To wonder how some women have it sooo easy...

[Elderflowerasusualthxs]

Aibu? Or just jealous? I don't know but how did they make it?
Such an easy life! Cleaners, gardeners. Huge countryside houses and sometimes second homes by the sea.
A caring and loving husband, good looking and wealthy. No need to work for the rest of their lives. Kids privately educated. Enjoying wonderful holidays in different places and cultures and so on...
They exist and just hit the jackpot or there is a secret that most of us don't know?! I met a pair of them last year by chance through my son's extra curricular activities.
So many of us don't have it like that and I know life can be challenging and unfair at times but they seem to have it all.
Can I have the recipe please? Thank you.

I did (and do) acknowledge 'huge amounts of luck'. There were plenty of points at which if things had gone the other way I'd have been bankrupt.

@NewYearsRevolution2020 - no problem. It was a bit long!

It is both luck and sometimes a choice to make certain decisions- my relative was ‘luck’ to be working in an area which attractive very wealthy individuals with yachts. ‘Luck’ was she happened to be in the same bar/restaurants as a very wealthy man and was pretty so caught his attention.

However, the active decision on her part was to accept the interests of a man so much older and to become pregnant- many women would have told him to fuck off (and fair enough!), rather than shag somebody they are not attracted to and accept his culture. But the woman I know weighed up the benefits of having his lifestyle and decided to go for it.

So it’s not fair to say it is completely ‘luck’. There is choice and compromise too in some cases, it depends what you want /value more

anyone else amazed at the amount of posters who know 1 very wealthy SAH wife with an abusive/cheating DH and a very unhappy life behind closed doors?

Maybe you all live in the same town and you are thinking about the same neighbour?

You've also got to remember that we all have the same things

If you have a home it's your home! You can have all they have on a smaller scale and make your home a lovely home for you.

If you have clothes it's not about brands. If you have trendy clothes from Primark Asda or river island, right up to gucci and monsoon it's trendy.

If you have food then you have food. Cook what you enjoy and eat well

If you have happy children who love Christmas morning and have presents. Then your children are having the exact same magic as those children.

Private or not. Children being happy with their peers and discovering through play and learning is exactly the same.

Never compare yourself. Unless you are extremely skint and can't afford to eat etc you have a good life.

Life's what you make it. Beaches are free. Woods are free. Parks are free. Go explore with your kids and enjoy your life. You shouldn't feel depressed. A day is still the same even with a bigger house. Still quiet with no friends there. Still same shitty day time Tele. Nothing is truly different. It's just different. The worst thing you can do is compare.

I used to follow Mrs hinch. I don't anymore. Because she made me feel shit. She made me feel like a home should be spotless and immaculate and themed. That you should always have your shit together. I got so sick of people ticking or their lists and filming the sink being cleaned. I do my best but my kids don't always allow me to loose myself into cleaning and rearranging cupboards every week. When they are older my home will improve. You have to learn when to think. That's not me and that's ok. I'm lucky and happy x

I have much of what you describe in your OP. I also had a child who was murdered in childhood. You would never know it from looking at us as a family. As others have said you just can't tell from appearances whether a person has wonderful life or not.

@Apolloanddaphne so sorry to hear that, there are no words to describe such a sad thing. I'm sorry xx

@Apolloanddaphne I am sorry to hear of your loss. Xx

@Apolloanddaphne

Josefkeller. The woman I know is a friend and I was flatsharing with her at the time of the suspected cheating and saw the emails. He was working his way up the career ladder at the time and I strongly suspect it’s why she stayed with him. I’m not saying he cheats now and he isn’t abusive but she’s lonely and unhappy despite her lifestyle. I appreciate it’s not the same for everyone in her position but she’s the only person I know with that sort of money.

Apolloanddaphne. That’s unthinkable, I’m so very sorry for your loss 💐

Apolloanddaphne so sorry. How awful.

Elderflowerasusualthxs Leaving aside the obvious outliers (abuse, family tragedy etc), I still think the fundamental premise of your argument is just warped. You seem to be assuming that "having it all" means not having to work.

Personally I can't think of anything worse than not having to work and relying on a man for money. I'm a single parent and the entire maintenance of my household (financial, administrative and emotional) comes down to me and me alone. This means I am forced to work extremely hard and see my kid a lot less than I would like. I know this isn't for everyone but I literally say a prayer of thanks every day for the fact that I don't rely on a man for money. I can't think of anything worse than having constantly to modify my behaviour and adapt my goals in order to accommodate someone who thinks he gets to influence how I spend my time, how I raise my kids, how I organise the household and how I look. There is literally nothing that terrifies me more than this. Even within the gilded cage of an extremely large home and a big financial cushion this would be hell for me.

I know this isn't for everyone. Many people feel that they would happily sacrifice financial autonomy in order to be the primary caregiver and spend more time with their kids. And that is an entirely valid choice. My point is that people have vastly different life goals and different things make them tick.

