to abandon my “friend” in her deepest hour of need?

[NotSureThisIsWhatIWant]

To cut the story short, we both were academics when young, we both became SAHMs when our children were born, we both split from our exes when our children were young and we both had found it very difficult to get back to our previous careers.

After the split, and due to our low income, we both ended in receipt of tax credits. I saw tax credits as something that I should move on from as quickly as I could, just a bit of help to get back on my feet while I was raising a child alone with a low income. I have worked and continue to work very hard and very often long hours to try to stop this dependance on tax credits.

She saw tax credits as her right, choose to work from home in sporadic jobs and rely on tax credits, child maintenance and house benefit fully as her most important regular income.

Over the years she has been belittling the admin jobs I have taken, saying that she wouldn’t lower herself to do “such kind of shit and bad paid jobs”.

But now, with her children over 18, her tax credits, child maintenance and other benefits have come to an end. Naturally, she is struggling, feels the state took advantage of her by “using her while she was a mother and discarding her as dirt now that her children are adults”. She is still the entitled git that can complain about the lack of money, the unfairness with benefits and other stuff but she still refuses to get a proper job and insists in doing her shopping in Waitrose.

She complains about not being able to get the kind of job she wants, but if you try to offer her jobs she always says that she is too busy, is not convenient or doesn’t like it. She sits at home all day long but won’t pick up or return calls.

Suddenly out of the blue (as usual), she contacted me last week and asked to meet for a coffee. I said yes. She texted me earlier to say that her car has not passed the MOT last week and she has no money to sort the car, so she has no way to get to Waitrose to get food for the week, that she is terrified to be found at home without food as low temperatures are expected and she is afraid it may snow. She says I should pick her up from her house, drive her to Waitrose and we should have a coffee at the Waitrose cafe before I return her to her home. (She doesn’t even live near me).

I have said I’m too busy (I am, I have clocked 50 hrs this week and it is not even Friday!) and suggested she ordered from a supermarket online.

She has replied saying that it is too expensive for her to have her food delivered as she only needs a few fresh vegetables so can I take her to Waitrose please?

I guess I just need a rant (I’m not replying to messages anymore) How can people be so bloody entitled?

Is this just a way to sneer at, and demean people on tax credits?

Yes. Very much so. Despite the OP making a claim herself. Turkeys voting for Xmas comes to mind,

But the OP isn't asking for anything - that's the point

Well she’s asking for Tax Credits, isn’t she?

I have a few friends a bit like this. Not the same issues but the same levels of PITAness.

I generally fall out with them a bit and they tend to come back - but they know not to muck me about the way they did before. I like them as friends because, like your friend, they have creative intellects and that is worth putting up with a lot.

I think your friend is really quite fucked up. I also think you are being rather judgemental. ime women's confidence can be incredibly low at this stage in life. You have taken a better path and you're reaping the rewards socially and emotionally (and financially). She has made fundamental mistakes and she's paying for it.

Patronising much @greenseededwhatever?????!

Judgemental? Perhaps, but at the end of the day, it’s my “shitty job” and long hours that pay for the car she wants to use to be driven to Waitrose.

I was in your situation op and I worked. I wish I had worked less because I think, at least in the early days, my kids needed me but I felt like you. When discussing it with dc now (most of em on their 30s) they say it’s given them a proper work ethic although they didn’t enjoy the too and fro to childminders and ex partner.
So, I have some sympathy for your friend continuing as a SAHM on tax credits but a couple of years max. I’m shocked at her continuing to do so.
Some people when they hit a problem try and get others to solve it for them, some try and think of a solution themselves. Encourage your friend to do the latter by pointing out that you will not be a taxi service for her.

I really couldn't care less what you believe Peekaboo, feel free to report the thread if you think is fake.

Nursy, that’s how I see it. Obviously, I would have wished to be able to stay at home waiting for the day the perfect job came along. I’m sure I would still be waiting.

These are difficult decisions to make, my child has spent a considerable time in after school clubs, but then, that was the only way I could provide for him while ensuring I was not going to end up in a very bad place when TC came to an end. I couldn’t justify sitting at home either while my son was already in school. Now, it is not that I have a high flying job with a wonderful salary, my income has gone up by very little in 10 years no matter how hard I have worked.

You are not abandoning your df "In her deepest hour of need". Her car is not roadworthy. We have all been without a car for a few days I'm sure. If she only needs a few things she can do what everyone else does, when their car is off the road - Catch a bus or walk! She is an entitled CF!

She’ll guilt trip you into paying for her Waitrose shopping I expect.

This is the problem with the benefits system. It makes people so reliant on it that they don't even try to be productive and independent. It is not good for a person to be so reliant on the state or indeed anyone. It is bad for self-esteem and sitting around all day can't be good for you at all.

My issue isn't with the benefits bill, couldn't give a monkeys about that to be honest, and businesses are far bigger scroungers, etc.

I just think the benefits system should be overhauled to help people into independence, not encourage them into a lifetime of poverty. And before anyone says anything, I know not everyone is able to work.

You should definitely abandon her op.... For both your sakes!

She's not that poor if she's still shopping at Waitrose. Unless she 1000's in debt....

As an aside, is the coffee still free at Waitrose?

Reanimated is making a lot of valid points. Life isn’t black and white.
Op, if your income has gone up by very little (and I can well believe that given the economy being based on cheap labour and all that) then surely you still need tax credits too. Many jobs do not pay a living wage.

But, your friend does sound particularly unmotivated to do anything for herself. Perhaps she has a history of mental ill health you don’t know about, e.g when she disappeared for 2 years. Tbh, it doesn’t really sound like a friendship worth having, for many reasons.

notsure
I don’t think anyone’s salary has gone up much in the past ten years :)
We just do the best we can. Your dc will be fine and probably have a better set of principles to go forward in the world with your example.

I was totally with you until you said she wanted to be home with her children.

Nothing wrong with her doing that. She made different choices than you did. You sound resentful of her choices which tells me that you are unhappy with yours.

And you say she has made comments as to why you take jobs that don’t pay well, presumably because she herself would rather be with her children than grind at a low paying job that is going nowhere, as you said is your situation after ten years.

So when she asked for a lift to the Waitrose you felt hostility toward her. Don’t take her. It’s really not that big a deal. And distance yourself from her. It doesn’t sound like you are really friends with her anyway.

No, I don’t resent her choices, what I resent is that she wants to take advantage of benefits of the choices I have made, while at the same time she is looking down at me by doing shitty jobs.

If she had not been belittling my choice to work even in shitty jobs, this thread wouldn’t exist.

Yeah... whatever.

she heard I was working at London that week

How? More fool you tbh.