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 don't know any like that

@MsTSwift women like that won't realise you're a professional too. She'll see you have nice things and assume your husband is the reason for it all, because you and her came from the same starting position and she doesn't have the things you do, so it must be down to luck and not hard work

I don't judge anyone who has the life you describe OP, I'm just jealous of them. Yes there are people in the world with a lot less than us, but they are very likely envious of people with more than them. I've been poorer than I am now. I was jealous of a life like I have now (it's nothing special).
I hate the "you don't know what goes on behind closed doors" mantra. No, we can't assume that most people who have money, are unhappy in some other way. I have shit things going on in my life, really shit things, I can still be jealous of people who have more than me.
I would rather have my own money though.

As people have said, it's all relative, although having lots of money oils the wheels.

Someone said that their friend goes away with girlfriends to get away from her horrible husband - well at least she has friends and many people would envy her that.

I knew someone at school, I hesitate to call her a friend as she wasn't really. She went to Oxford, trained to be a lawyer, worked in a big international law firm. She could have made it by herself. But I believe she had some sort of mental breakdown. Anyway, she married a guy who made it himself and they are wealthy and live in a million plus house in Surrey. But do you know what I really envy her for? Not the money, but the said successful husband is Northern Irish, which means EU passports for her two daughters and lots more opportunity than my son will have.

It's all relative and what you value in life. I do get it, I've often looked at women who've obviously married well. Probably not intentionally but their husbands have been successful in their careers. But I wouldn't want to be a trophy wife and dependent on a man.

These people exist, I guess it’s a combination of luck and choosing the right person. My DH earns well and I knew that when I met him, but we get on really well so I wanted to be with him. It’s all part of a bigger picture. Most people’s live is not how you’ve described though is it.

God yes I am a hopeless gold digger. The son of one of England’s oldest most aristocratic families asked me out but I had just met dh so declined. Dh thought I was mental when he found out!

That’s my life, OP. Sort of. My husband wasn’t wealthy when we met, he had a reasonably well paid professional job but a bucket of debt pretty much cancelled it all out.

His career success (and with it the money) has come over the duration of our long relationship. When we met, we both worked FT for years and when the children came along, I continued working FT until the last one when I stayed at home until she was 5. I went back PT, increasing to FT after a couple of years. I didn’t need to work but I wanted to.

Then my youngest child became ill with a long term condition and I had to give up my beloved career to attend endless appointments and be available for school collections at the drop of a hat. Fast forward a few years and I was still unable to return to my career as she still required a lot of support. She still does, it is relentless and exhausting.

On the face of it, we ‘have it all’ in material terms and don’t get me wrong, having financial means has given us options that many families in our position don’t have BUT it isn’t a magic cure all for life.

Earn your own money?

It’s a very lonely life, and here’s why:

Friends who do not have as much as you are either resentful, jealous or think you are bragging when they ask about your day/what you’ve been up to. So you feel you cannot be honest about your life and have no one to confide in. Posts like yours make it clear they talk behind your back etc.

Friends who have the same as you or more are a mixture - some are lovely and happy. But most are not, or they have specifically chosen to marry well and that’s their whole personality. Lots of loneliness, drinking, cheating husbands and drugs. It’s quite a small and insular clique of people so you also cannot be honest because gossip and information is shared.

I think there are happy and unhappy people at every point on the income scale, and it's unhelpful to drop hints about what goes on behind closed doors. OP, some people's lives are easier. Sometimes that's because of something they've done/an attribute they have; sometimes it's luck (and sometimes a combination).

FWIW we're high earners. I noticed a while ago that the wealthier we became the more (irrationally) unhappy I was - I needed to have a word with myself to appreciate what I / we had.

How do you know those women have it that easy ?

I know a woman who has that life , along with a severely autistic son with all manner of other complex needs . He is too challenging to live at home and will be in the care system his entire life . Her life and that off the rest of her family is broken beyond measure.

Think OP before passing judgement please .

Haven't read the whole thread, but it's a small amount of people who live like that. You know the average wage in this country is only 28k, right?

I think you need to focus more on yourself and on boosting your self esteem instead of carrying around all this jealousy. It must be exhausting for you.

For the record, I don't live like those women. I just about scrape by each month because i'm paying off debts, but I am still content with my life.

well

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...

Well if you want this lifestyle now days you going to really have to focus on senior bankers, partners in law firms or tech entrepreneurs as 150k salaries are not going to deliver the above. So meet them at uni &/or work in the same industries. However in my experience I wouldn't say they are positions then tend to be filled by lookers.

