To walk away from my friend because her success makes me feel rubbish?

[MarinaOlivia]

Hi all, I have a problem and I'd love to hear other people's opinions on how to solve it.

I am madly, irrationally envious of my friend's career. We went to uni together and have been very close since then.

She is mid-30s and in a director level role at a well-known, exciting corporate. She makes a lot of money and travels for work to amazing places. She js smart, ambitious and successful. Not to mention she is very attractive, kind and caring. She is single, but she will undoubtedly find someone equally gorgeous to share her life with.

I am also mid-30s, but stuck in a stupid role at a boring office. I am ashamed to admit that I am not climbing the ladder because I am not ambitious enough to make the extra effort. I am essentially a lazy, boring single woman with nothing interesting to offer.

I make enough to support myself and pay rent, but there is no extra room for luxuries or treats. I am bored, I feel like I am such a failure.

My envy has got to a point where I am considering distancing myself from her because her success makes me feel so rubbish about myself. I know this is silly of me and I should work on myself to improve my life, instead of focusing on hers. But I can't help feeling terribly every time I meet her or talk to her.

If you've been in a similar situation, how did you cope with it? Should I walk away from this friend just to make myself feel better? Isn't it terribly selfish?

Please help 

I understand how you feel but you know this is about you, not her and assuming you went to university at 18 to ghost a friend of 15 years because you're not interested in career ambition would be terribly selfish, yes.

Sorry you’re low and feeling bad about yourself, and that you don’t enjoy your job. Hope you can do things to address that.

It’d be a shame to draw back from a good friend for the reasons you’ve stated, and would probably not help you to feel any better.

She will have her own problems and insecurities.

If you walked away from this friendship, would you suddenly feel more fulfilled, or would you feel a bit worse because actually you miss your friend?
Some people are madly ambitious and some people aren’t. It’s ok that you are different, if you want more from your role could you do some online courses to perhaps better your knowledge? Or could you approach your employer and ask for extra responsibilities?
I think it’s natural to feel in limbo in a job, it can all get a bit stale. Would you say that’s what you are feeling?
I wouldn’t walk away from a friendship because you are envious. Good friends can be hard to come by x

You need to build up your confidence and be proud of what you’ve achieved in life. As the saying goes “Comparison is the thief of joy”. Dont lose a good friend because you feel bad about your achievements. It would be a very boring world if we were all the same!

I understand this in a way. I have kids with Sen and being around others whose kids don’t have Sen is very hard. Our lives have taken different paths. But maybe she’s not all that happy. If you’re life doesn’t make you happy can you not change it? I get where you’re coming from and it’s hard to overcome envy.

If anything about her behaviour was making you feel inadequate- if she gloats, or is dismissive of you - then you’re right to distance yourself from her. But if she’s a genuinely lovely friend then the problem lies within you, and distancing yourself isn’t going to change that.

You’ve presumably had similar opportunities- you were at the same university together- and presumably she’s made different life choices, is aspirational to achieve certain goals etc

Without meaning to sound harsh- if you want those things enough then you’ll push yourself to achieve them. There’s nothing wrong though with having a lower status career and a less ‘exciting’ lifestyle, but only if you are comfortable with that. Once you start envying others it’s a road to nowhere

If you are dissatisfied with your life only you can change it by going out there and getting it the way your friend is doing...why not take a night course so you can try a different career direction, if you are envious of your friend, use it as motivation to go out there and get that life too,

It would be a shame to dump your friend over jealousy though

OP, it doesn't sound like your friend rubs it in your face in anyway based on your post.

If someone posted on this forum that a friend had dropped them because they were jealous, what advice would you offer? I think I'd say it was clear their friend had issues, that's it's sad they've cut that person out of their life and they sound quite self- involved to throw away friendship based on jealousy.

It's clear you aren't exactly happy with where you are in life. Only you can solve that.

But maybe confiding how you feel about things to your kind and caring friend might be a good start. You might find she has good advice or she has her own demons. Shut her out and you still have the same life, just a little more lonely.

Yes she's worked hard and made good career choices, but other things are always at play as well. Luck, being in the right place at the right time, getting the right breaks. Compare two singers, both with amazing talent and voices. One gets the breaks (goes on X Factor?). The other doesn't, even though they deserve it just as much. That's life!

Oh OP, I feel for you.

I think if you cut her off, you will regret it eventually. As PP said, she probably also have her own insecurities.

Not everyone is ambitious and career orientated. If you are content with your current job and don't feel the need to climb the ladder then there is nothing wrong with that.

If you however want a career progression, then do something about it. Ask for advice / mentor / put more effort in.

