to ask if you have friends in a very different income bracket?

[Hullygully]

And more importantly, does it create problems?

I confess to being a bit jealous of times at wealthier friends. But my DP who doesn't get jealous at all usually talks me out of it.

Hully the hwole issue of school is a difficult one that divides friends and family like nothing else.

I swear my family would have been happier if I'd been imprisoned for buggering cats than putting my DC in independent school.

Yes, we have friends who are poorer than us and friends who are very wealthy. Two couples phone the rest of us on fridays asking 'do you fancy clubbing tommorow?- abroad'. .
But it is not problem really, we still manage to see them ie they come midweek at ours i cook a budget friendly curry and we have fun. If people are nice it doesn't matter what they 've got.

I don't feel jelousy but not sure this has to do with my personality or my old age

I think I've been a bit stupid about all of it, just thinking it didn't matter.

Sad.

I fell out with one of my oldest friends years back when I couldn't afford to go on her hen do. I had just become a SAHM and money was really tight, we weren't going on a family holiday that year and she just could not understand why I couldn't just "put it on the credit card".

I don't think she ever forgave me and our relationship never recovered properly. I still think about it and feel really sad that unltimately we fell out over money. Now she has DC and money is tight I do wonder if she ever rethinks the way she behaved.

Now my financial situation is quite different but I have a friend who struggles. I try very hard to downplay my situation but sometimes it is what it is and I wonder if not mentioning holidays etc actually make the situation worse for her.

Tis rubbish

Hmmm, 'tis a tricky one; could she be genuinely feeling upset re the whole socialist principles thing, or do you feel that it's just an excuse to hang her hat on because she's been spoiling for a fight for a while / you've been growing apart?

I am in your camp on the children-first principles-second bit, but know that others can be much more rigid in their values, and non-comprehending of us more pragamatic types.

Does seems v extreme for her to tell the kids not to talk to your kids; is she having any ishoos in life generally at the moment that could cause her to flip about this e.g. DC struggling in current school, money worries etc? Does she feel that your friendship group are pulling away from her for any reason, so she's trying to divide and conquer?

It is Queen, it is.

I should have sent my dc to local schools in line with my socialist principles. I moved and sent them to selective grammar because I admit I put ... them ... first, which is technically hypocritical, yes. She, however, sent her own dc out of county, but that doesn't seem to count

Yes, you were hypocritical. You acknowledged the dilemma. She was also hypocritical and chose not to acknowledge it. Thant makes her a heck of a lot more hypocritical than you!

Possibly she got cross because she didn't want to see that - you know, "point your finger and see it pointing back at you"?

So may be more about politics than income; what do you think?

It is interesting to me that the crisis seems to have come over schooling.

The friend I couldn't see anymore was only mildly snarky about general stuff but it was her outright attacks about my Dd school that finally did it.
She said private school was terrible, then confessed she would send her dd if she could, then raised dd school in every single conversation slagging it off.
Of course that extended to slagging dd off.
I had to accept her own issues were making her behave that way.

It is sad Hully but it really doesn't sound like it's your fault. I think maybe it doesn't matter, until it does, if you see what I mean? That's a ridiculous and rather pointless thing to say, but I mean that it's perfectly possible to have years of fulfilling friendship and have money not be an issue, and then all that can change, and it's so hard not to really be able to explain why. I suspect as was said upthread tho it might be less to do with money and more to do with self-esteem/envying a seemingly easier life or perfect life or whatever.

I know my far less well off friend sometimes envies what I have, but I think it's not really the material stuff, I think at the heart of it she is lonely (desparate to meet the right guy) and looks at me, DH and DD and feels like we 'have it all' including the material stuff, but I think if she was in a happy relationship (or learned to be fulfilled and happy on her own) then the material stuff wouldn't factor as much either.

D

venetia - (love how you are really getting into this btw )

She can't be "genuinely" upset because she did the same thing herself! I think she just finds it easier not to see us so has turned us into bogeypeople. I have noticed before how she prefers people in a similar situation to herself (single parents, and/or not well-off) as she has dropped other friends who are better off. I think she gets cross when she sees us because she feels bad about her own situation and where her dc are at.

We also have friends who are both richer and poorer than us, normally not an issue, but I can see the school issue is going to cause problems.

