To be upset that I will never have this life.

[stripesandspots10]

I've just got back from my friends new house. I love her to pieces she's lovely and been a good friend to me. She works hard at her job and is very well paid and at a high position for our age. I am quite jealous but I don't show it to her and I am proud of her too.

I'm just sad that I will never have what she has. She's just moved house into a beautiful place. It's huge and not many people our age would be able to afford it. She's been fortune her boyfriend has a rich family who have helped them plus her good job.

I'm a single parent living in a council house with my DS. I lived in a refuge for 6 months before. Tried to do up my place as best as I can. I try to give me and my DS the best life I can atm. I do struggle. And I doubt I will ever be able to have the life she has. Makes me sad because I just want to live a comfortable life and have achieved a good career. Sorry I just think I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Pfft comparison.

I live in an ex local authority house in a poorly thought of village.

I look around and think, no matter where my house was it would look like this. My things, my tastes.

You are providing a loving home for your child, you worked hard to get that. Be proud.

The luckiest people are the ones who have true happiness in their soul, whether they're rich or poor. They are rare, but we should all aspire to be like this. Rich people envy this trait because it can't be bought.

Ken Dodd sums it up!

Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess
I thank the Lord I've been blessed
With more than my share of happiness

To me this world is a wonderful place
And I'm the luckiest human in the whole human race
I've got no silver and I've got no gold
But I've got happiness in my soul

Happiness to me is an ocean tide
Or a sunset fading on a mountain side
A big old heaven full of stars up above
When I'm in the arms of the one I love

Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess
I thank the Lord that I've been blessed
With more than my share of happiness

Happiness is a field of grain
Turning its face to the falling rain
I can see it in the sunshine, I breathe it in the air
Happiness happiness everywhere

A wise old man told me one time
Happiness is a frame of mind
When you go to measuring my success
Don't count my money count my happiness

Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess
I thank the Lord I've been blessed
With more than my share of happiness

ha, eatalot. Not Camilla's sister.

But maybe I'm not Pippa!

My best friend recently purchased her house, got promoted and got a car...her sister paid for. She wears beautiful clothes, forever buying the best skincare/makeup, spent £200 on her recent hair do.
I work on call 24/7, seem to live in my pyjamas when at home, seems I spend evenings watching Netflix with my DH, try my best to be a mum to DC.
My best friend told me how she envies me...c’mon that is hardly a stealth brag?!

I have a loving DH and 2 DC...what my friend sees.
My friend is a size 10...what I see.

I see countless YouTube ‘influencers’ , Instagram famous mums and beauty ‘gurus’... I want to be ‘gifted’ Jo Malone candles!
Work hard, have a plan, if your destination is a top job in a similar field then do all you can to acheive that. You are stronger for your experience and you have the best travel buddy...your DS.

"One of the great things about being a council tenant is the freedom to decorate. "

Really? Her DS owns her house so can decorate as well. Even private tenants can decorate, with the permission of the landlord and maybe just with light colours.

Thanks everyone for your kind words. Did help bring a smile to my face and to help remind me that I've done everything on my own and I'm doing well for me and my son

I was thinking about being a council tenant, in comparison to a private one Gwenhwyfar, but well done for trying to drag down a positive thread.

Council tenants don't need permission to decorate (not least because decor is your responsibility) and you don't have to do it in neutral colours. You can paint the kitchen black, and the hallway orange and pink stripes if the mood takes you.

I remember the days when I thought how x is so beautiful and slim (when I am a size 8 tops 10 myself), when I thought how much money y has while even if I'm not tight financially speaking I am not rich by any means, when I compared myself ALL.THE.BLOODY.TIME to people who I thought were better, had better lives, partners, jobs, cars, houses.... And then I realised how much it hurts and it stops me from knowing how I have A LOT MORE than other people have, and how I am so fortunate... I still do it sometimes, but I know it harms me.

I’d feel like I’d won the lottery if I was given a council house op so you’re certainly not at the bottom of the envy ladder.

I was so envious of my friends who were able to have children - never said so though! Your friend may be in the same boat. You are doing the best for your son - sounds fantastic to me.

OP I know how you feel. Everyone my age seem to be doing so well and buying their own homes, have all this money saved, holidays, cars... everything just seems so easy for them, yet I feel like I'm constantly struggling and every time I try and do better, some obstacle occurs. (of course, some of these obstacles are self inflicted such as being bad with my money, having an unplanned child with a twat and so on...). It's weary hearing 'it'll happen for you eventually, it just takes time' when you feel like you're failing and everyone around you isn't. I don't have any family around to help, I'm a single parent and I've never been in a position to save anything above 3 figures. I know everything isn't about money, but I'd feel a lot better without my debts and not extending my overdraft by the end of each month!
Grass isn't always greener though, like you've said, she has her own problems, things are never as great as they seem on the surface. She has all these things now, but a burn out at work, relationship with her rich partner breaking, unplanned pregnancy... could just be around the corner. Everyone has their ups and downs. Lets hope our ups come soon.

