead to tell MN all about them, so nothing ever changes.

Oh I had one of those friends too, loads more money than me, always moaning about money, and stingy as hell type that never buys you a coffee. She felt very very sorry for herself because she couldn’t afford to buy her children their own homes. Nauseating.

Perhaps the way forward is to hand it back to her every time. “That sounds awful. What are you going to do about it?” She will likely say there’s nothing that can be done, at which point you can tell her to stop complaining about it unless she wants to listen to you complain incessantly about not being a ballerina or a lion tamer, anything that is equally ridiculous.

I think sometimes people don’t have spare cash because they live to their means. Also if they are wealthy they are typically around more wealthy people. A friend of mine earns 200k a year, which is compared to the rest of the uk, very wealthy. However compared to all his private school friends that chose more well paying careers and now earn upwards of 500k, he is practically in poverty. He struggles to keep up with cars, his house is smaller, he can’t join them on all the group holidays they go on, and he feels very hard done by. They comment on his lack of money and he would tell you he isn’t very well off and he really believes it. He has a real distance from the ‘average’ person because the average person in his life is wealthier than him. He’s so focused on how unfair it is to him that he doesn’t see often the people he’s complaining to have much less, and he may even notice the things they do have that he doesn’t have, missing all the things he has that they do not.

If she’s really your best friend I would mention it, or I would make a point to invite her places that demonstrate her wealth. Invite her to do some volunteering with you, take her to eat in areas of the city she may not usually go to, and comment on how grateful you are or how lucky she is. Eg oh I know it’s not the holiday you hoped for but how fortunate to be able to go on one when many people are struggling to afford to eat.
It’s sad really that people can have so much and still be so unhappy.

Ha she is a real best friend but it's true we are both conflict avoidant! Although I've never really had cause to have conflict about anything else with her.
I will try and be brave next time it comes up

This is such a good point, thank you. I definitely think that is at play here.
I will try and make some gratitude-themed comments next time! It is sad. I have another friend from a wealthy family whose parents always took the family to volunteer with people less fortunate than themselves and she's so much more considerate and aware of how lucky she is.