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.

Its all relative isn't it, everyone has a different idea of what comprises easy. For me, it would be a more affordable mortgage, more money, job stability (rather than looking over my shoulder and scrapping around), DH being around more at weekends, not having had to experience bereavements in the last few years, a good relationship with my Dad, feeling as if I had nailed it more as a parent, having more patience, o yes having a cleaner. O yes and being able to eat whatever I want and have as many takeaways as I want and be a size 8 would also help. But, I know compared to someone who is out of work, struggling on benefits, a single parent, has kids with special needs or long term illnesses, my life looks pretty easy.

I kinda get what you are saying op. Through certain times I do the comparison thing and think huh?? However I quickly stop myself because it is true you need to concentrate on what you have. Every situation is different mines worse/better than the next. An example is the pp with plenty money no need to work and an unwell dh, then not too far from home try an ill dh, massive debts and having to work a stressful job!!!

I dont envy those women. Funny, i look at them and think 'there whole life could becripped out from under their feet if their husband cheated'

Im sure they'd be fine. But no, i tend to envy charismatic people, or artists.

Hi OP
i think you are getting a few harsh comments on here. I understand your frustration. It seems like they have it all and perhaps you feel you do not. And perhaps these friends are happy behind closed doors. Why should we assume they are not? To make ourselves feel better?
I am not sure what to tell you, other than this is life. When i am having a bad day, it doesnt take me long to get this way. I struggle with poor health and seem to move on from one rubbish job to the next. But i look at the positives in my life and hold onto them. A clean and warm home, happy healthy baby etc. U are just having a bad day n you will snap out of it. Lots of hugs. Xx

Why bother comparing yourself to the top 0.5% of wealth in the world?

Why not look at the bottom 90% and realise how well off you are?

Things don’t buy happiness. We used to live in a manky mouldy house that I couldn’t invite people to and we drove an old banger. I have the opposite of those things now and although I’m no longer embarrassed to Open the door to visitors or have to worry about our cars breaking down, I’m no happier than before. It is easier obviously, but happiness comes from the success of my relationships for me.

@PyongyangKipperbang your post was so sad. I hope shes happy now.

Well, I knew a woman who seemed to have it all. She had a stockbroker husband and didn’t need to work. She was wealthy. Once I got to know her better I found out she was an alcoholic and strongly suspected she had an eating disorder too. She had no real friends, and her marriage was riddled with problems. She was estranged from her family and her husbands family didn’t like her. Her relationship with her son was dysfunctional. She had lost a pregnancy to still birth. Yet on the surface she had a great life, and no one would have suspected otherwise, until you really got to know her.
I have also loved a fairly privileged life for a while. I’m sure I was the envy of many people who thought I had a great life. However I was grappling with a lot of real distress under the surface.
Be happy with what you have. There are always trade offs in every situation. You really can’t have it all.

It's called "being goodlooking". Some women are, and man are generally beholden to those women. Those women get what they ask for from most men.

Sad, but ultimately true.

Yea but you have all presumed she married money - hence all these “god eh is is so depressing” posts. Op never said that. She could have inherited it, who knows.

And I don’t think she means two income middle-class households with a cleaner. It’s that other level of, a house in Mauritius, relatives with summer houses in exotic places, a portfolio of properties, kids in 30k boarding schools, owning racehorses in training just for the fun, that kind of wealth I think she’s referring to.

But it’s a tight set. Im not envious of it though.

Went to a wedding once with a table full of said group. They could not make conversation. It was a strange thing to experience.

And now that I think about it OP,
I’m married to a lovely man
Mortgage free with a home I helped design(and if I must say is amazing)
Two happy dc
No money worries
I work because I want to not because I have to.
Great work/life balance.
I’m a size 8.
Overall I am very happy and fortunate
BUT!!...I have other worries going on in my life that no money, position and privileges can fix. So...🤷‍♀️
I can think of plenty of other ppl who have it better or who have “more” but I know they equally have shit going on!! Everyone has issues and problems OP...done are just not that obvious!!

WellHoly so could anyone. Unless a woman is very successful and well paid in her own right she’s still likely to be financially disadvantaged by divorce. Half of a lot is still better than half of not very much.

