to look at other women and wish my life was more like theirs?

[mumtoelliot]

I am grateful for everything I have in my life, including my beautiful son, but sometimes I wish I could step into the shoes of a successful, gorgeous, social, yummy mummy.

Somebody I know is a mother of a similar age to me, she is recently happily married,happy in her job, has a fabulous house, car etc, has another baby on the way and always has a full social calender. to top it off, she is gorgeous and actually a really lovely person.

I saw her for the first time in ages today and i felt a bit depressed! in comparison, i ffelt like a frumpy failure.

You know what, we all have days like that. I frequently wish I was more like some of the mums I rub shoulders with. But then when you think really hard about it, everyone has problems and I think we only get what we can handle. I know a gorgeous lady who appeared to have it all, lovely family, big house in the countryside, and was really contented and happy then her DH went off with a bloke and it completely pulled the rug out from under her feet. Totally unexpected to everyone who knew them. Even though she still looks fantastic and really 'pulled together' with a good social life, things aren't always the way they seem. I'd rather be a bit frumpy and stressed out with my toddlers and lack of social life than going through that emotional hell. Same with all the rich mummies from DS's kindergarten - they have 'it all' but I bet they hardly ever see their partners because they have to work such crazy hours to maintain such lavish lifestyles.

I have had comments in real life saying 'oh its alright for you...'. I had one on here the other day actually saying 'well what would you know about stress etc'
People know nothing about your real life except that which you chose to show them.

As it goes I am pretty happy . But not much of that has anything to do with stuff I have paid for.

Looking outside ourselves for the measure of what makes us happy is a big mistake and can eat you up.
Life throws all sorts of shit at you but everyday, ordinary happiness is partly a choice

I think YANBU as its very common to have these feelings.

But you have to remember that all your ideas about how happy/perfect this woman is are projections from your own head. The reality is you have no idea about the detail of her personal life and her inner emotional/psychological world. The fact is we all have things we're discontented about, if not actually miserable about.

However fab this woman looks, she won't be 100% thrilled every time she gets out of bed in the morning. Perhaps her H is crap in bed! Perhaps her in-laws are a pain. Perhaps her parents are self-absorbed and narcissistic.

If she always looks perfect perhaps she is very insecure and worries that no-one will like her if she turns up in jeans and fleece. Perhaps her own mother made her feel crap if she didn't look good and set perfectionist standards.

There will be something. Try and think of that next time you see her!

Well it's a bit of a myth that people who have loads of money work massively long hours. I certainly know many who don't and many who do.

I am woefully jealous of those who earn buckets and are often seen in their mansions pottering outside midweek (just have to go through my neighbourhood, there are many!).

Back to the OP: I could be the woman you describe; 4 kids, lots of friends, (too many!) a cleaner, a decent career, a beautiful house in the countryside and a good lifestyle.

But I have lots of very bad days when I look at other people and think I wish I was them. In fact that seems to be happening a lot recently!

We all feel very miserable sometimes, that's just life I think, with all its wonderfully varied phases we go through. HUGS.

bump is right. we are all as miserable as eachother. i sepnd my whole life having a good moan. don't worry about it.
only you can make yourself happy. or atleast learn to accept.
even i am far from that , as yet. i'll let you know if i ever get there.
and that comes from someone who has bugger all to complain about. but manages quite nicely to anyway !!

I have 3 gorgeous children, a loving DH, a nice job and am OK looking with nice clothes and hair,etc. Actually I am pretty miserable and hate where we live, stuck here as DH needs to near DSD, so jealous of most other people. And my nice hair is usually crawling with nits.

All I will say is that you can never judge another persons happiness from what you can see on the outside the reality may be something very different.

My GP told me when i went to see him for my six week check and i moaned a bit about being fat and frumpy and would love to be a 'yummy mummy' , that most of the yummies he see's are either alcoholics or miserable .Im sure he probably exagerrated to make me feel better as he couldnt say i wasnt fat or frumpy at the time ( disclaimer i had gone to drs straight after mucking out horses and dog walking ,and wasnt head to toe in joules etc )

Yes a lot of times I have thought others live a lot easier life than I do as a single parent but once I start to scratch the surface there is nobody or scarcely anybody, who can say they don't have some sort of worry or stress.

Deepdown there are always insecurities or issues that affect us all and no one is immune!

bumpsoon I doubt he was exaggerating at all actually. It takes hard work and commitment (and frequently semi-starvation) to stay drop dead gorgeous when you have children, a busy life, and are the wrong side of forty. Many of those women will set impossibly high standards for themselves, and think that their value is measured entirely in dress size, cup size, and forehead-smoothness. It must be a very precarious slippery slope, and no fun whatsoever. I imagine a great many of them are nervous wrecks, and terrified that their DHs will trade them in for the newer model.