Schools are a hard one for the income differences because while people who have less than you could say "well I wouldn't want to buy X, Y or Z" or "I wouldn't want to work all those hours just to go on that posh holiday/have a big house/drive a fast car", it's harder to say "I wouldn't want to get my DCs in the best school I can." It's not as easy to say "I wouldn't want that" when it's not something for you, but for your DCs.

This is when it becomes clear that you have choices they don't rather than just stuff .

I'm finding it hard currently not to be jealous of friends with more money who would find prep schools easy to pay for. We can just about do it, if we only have 2 DCs, I'd quite like 3 but we're just out of the catchment for a good state school, we've agreed to go for it, if we don't get DS in that school, it's prep and the next will be the last DC.

agree with word - I had already posted that we have many friends in hugely different (both ways) finacial positions to us with no problems whatsoever BUT throw school choices into any conversation and you are guaranteed a few cats bum faces!

Be it the state schoolers diagreeing on finding religion suddenly or moving to be in catchments or the private schoolers and selective vs non selective or the biggie state vs private...a bloody minefield!!

yes Paggy and delia

garlic - no, I think politics is a handy excuse, more acceptable than saying SNOT FAIR which is what I think is at the root.

Yes: we have multi millionaire friends - we know they are not because we ask them to fill in a form or anything (!) but because of the circs of their assets- eg a friend who sold a farm, another who started a very successful business. We have a few less well off friends as well, though that's assumed as it's just not discussed- but knowing their ages / famillies / work hours etc.

No, no real problems but we do know them through carnival so a shared something anyway.

I did lose my formerly best mate when I took a pay cut to become a carer and her income soared as she did not want kids (godmother to ds1 though so not anti children) and I could not afford to go sailing etc any more and new friends came along who could. natural wastage I guess, but sad.

Schools.

Really? I suppose so. Though she was still friendly through the prep years (at least to our faces).

I think you're right! SNOT FAIR!

It bloody isn't, either.

Oh wrt to your own friend Hulls

Green eyed monster I would suspect, although drink + big gob can lead to embarassment caused bile.

I should clearly be hanging out on the relationships board

Does sound like ishoos then...but I'm curious as to how in her own mind she could not see that she's done the same thing with her own DC - is there a cunning way that she could justify her situation as being different?

Either way, sounds like you might be better off just writing her off for the time being, and hoping that she gets over it as/when her situation perks up a bit. Although by that time you might not be interested in picking it up again; her loss...

Friends, never any problems.

In laws? Well, the better off we became, the more bitter, bilious and downright vile they became.

So we binned 'em two years ago and life is jolly once again!

yy venetia, ishoos. She justifies it (I think) because she didn't acksherly move, which we did. So to her that's the same as paying as we could afford to move.

Hmm. We have a range. My friends from uni are all earning more than us at the moment, but are unlikely to earn more than 40k (career choices). Dp's friends from uni mostly went into the city & earn between 70 - 300k. So far it doesn't make a difference, but we are the only ones with kids. We live on Dp's salary of around 22k, but that is guaranteed to increase over the next few years.

Sorry to hear about your friend Hully.

Generally speaking yes. I think I know roughly from the type of jobs and with close friends I?ve helped them apply or their jobs. With the exception of 2 (I think) who earn in early 20ks most of my friends earn between 35-70k, with a few over that. But income doesn?t say much- one of those friends works 6 month or so of the year or on and off- earns about 40k and needs nothing more because her family are wealthy so her only outgoings are food and utilities (house owned outright etc.) she could earn more but doesn?t need or want to, so what she earns doesn?t say anything about her situation. A couple at the lower end (probably joint income of £55k, they both work) were sensible with their money early on and have a cheaper type of life, they don?t seem to have any less disposable income than anyone else.

I also have a friend who has a fab lifestyle (designer clothes, fab holidays, fab social life) who doesn?t earn enough to pay for that but made good property investments through the years. So its all a bit immaterial really. I guess if your friends are ones you?ve grown up with and chosen different paths it may cause conflict.

Gawd, what an awful situation to be in, OP. You haven't done anything wrong. It's stuff inside her for her to come to terms with.

Our best friends have an income which is about 1/4 of ours. For years DS1's best friend was from a family with household income about 3x ours. Not an issue because we choose not to make it such.