If you want good looking & rich then sports stars, pop starts, actors but I'd say it's risky & probably very stressful.

Some women go for the "exciting" but unreliable blokes who are unlikely to get decent jobs or make a fortune.

Some women go for the boring blokes with good earning potential who are likely to provide better.

Some women make their own future by doing well at school, getting good qualifications, a degree or profession, then a good career with good/flexible earning potential.

Some women (or their blokes) get inheritances or are subsidised by parents or grandparents etc.

We're all different. Some people are born lucky, others work hard to improve their lives, others make sacrifices for a good life.

You sound jealous. Also unless someone is born very wealthy (ie actually has access to all the money) it often takes a hell of a lot of hard work. You're just noticing the nice life and not the struggle to get there.

Often the more “perfect” and polished things look from the outside, the more issues there are lurking below the surface.

It’s a very lonely life, and here’s why

Why the desperate need to undermine these women?! It’s like a coping mechanism: it’s fine for these women to exist but only if I maintain they are miserable.

My DC go to private school, we’re members of a naice sports club, I sit on the board of a couple of charities. As such many of my closest friends are now “ladies that lunch”.

They’re mostly in loving, happy, equal relationships. They’re well supported by their spouses, have opportunities to do what they want.

All of them without exception went to university, most had careers or supported their DHs in setting up a business.

These are genuine, open, caring and honest friendships. It’s not some fantasy mean girls clique

I might look like this to you..but the reality is I met (and chose) DH when he was a uni student without two pence to rub together, as was I. We were both quite quiet, not "cool" people, not in the popular crowd but i loved him because he is kind and caring. See the pattern there? We both went on to get good jobs, worked hard and bought our house together. I've put in 50% of everything although friends probably don't realise as I'm on maternity leave at the moment.

What you don't see is the 3 miscarriages we have suffered between children. DDs health issues that are a constant worry. The fact that at times we haven't had much time for each other due to work etc, so we have had to work hard on our marriage & bank a lot of trust.

These days I also know several very average blokes living off their stellar wives.

I'm one of those women.

No money growing up, very academic, went to Oxbridge, met a nerdy guy there with a kind heart.

Downsides to my position, as far as I'm concerned:

• DH spends a ridiculous amount of time working and not enough time with his family (imo).

• I sacrificed my career to do all the family stuff when the kids were born. OK, I wasn't actually enjoying my career, but still I'm bored.

• Lots of grim times when the kids were tiny, we didn't have as much money as we do now, and I was basically left on my own to deal with everything, even when I was ill.

Having said that, I would still class myself as immensely privileged. We have basically all the stuff the OP mentions. I don't work and have a cleaner and a gardener and a pool guy. (Managing property and life admin is still time-consuming, though.) DS has autism, and when he needs any kind of therapy or treatment then I can just hire someone, rather than relying on the crap state provision for SN kids. DH is a workaholic but otherwise lovely.

I feel awkward sometimes in front of my schoolfriends and have found myself wanting to avoid showing them our house, or admitting I still don't work, in case they judge me for being overprivileged. But good friends don't really judge you like that. And usually we meet up to go camping or something instead.

Oh and I'm not very good-looking. Also a bit podgy. But I'm very nice

I'm glad the discussion has (mostly) moved on from being cruel to the OP.

PegasusReturns

I’m not trying to undermine these women - DH earns in the top 1% and I am speaking from relative experience (not several homes by any means but other aspects of this ring true for me and, friend-wise, it’s very lonely. Hence all my time on MN) 😂

@yoopla

Identify very strongly with your penultimate paragraph. It’s very difficult with friends.

I think envy - like all emotions - is extremely useful, is used in the right way.

It can inspire ambition in us, and highlight the direction we want to go in.

So I don't full agree with the advice to count your blessings, but equally, don't get too down about it.

See what changes you can make in your own life to improve it - use that energy positively.

Those lucky women are the ones that landed financially secure, stable men.
They didn't have successful jobs or family money or anything else apart from their husbands. They are not catwalk models either

This is all a matter of perspective. It sounds like my worst nightmare. Ive had periods out of work before where ive been supported by my OH. It was awful, I had to fight to fill my days with meaningful stuff in order to ward off depression. I couldnt imagine doing it for a life time.

Do you think you'd be happier with this type of life? Its ok if you do, but there are negatives to all types of lifestyle.