Cutting off your friend is not going to fix this.

Your life won't be anymore interesting and you won't be anymore fulfilled just because you've lost a friend.

In my friendship group, I have the last "successful" job. (I have friends who have bonuses more than 3 times my salary.) I don't have the most "interesting" job that everyone wants to hear about. But I love my job. I wouldn't want any of those other ones.

It's ok not to be hugely ambitious, but it does sound like you need a change. So start thinking about what would make you happy. To do something more creative? Something that helps people? Something that gets you out of the office?

If you want to feel better, pick something constructive. Ditching your friend is destructive. It won't make you feel better.

Another way of looking at it is that your friend is in a very stressful job, most likely having difficult to meet targets. She will be living out of a suitcase most of the time, and while she may be travelling to nice places, she will most likely never get to see them.

She might meet some potential partners, most likely in a foreign country, as when you are away from home a lot, the last thing you want to do is spend your spare time on nights out, so at some point she may have to choose between her career or settling down.

Oh, and if she is eating out a lot, it's very difficult to keep the weight off, no matter how hard you try.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that friendships wax and wane over time for lots of reasons, one being that our lives change and we might find that we have more or less in common as time goes by.

Sounds like there is a lot less common ground between you and your friend than there used to be. Letting the friendship drift isn't a crime. And it doesn't mean you wouldn't be there if your friend really needed you. Just that you see her a bit less often.

PPs are right that having less of a relationship with your friend won't fix any of the frustrations you have in your own life. But it's up to you how you want the friendship (and your life!) to develop.

I have a successful career, but compared to many of my friends, my career is minimalist. I don't work in London. I don't work in magic circle law, or for a huge software company. I worked for a big company, but in the provinces this holds less prestige than in London.

I have to remind myself that I've made choices, and those choices were the best I could make based on the information available to me (about myself) at the time.

Interestingly, I've just changed jobs to work in a less prestigious organisation, but in doing so have found a role that suits me better and have regained my ambition.

If you can, I would take the tool me to consider if there are changes you could make that don't involve huge amounts of effort but allow you to shift sideways into something that suits you better. Once you have that, you may feel more like aiming for promotions - or if not, you will hopefully be more satisfied in your day to day work.

If it's any help, my previous job also involved lots of travel within the UK. You think it's gonna be great for the first while and then you realise that you miss your own bed, you have to try and do all your washing etc at the weekends, you spend Sundays traveling so you're in the right place on a Monday and your room only has tea with UHT milk. You don't have a fridge and you can't have your choice of breakfast cereal.

I feel really sad for your friend actually.

I went to quite a rough comprehensive school, worked really hard (despite being looked down on for working hard, this weird reverse snobbishness), was one of only a handful of people in my year who went to uni and have gone on to be a director of a large corporate. I am very proud of my success but you wouldn’t have any idea of it when I’m with my school friends, because I feel so self conscious of having done well that I barely talk about work and tread very carefully in talking about anything in my life - ie holidays, my apartment, etc etc

I would feel gutted if any of those friends withdrew from me because of it even though I’m aware how different our lives are.

I think you should put this aside and focus on what you do like about her

Don’t do it OP. I have been in a somewhat similar position and distances myself from friends as I was envious, it was very much the wrong decision and I deeply regret it now. Good friends are hard to find! She sounds like a good person, don’t cut her off. You need to make changes in your life - even small tweaks - so that you are more satisfied with your lot and not consumed with envy. Wishing you luck!

It won't make you feel better, maybe for a few weeks but once you realise that you're missing your friend the damage will be done and pretty difficult to reverse.

I've not been on your side but I did have a friend cut me out of her life because she was jealous. In her mind I had the perfect life, where I wanted to be career wise, husband, house dog etc she always had a life plan and got upset that she hadn't achieved them. I don't really plan and apparently I had the life she wanted. What she didn't see was the hard work hours I put in to get where I wanted. The stress we have had with the house or trying to get through my DH redundancies and the strain of it all financially and emotionally.

She didn't really explain for a good 3 months why she suddenly cut me out, I kept trying didn't know what I had done etc after 6 yrs of friendship. I was pretty hurt kept questioning if I had done something wrong etc.

After 10 months she apologised said she was in a bad place at the time. I said OK but our friendship is not the same, yes it's fine in group situations but I won't call for a catch up like I used to. I'm still hurt that rather than address what she needed to to make herself happier she seemed to blame me.

You don't know the full ins and outs. BTW travelling abroad for work is pretty rubbish regardless of social media. It's tiring, stressful and mostly you see an airport, hotel and office!

Go ahead if you want but be warned its not reversible!