You never know what the future might hold, OP. I was in the same position as you, 16 years ago, placed in a council house with my DD after leaving a DV relationship. Being able to pay low council rents meant that I could afford to retrain, and eventually I was able to buy it with a big discount. Later I met and married my lovely DH, and we now live in a beautiful house with a DC of our own, and life is very comfortable. I never thought I'd escape the poverty of being a single parent, but I found that there were a lot of opportunities out there and I just had to keep my eyes and ears open to it all.

OP you live in a council house- a secure tenancy for life. I think you should congratulate yourself on achieving such secure fairly priced accommodation for you and your child. You have done very well. Your friend may have a lovely big house but she also has big costs with that including total responsibility for maintaining and updating her property, which you are free from. You are in a brilliant position- a sold safe base from which you can continue to grow and build your life.

You have done amazingly well - it’s so easy to knock yourself for not doing as well as others, but you’ve done all this on your own, never forget that, cos it’s one of the hardest to do.
All of my friends have big houses, high incomes, but I know that they have struggled with things I hope i’ll never have to face.
And I also wonder if they had been in my position would they really have coped?
Yes worrying about money constantly is a stress, but not having the fancy job that would haveI have meant I had to spend stupid hours away from dd that some of them have, I think of that as my luxury that they didn’t have.
Very few have it all - and she’s admitted it not all wine and roses - I think you’ve done great

I'm glad the comments have made you feel better. I think you're a great mum to have found the strength to do what you've done.

The biggest indicator of future success is resilience- the ability to get knocked down, get up and move on. To work hard, and to persevere.

Consider how far you’ve come and what that says about you as a person. It says you have resilience. If you now have that fledgling career plus that life experience and grit, then you have the potential to go far. So don’t discount your future.

Aim high, and consider that what you have now is what many would envy. We genuinely don’t know what goes on behind closed doors - I’ve seen people I thought had charmed lives have it all unravel and there had been ongoing abuse/issues for years.

There’s always someone richer than us - there’s nothing wrong with feeling a little pang of desire when shown the good life either. As long as you can keep perspective and appreciate what you do have.

OP let me tell you about my best friend. She is very senior in an investment bank, also the main bread winner in her marriage. They have the gilded lifestyle to match. Her, and me, and our other close friend were all pregnant at the same time. Close friend and I had one year off. BF had only 4 months off, as that was all she could afford to take off with the financial demands of her large mortgage and expensive car loan. She then had a succession of nannies to look after her DS, while close friend and I went part time until kids went to school. I know SHE is jealous of US and our shabby lives. Next baby, only 4 months off as well. She always had the option to step down a lifestyle level but to be honest her husband didn't earn enough for her to have any other option in keeping a 'nice life'. It causes friction between them. Years later she also has to work to pay for the eye-wateringly expensive school fees of the elite school her two sons go to. I know for a fact her life is not as it seems on the outside, and I can tell you I am no longer jealous of her choices anymore. I am living my life the way I want to and that's enough for me.

How are you feeling today OP? 💐
I sympathise as I used to always compare what’s going on in my life to other people’s (not favourably) and so instead of enjoying my house and life, I spent my time wishing I had more money, bigger house, better job, was thinner and prettier. I also came up with excuses to keep friends from my house as it wasn’t as grand as theirs and I was embarrassed. More recently I have realised that I have my family and my health and so I am lucky. Also that friends don’t bat an eye about whether you have more or less than them, or how big your house is. Enjoy your DS and realise how just strong you are. 😘

Just saw this OP .... thought of you!

So she got where she is through her rich boyfriend i.e. by providing sex then? As on her wage they could not have bought the place or actually was it his family's money? In that case well done to his family for giving away money they might otherwise have spent on themselves. Not all parents are prepared to do that.

She sounds a bit insensitive. If I'm with someone with not much money I make sure we talk about how expensive things are and that kind of stuff and I would never mention my house (which is quite large) and stuff like that.

Panda is right that not everyone is happy when they look like they are whether a housewife or the main earner in the family. I am not sure being happy relates to money entirely either. You can be very happy and rich. I am fairly well off plus happy and I'm very lucky but lot sof things have gone wrong, bad marriage, divorce, parents died etc etc. As was said about it's bouncing back that counts. I just seem to be like a rubber ball - something goes wrong and then I just get on with it, career set back, knuckle down and fight on etc etc. I was reading my 1982/83 university diary the other day and I had so many rejections for jobs - applied to 134 firms in that last year and everyone around me was being hired and not me. I even have one photo of a stack of applications , envelopes with stamps on in those days, 25 interviews, on and on month after month and yet I kept at it and then in the Feb 82 I got the job offer at long last. I was determined to work in London not where I was from (NE - not that there is anything wrong with that area it is just the better firms and higher pay were/are in London and I wanted to be away from my parents - another long story but their very very bad relationship over 50 years of marriage made home a difficult place sometimes)