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.

OP you sound very unhappy . I'm a single parent, I work really really hard lots of hours and we don't have loads, but we have enough. I look at my son and he's healthy and happy and I've got my health and I feel like the luckiest woman alive.
I lost 4 members of my family to cancer in the last 2 years ....its all about perspective.

If you have enough to eat, hear and shelter, then you’re way better off than a lot of people.

It’s about who you compare yourself to OP. Those who have more or those who have less. Or you could just not compare yourself at all.

Agree with whereshallwemoveto. I think my early career was in that sort of environment starting with an admin role on the syndicate desk.

When I met DH I was doing v well and had my own house and a very nice lifestyle. DH was a few years out if a pupillage and really struggling when we met and subsequently it's his success that has principally funded the lifestyle you describe op.

We have been married for nearly 30 years but may I just say that if I had a £1 for ever snide comment, every quip about how other women wouldn't put up with his long hours, with him never being available for parents evening, with me shouldering the entire load of family admin and wifemin, we'd have even more money.

You have to be a team to sustain it and don't think it isn't about hard work within and around the relationship. I re.emver when the dc were tinies and we went out, rather than be the dull wife who only talked about children and furnishings I made sure I read the previous weeks' FT and had a good book on the go.

I went back to work when my youngest started school and have worked fulltime again for 15 years. I wasn't a luncher and I like work. No need to but it means I tend to avoid the snarkers too.

It’s definitely about perspective. And you never know what goes on behind closed doors

This is my sister's life. she is super clever but has sacrificed her career to her husband's- living all over the world for his work. And to bringing up their children.
They have 3 houses and knowing how much effort, time and money goes into them has completely cured me of any lottery winning fantasy of buying a big house! Truly- I wouldn't want it.
They are very generous to me (I'm widowed with young children) and very sociable. I envy them their happy relationship but not their houses, art collection, cars etc, or my sister's lack of career.

We still have or have had struggles. They've very often not been dropped into lives like that and still go through unimaginable heartache.

As a slight aside, It's always a bit frustrating on threads like this to see that the idea still pushed, that women who get into abusive relationships are at fault. If they were more ambitious with higher standards then they wouldn't end up with abusive men. There are plenty of ambitious women with high standards and self confidence who get dragged down by abusive men.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Try to be happy with the things you do have.

For me luck has nothing to do with it.
I might look a bit like that to the outside world.
The truth is I worked bloody hard to be a SAHM. I worked my arse off at uni while others were partying. I spent my 20s taking exams and working outrageous hours, travelling away from home and doing whatever the job role demanded.
I was earning over £100k by the time I decided to start a family. I chose not to return to my job when my first child was born. I don’t need to work because of my husband’s salary and my savings, however since my youngest was born I’ve actually taken another qualification to enable me to seek employment now he has started nursery (he’s 2).
I’m pretty sure the other mums I meet have the same views as yours, I’m a kept woman, I’ve landed on my feet etc. Not true at all, they just don’t know the full story.

I met DH when we were both skint students with no Big Plans. I think he is the one that got lucky actually...

I say this to my DCs often.

Don’t judge your inside on someone else’s outside.

My very best Friend had the kind of life you describe. Like a PP has mentioned, she spent a lot of time deflecting mean and jealous comments from other women. In reality, her husband was a controlling arse so she left him. She now lives in a tiny flat, working as many hours as she can in a low paid role because she hasn’t worked for years and that’s all she could get. She’s never been happier.

OP I think that if you're talking about the women who don't really have much of a career of their own, but have a lifestyle and security that's come from the foundation of their husband's solid career and financial development, then I think what may distinguish these women is sensible life choices. And by that I mean that there will have been a point - possibly quite early on - where they made the choice to be with a person who wasn't necessarily the most obviously attractive at the time, but who had the golden value of being solid and serious about money. And then they've stuck with him.

I think this is all about money. These women worked out, or had been brought up to understand, that money is the bottom line. So they married well. And then committed to that life, and judged its success on how much and how well they were building more financial (and therefore other) security every day.

I see a lot of those women. And yes, they often aren't the prettiest or the nicest. They are the smuggest, though. And yes, sometimes I do wonder myself how they did it.

Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?

For all you know, OP, these ‚successful’ women may have physical or mental health problems, or be lonely or bereaved or desperately bored. They may envy you. Enjoy what you have!

That phrase “comparison is the thief of joy” is so relevant here.

Not just for the obvious reasons (already stated), ie that we have no idea what these women’s lives are really like and that depending on a man and his money is a miserable, insecure and undignified way to live.

But above all because you will never really be happy if your yardstick is other people’s lives. It bears repeating. If you have this attitude and get to the point where you have a fleet of cars and several houses you will still feel resentment because the billionaire down the road has one more helicopter than you.

It’s a piss poor outlook on life and thoroughly depressing to read that people feel like this.