Loads of people have made the point about how you'll never be happy by comparing yourself to others (me included). It also makes me upset and angry to think that there's a homogeneous goal of the sort of woman we're supposed to aspire to be -- and feel jealous of - and that woman fits some ideal template of how a 1950s kept housewife should be.

My receipe was best A levels in the school, picking law as a degree, top of year, London lwa job, setting up on my own, keeping all the money.....

It is much more fun to earn your own money. I was able to afford 5 sets of school fees etc. I live in a pretty nice house and have just about anything I want (which is not a huge amount and I sold my island in the Pacific). Just work hard and work smart. Pick work which is well paid.

Everyone in life has problems. However being wealthy provides you with more options, and can make life easier. YANBU for thinking some people have it easier.

@WineInTheSun sorry I meant more about women in general - those who marry for love not money

@drspouse sorry I misinterpreted! Completely on board now!

I guess I am "one of those women who landed a financially secure and stable man"

I don't have to work, we are mortgage free, we could have a cleaner (I choose not to) and our gorgeous 7 week old DD will probably go to private school when she's older.

But I would trade in all of the money to have my DM by my side again. She died 3 months before we got married so never saw me walk down the aisle and will never meet my baby. I was the only child of a single parent too, so I have no family (other than an auntie & a cousin) so I am very much on my own when it comes to family (although I have lots of in laws)

Yes, having money can make somethings easier, but it really isn't just something to presume that someone "well off" has an easy life

They're just wealthier than you, but they may have it far harder in other ways (who knows what goes on behind closed doors). Jealousy will get you nowhere. Focus on other things.

@Cookiecrumblepie Thank you!

I'm with you OP.

Someone earlier said this: In my experience, some women are more aware early on that certain types of men are a better bet when it comes to marriage.

I wish I'd been aware of that. I had literally no clue. My mum banged on and on through my childhood about being financially independent so I didn't have to rely on a man but now I'm gutted to realise I have accidentally chosen the opposite - a man who relies on ME financially! (I say accidentally cause when I chose him he had a good income that I didn't understand would be temporary).

I would have been much happier if I'd have been able to afford to be a stay at home mum and continue some of my own creative interests. Instead I'm worn to a frazzle working working working to afford our home, kids uni fees in future etc etc.

Simple solution would have been to have chosen a solvent man with a stable career.

Cookiecrumblepie but being wealthy doesn't necessarily make your life easier. It cushions you from some obvious hardships such as starvation, losing your home and having to do very unpleasant work, granted. It allows you to buy and do things that many people can't buy and do.

But it also brings with it a lot more things to manage and worry about. A lot more pressure. It can introduce doubt and paranoia into your relationships, questions about what the underlying motivations are for being your friend/spouse. It can introduce whole additional levels of concern about status which people without wealth don't have. It can leave you totally without direction in your life.

My family was comfortable rather than wealthy but I grew up around a lot of people with silly money - -people whose kids basically never had to work. Among my peers I saw what I'm convinced were distortedly high figures for drug abuse, dropping out, general going-off-the-rails behaviour. Much higher than in stable but less well off families. Money can make people very unhappy and very insecure.

I'm not going to deny that living off foodbanks is shit. But what you seem to be saying is that wealthy people as a general premise have it much easier than ordinary but not destitute people, simply as an output of having more money. I promise you its not true.

@thepeopleversuswork I’m not denying that wealthy people have problems, everyone has problems. Of course wealthy people have different problems. My point is that wealthy people have more choices by virtue of their wealth. And that makes life easier. If this isn’t the case then wealthy people have the choice to give their money away. No one is forcing people to keep their wealth.

Cookiecrumblepie a lot of wealthy people do give their money away via charity or other means. Also the large numbers of trustafarians and rich kids who sofa surf, doss about, run off with the hippies or do something for a living which is guaranteed not to make them any money is testament to the fact that often people with money don't value it at all. In large part because they've seen what damage money can do to families and how large amounts of it serve as a total demotivator.

Money can be a real curse, trust me.

@thepeopleversuswork agree, I guess it depends on the amount of wealth. Obviously if you’re a billionaire Or royal etc it’s a curse. I meant if you are ‘very comfortable’ if the sense that you can live in a nice neighbourhood and cushion some of life’s blows with money, it’s easier than struggling with nothing. Obviously everyone has problems, but having a decent savings pot and no major money worries makes a huge difference to life. Wealth can really remove/reduce a lot of barriers in a capitalist society.

@Cookiecrumblepie Utterly agree with YOU. Thanks again x

They also accept that a husband home at 5pm to "help with the kids" is a completely dated and unreasonable concept.

I would say for myself & my peers it's quite dated to have the man working long hours, never seeing the children & the women not working. None of us are rich but we all have household incomes above 90k but the women all work albeit part time in the main & the household burden is managed between the couples with some outsourcing. Having flexibility & wfh is a lot more likely on 80k than on 500k