Most people at some point in their lives have compared themselves to someone else and felt lacking...as the saying goes 'Don't compare your inside to someone else's outside' - you'll never know what struggles she's having. Anyway that's pretty much besides the point, which is that despite stating a lack of ambition on your part etc, you're actually not satisfied with your life. That won't go away even if you ghost her. Symptom not the cure etc. When this has happened to me, I look at what's making me jealous.... because it usually points the way to something I would like...and I may not be able to wave s magic wand and get it, but I can work towards it. This usually isn't material things but say 'oh she travels alot, I wish...' and then looking at my life and thinking what about that appeals. .e.g actually it may not be the exact same job with travel that appeals but possibly more adventure in my free time. Sounds like you are needing something a bit 'more' and she's just holding a mirror to that ...

At the risk of sounding conceited / delusional I have been in this exact situation but on the opposite end.
We are sadly no longer friends.

my DP clocked it first. She made some very strange comments and made a pass at him when drunk.
She basically thought my boyfriend/ flat/job/life/hair/handbag/everything was better than hers.
After that the flood gates opened and there was a lot of weirdness (mainly when drunk).

I tried to ignore it.
We met for dinner and she complained we didn’t see each other much these days and I mentioned it was because I hadn’t been around much as I’d been travelling for work a lot and then I started complaining how annoying and tiring work travel is .
I was then accused of thinking her job was unimportant and how I made her feel like shit and I was rubbing it in about how fancy my job was
(For the record I literally didn’t mention her job and was just complaining about mine)

There were other events but that was the final nail in the coffin.

The jealousy completely infected our friendship which makes me sad but by the end it was very unhealthy and I was tired of being perpetually being made to feel bad/awkward for my own, and inadvertently her, life choices.

Not sure about her, but letting the friendship wane was definitely the best thing for me.

I hate travelling for work to amazing places. Itloses its novelty in the end and is worse than the days when I don't have to travel for work. Don't assume she loves it all. I turn all foreign work travel trips down.

It sounds like you have deliberately chosen not to take steps that might ensure you earn more but don't like seeing that this friend earns more. Money doesn't necessarily make people feel happy but if you want more then take the steps you say you can't be bothered to take to earn more.

You're entitled to distance yourself from a friendship for whatever reason you choose. If being around her is difficult while you are struggling with your own feelings of dissatisfaction, maybe a bit of distance will do you good.

FWIW I had a friend who had it all - career, status, money, fabulous holidays, clothes, and it did make me feel a bit shit. Years later she still does have all those things and seems happy - and I've been happier than ever because I've made my peace with the fact that I can't be arsed to do what you need to do to have a super powerful job. I remember going to a milkround recruitment event in my final year of uni where they were trying to excite us about jobs where you'd be responsible for increasing the sale of washing power by X%. I remember thinking, 'but why?' I realised then that I do not have that competitive impulse that can rise to arbitrary challenges for the fun of it. (Hence never running marathons or climbing mountains). Eventually I stopped beating myself up for it. have a job I love that is meaningful to me, I potter, I daydream and waste a lot of time and it's pretty great. You don't get a lot of validation in our current culture if you're not driven to achieve (more or less for achievement's sake). It doesn't mean you're lazy. It means that is not a dynamic that motivates you.

Absolutely agree with PPs that the grass isn’t always greener. I also have a job that while interesting and I enjoy it, I get sick of the sight of airports and train stations, emptying my suitcase to then repack it again the next day, sitting in an, albeit nice, company car in 10 mile tailbacks on the M1....

Ask yourself, is your friend a good person, would she be there if you needed her, is she someone you can confide in and have a good time with? That friendship is worth its weight in gold, regardless of what either of you have or don’t have, or do for a living.

I am sure you’re not a lazy, boring woman, but a fabulous singleton.

Are you sure it’s really your friend you have the issue with? I know it is hard but could you try to be inspired by here, rather than envious?

What do you want in life? A good career? If so, make a list of what you want in a career and realistically what you could do, then aim for one of the options.

Do you have any other goals? Go for it, in steady steps, bite sized chunks: job, hobbies, dating etc.

I have lost a good friend due to envy and insecurities. I even told her why I didn’t want to see her, and she was shocked and basically said that she was blagging it and not perfect, just trying to be happy and do the best she could for herself in life. Even if we’d stayed friends (and this ruined the friendship beyond repair), it would have always been there between us. Please don’t ruin your friendship like I did; by all means cool it a bit, but some things- once said- can’t be taken back.

"To be so deeply envious of anyone in this way is not normal have you got a personality disorder -I think you should see your gp"

Don't be silly. Envy is completely normal.