I dated a professional athlete for awhile. He wanted to marry me. But I hated the thought of being the wife of X and I’d seen how it was a clique of wives and how they were all fake, back stabbing, into looking like glamour models. I would have been miserable if I’d married him. Nit because of him, he was a lovely man, but the expectations and spotlight that comes with being married to a professional athlete.
So I ended up breaking it off.
So I could have had all the stuff and riches plus lovely husband but the social circles would have made me suicidal.

Where are all these good looking millionaires that the posters on here are married to or know of?

There will always be people richer than you more beautiful than you .
I think if life is that easy it would be a bit boring to be honest . I think human beings thrive on challenges.

I have loads of female friends who live this life. Only one has made the money through her own hard work (her and her dh inherited a business which they grew), the rest live the life they do due to ‘marrying well’. While most have (from what I gather) good, strong marriages, there are quite regular references about having to ‘service’ their husbands to keep them happy, which is done in jest but does have an underlying truth to it. And one of them had an affair several years ago because she was bored.

But like you and me, op, they are just ordinary people with similar challenges to the rest of us. I agree that having the money for regular long haul holidays etc must be amazing, but I really do believe that they are fundamentally no more or less happy than ‘ordinary’ people. You get used to a certain standard of living, the novelty of which wears off surprisingly quickly, and beyond all that you are still beset with concerns about health, relationships, and the wellbeing of your dcs.

The people you describe are a minority around here,not sure where you live.I have a dh who works full time,loves me and ds and prioritizes us.We live in a mortgaged modest home and and I consider myself very very lucky.

Massive fuck off houses,cars,loads of holidays arent most peoples real life it's the smaller goals you should focus on.

@PlanDeRaccordement My friend dated a footballer (he was hot & nice) but she couldn't hack it, if they went out other women were relentless. I witnessed it too, craziness!

Clearly as a good feminist I deprecate the suggestion that “making it”=finding a wealthy man to live off.

However IME the answer to the OP’s question is that they
A) meet them at university, or if that’s not an option
B) work in admin roles in companies full of men with high earnings potential. Three couples I know fit this pattern, along with WhereShallWeMoveTo and Roses upthread. If you want to marry a wealthy man you gotta hang out where the wealthy men are, and additionally the salaries and benefits for admin work in these places tend to be relatively good, so it’s not a risky proposition. The women aren’t eyecatchingly good looking but they do all have notably likeable and outgoing personalities - two of the three men are also lovely (though not exactly Adonises) so I wouldn’t feel sorry for their wives.

@PlanDeRaccordement that’s interesting. Funnily enough one of my friends said something similar recently; that the circles she finds herself moving in are often of not-so-nice people, many of whom are attracted to her because they know which house she lives in, which is quite isolating and must mean that making new true friends is particularly difficult.

YABU and jealous.

The way forward is to earn your own money, work as hard as you can at the most lucrative work that fits your skills, then enjoy the benefits of your own making.

Well OP, I own several properties, drive a sports car, have regular holidays, and am still relatively young- have a husband who adores me and two lovely kids. Are you jealous of me?

Would it help if I told you that the only reason I have these things is because I lost both of my parents at a young age to horrible diseases and I nursed first one, and then the other through torturous and painful illnesses and now I have no family left? My parents never even got to see their grandkids (well, my dad did, but he was too ill by that point to be involved). I'm now completely alone with no surviving family members (aside from my H and kids). I often look at grandparents picking GC up from my children's school and its like a knife through my heart. I'd give anything to be able to spend just an hour with my parents again- i'd give everything back to have them, but I cant. Ive had to go through extensive counselling to deal with the fallout. But I guess from the outside, someone like you would look at my life and feel jealous?

Well, dont. You have no idea what people might be going through.

What constitutes a "good life" is variable. I don't envy someone with two houses and staff - I feel stressed just thinking about it. I envy a person who has paid off their mortgage and lives somewhere near moors/ beautiful landscapes. The size of their house or car or bank balance is not important. People are valuable not property, it is envy of others that causes friction, I see it all the time as I work in an advice charity. People in dire straits still have time to moan that a neighbour has something they do not.

You cannot measure the value of a life through acquisitions.

Marrying a rich husband for an easy life is not very MN is it? A good education, STEM degree, satisfying career, friends, a good social life, plenty of interests and if you do marry someone who treats you well, respects you and does their share on principle. Remember it's the 2020s not the 1950s.

A woman I went to school with recently said with an eye roll “did your parents teach you and your sisters to marry rich men!” Which I thought abit of an odd comment as we professionals who have basically married our male equivalents and our earnings and our husbands about the same.