Envy is horrible emotion, but when it strikes you have to envy the whole package. so
her partner?
her children?
her parents?
her in laws?
her siblings?
her supportive friends?
her intelligence?
her good health?
her insecurities about eating, exercise,self worth, keeping up appearances, etc etc

If you envy all of the above then yeah go for it, or alternatively reflect on the what's good in your own life, and hang onto that for your dear life and your sanity!

I have 3 gorgeous DCs, one of whom as an ASD but I know it could be so much worse, I have a wonderful husband with a good job, live in a big house, have a great flexible part-time job but dont actually need to work, I have wonderful family and friends but I STILL have shit days. And at the end of these shit days I always look out the window and thank my lucky stars for what I've got and tell myself to "see the bigger picture and count my blessings". This sounds very corny but it always works for me.
Learn to want what you've got, don't constantly try to get what you want IFYSWIM.

op - don't believe the hype
really, don't fall into that trap, it is so shallow, cold and lonely.

she's probably jealous of you.

Do you remeber the popular girls at school who seemed to have it all? Do you remember wanting to be like them? Maybe you were one of them ? Common sense and maturity will tell you they were stressing about the same things as you were. It's the same bloody thng just adding 10 or years of daily grind and the odd bit of flab. Bet you look at photos of yourself in another 15 years and think I wasn't actually that half bad when I first had the kids should have made more of myself iykwim ! ( because. Do that with teen / twenties photos )

I know what you mean.
We've done it all young,so our lives our totally different from those around us. And youv'e made me think

From the outisde i hold down a part-time job, a voluntary job and i'm in the final year of my degree. We are the only ones out of our friends with a mortgage, have a lovely inquisitive four year old DS and are expecting again.

On the inside i am stressed out, have no social life with all jobs and essay. Yes we've managed to get a mortgage but we live in a state of semi plastered/leaking/holes in ceilings from re-wire luxury. The inquisitive DS? Yes, we adore him but sometimes i just wish there was a mute button!
However we are now past the morning sickness phase and it's the summer holidays. SO she may look good and have a delightful son - surely she has a nanny????
Even the yummiest of mummies come out with a few grey hairs in september!

Someone once said to me - if she'd spent all that time getting ready on the child(ren) imagine how happy they'd be inside and out?

"I also know they have pretty perfect lives too.I think the trick is they don't moan or complain...they just get on and do it. Too much work...I'd eat chocolate but they clean the house or catch up and work all night."

This is so true! Both the perfect types I know just get on with things. I'm trying to be more like them.

My mum used to envy a woman she knew who looked so perfect. 3 children, lovely house, beautiful clothes and jewellery - if the expression had been around then, she'd have been a yummy mummy.

We found out when she left her husband that he'd been beating the crap out of her on a regular basis, and all those expensive clothes and jewellery were guilt gifts. She left him because her teenage sons were starting to hit her too.

There are some things that money just cannot buy.

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do, but I'm just adding my voice to those saying you really don't know what goes on in someone else's life.

Im surrounded by non working yummy mummies with banker husbands living very expensive lives.
I work very hard and have a comfortable life and with children at the same schools Im accepted but not accepted.
On a good day Im proud of my achievements and can shrug off the " oh sorry forgot - you work" and can pity their non eating desire to remain size 0 & obsessions with nails and handbags and the fact their conversations are often limited.
On a bad day I just wish I could be one of them and resent the fact DH is not a banker, Im not size 0 and that I have to go to work each day with no personal time for anything except work and children.
Lifes a trade off. Would I really want their lives... maybe for a weekend!

YAB a bit U and you know that way madness lies - yet at the same time I totally get it.

My friends include a Bollywood actress (size zero), a NYC investment banker (hiss spit!) and all manners of wildly rich and successful gits. But... we don't know what goes on behind closed doors and said banker (my ex) works ridiculous hours - is often out of the house 20 hours a day and him and his wife fight terribly. Bollywood chick has an absolutely incredible sense of entitlement and has huge unresolved issues with her parents (they do not approve of her lifestyle). I am "angry" at myself for having failed academically when so many more "dim" people have excelled... c'est la vie - I was juggling other things.

Things are never as black and white as they seem.

I do rather agree though with a previous poster who suggested that it's the company we keep - you know, some people (probably accidentally) rub it in our faces. My sweetest, kindest friends these days are the ones who send me emails littered with "huns" and "your/you're" mistakes - doing it "right" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now all we need is for feckin' supermodels to stop rubbing it in our faces that we're doing it all wrong too!

What EveWasFramed72 said - we get the lives we choose/deserve, by and large...but we whinge and moan about other people on here to make up for our poor choices!