You are describing my mum and she has always hated how other woman are nasty and jealous of her!! However, they have no idea what has gone on in her life.

She has always been a size 8. She's 57y and still has no cellulite (naturally thin, no gym and can still eat what she likes). My dad is very wealthy (he is also 5ft6 and about 15 stone) and people always think she's a gold digger. But he was 10 stone when they met and my mum helped build the company up from nothing. They holiday 15+ times a year abroad to all over the world in business class. They have an amazing house with a cleaner. They eat out 2/3 times a week! My brother and I went to top private schools.

What you don't know is that... my dad can be a MASSIVE arsehole! He's actually a bit of a bully to my mum who is an absolute angel. She won't leave because she loves him and her lifestyle is amazing! She was abused as a child by her brother and treated poorly by her father and she still struggles to deal with them!

People from the outside always assume the worst! That she has a lovely life and often say nasty things to her about it. In fact, my mum actually started working at my grandmas old people home on minimum wage just to spend time with her and people were so horrible about her holidays (her one holiday would cost as much as most of them earn a year but she would NEVER have mentioned that). Just a lot of bitter woman who aren't happy with the choices they have made! She and my dad grew up ok council estates and it is about choices.

They may well have prioritised financial security in a partner over other things (personality, sense of humour, intelligence...). I know at least one person who did just this. I don’t understand how she can be happy but I’m sure she also wonders how I settled for a relatively low earner (with a personality 😆). Earning potential was a reason she ended previous relationships- she was clear on what mattered to her.

I’d query the above posters saying ‘hard work’, though. These in the lowest paid professions tend to work extremely hard, physically if not mentally, often in a very stressful setting in that they have very little say in terms of their work. This type of stress has been shown to be especially toxic. The reasons for people being in these roles are generally the context in which they grew up. You occasionally get the person from an affluent background who crashed and burned and ended up in such a role; equally, you occasionally get someone from a background where people rarely progress to higher education who breaks the mould. But generally, life isn’t fair, and those who start with advantage tend to go on to have more in financial terms.

I get you @Elderflowerasusualthxs - I ponder the same sometimes. I have a friend - actually we only crossed paths as she was temporarily my landlord, but I went to the same private school as her cousin and we clicked chatting - she is wealthy. I’m doing fine but she is on another scale. And she is happily married. I think she has an easy life; I also really like her.

It’s a bit tedious when everyone says ‘married dull/who knows what goes on behind behind closed doors’ etc - why presume they didn’t marry because they liked and loved their husbands? Are poorer men way more interesting? I don’t think so.

My friends problem is she is very smart but I sometimes think she is bored, she didn’t work, and reared her kids alongside a live in nanny. She has too much time on her hands and she is occasionally interfering.

The distribution of opportunity isn’t fair that’s for sure.

I think a pp was right in that some women are more focused earlier on, on getting this choice right. It’s something I’ve copped on to (now in my 40s), I’ve no interest in diluting the salary and life I’ve created alone with someone who earns a fraction of what I do. Money makes life a lot easier.

Health is priceless but money sure helps with comfort!

enjoy what you have. Make the most of the little things. My sister is much richer than us by a huge amount but other than a mild twinge of jealousy when we have yet again run out of money at the end of the month and they are skiing for the third time that year (we obviously have never been skiing!) I rarely think about it. Despite this our kids are equally as lucky we have taught them to appreciate little things. Without sounding too much of a nob (though I will) they marvel at nature, blossom or a piece of chocolate. Little things more important to loving life.

I don't know anyone like you described in the OP. That's not the kind of social circle I move in.

I feel like I have an incredibly easy life despite being a low earning single mum. I am one of the happiest people in my friendship group.

It's all about mentality.

Why does the man always have to end up being a secret arsehole?? Yes OP it is possible to “have it all” as such... and good for them. Stop looking at them and look at yourself... if you want change then work for it!!

That's my life basically. No inheritance though. DH grew up in a council house in the North East with an abusive father. Mine weren't well off either.
I went to uni, got a good job, worked hard and was very well paid at 28 when I met DH. We sold our flat for a big profit and he worked very hard. He wasn't around much when the children were really little and we had a part-time nanny to help. I chose not to go back to work after DC3.

He earns lots of money and we have a nice house, lovely holidays, a gardener and a cleaner. But it's all money we've earnt.

Just to add, OP, I assume you have kids? Would you really want them to grow up constantly looking over their shoulders at other people. Do you have daughters? Do you want them growing up thinking the only way to achieve "happiness" is to bag a rich man and play aspirational keepy uppy all their lives? Teach them self-reliance and dignity by modelling it yourself, rather than modelling graspiness and resentment.

Lots have it either through inheritance or hard work or both

Some just luck out on the partner front. I know x2

God this thread is depressing. The idea of making it is marrying a rich man. Not getting a successful or fulfilling career in your own right.