This is my oldest friend, who I've seen through many a crisis including her recent marriage break-up. (I say I've seen her through a crisis rather than we've seen each other through crises because she has a habit of being, frankly, a bit shit when other people have crises such as when my DH lost his job a couple of years ago and she couldn't have been less of a shoulder to cry on!!!)
Briefly, she has a LOT of money - very wealthy family and an ex-H with an insanely well-rewarded finance job. She's not snooty or snobby about money but has always had a very unworldly view of it in that she thinks it 'doesn't matter' - I often think only people who've never had to worry about it think that! (To illustrate - she's wonderfully generous with her money, a buyer of fabulous presents for children's b'day parties etc, but gets upset when other people don't (ie can't) spend similar amounts on her child's presents, because she thinks they're being mean rather than just not being able to afford to be so generous.)
DH and I are just starting ttc for the first time, after many years of not being ready. My friend has nagged and nagged me to start ttcing for ages, ignoring my arguments for why I preferred to wait. She is a stay at home mother with just one school-age child, she has a part-time nanny and a 4 day a week cleaner and so is, understandably (!) bored and wants me to have a child so I stop work for a while and hang out with her. (Her words not mine).
In conversation the other day she started saying, now that DH and I are ttc, we should be actively trying to move house - explicitly she was asking when we were going to move to her area of London (where we couldn't afford a garden shed, almost literally). She has asked this many times before and I have told her again and again that our price range simply won't cover it, but for some reason, probably because she just can't accept that money has a value, this goes in one ear and out the other. But this time she really wouldn't let the subject drop. She started suggesting (slightly) cheaper areas (still as close to her as possible) and then started on and on about how DH and I are 'crazy' to be ttc-ing while still living in our small flat. According to her, the moment I'm pregnant I'll be 'too exhausted' to house-hunt, and then when a baby is born, I'll be too busy gazing at it (again, her words not mine). She got quite aggressive when I tried to explain why DH and I didn't think this was so vital (not saying I wouldn't LIKE to have a bigger place right now, but money is very tight and, like normal people, we just have to wait and save a bit longer) and kept saying we should 'do it anyway', and 'just ask your parents for help if you have to'.
To compound all this, when I said (trying to inject a dose of reality into the situation) that part of our reason for being so cautious about what we can afford to move into was because DH and I know that our money situation is going to change a lot with a baby (I'm self-employed so won't get any paid maternity leave; even when I start back to work, I'm assuming I'll have to work only part-time and so contribute less to our income, not to mention things like childcare etc) she got even more irritated and started saying I was being silly, 'you and DH have plenty of money for all that' (don't know where she gets that idea', 'nothing has to change, it's only one child, you can still afford to live exactly like you used to'...
AIBU to be well cheesed-off? Admittedly I'm a bit rubbish when it comes to telling this kind of person to STFU, but I was actually quite firm with her and tried to keep it all very factual (unfortunately, she's the type of person that the more you ARE firm with her, the more upset and irritated she gets). I probably should have just said something along the lines of - listen missy, not all of us are as lucky as you not to have to worry for a minutes about money, so put a sock in it - but that's just not my style. Stupidly I sat there trying to justify myself to her instead. And now I'm hopping mad, and wish I'd said something. I just don't know what. I find it so outrageous that even an old friend feels comfortable commenting on our financial situation (especially when she's just plain wrong about it), and I really do think someone who has piles of dosh should be much more sensitive about financial matters when talking to people who don't.
I know she's bored and lonely and that some of her nagging is just because she desperately wants us to move closer to her... but even if we did, I need to work (and I like my job!) and if I do have a baby, I'm not going to be able to spend hours popping for coffee and chats!!! But still, I think this is insensitive and thoughtless. It's taken me 10 years to get to a point where I think I'm mature enough to have a baby ffs - I wish she could just be happy that I've made that decision and leave it at that.
AIBU?