To want this sort of life

[Blahdeblahh]

I follow a set of people I know through friends of friends on Instagram and just really envy their lives. There’s a big group of friends whose kids all play together, the mums all regularly have lunches/nights out and they’ve all just gone away to an island with partners/husbands too. They’re all really wealthy and good looking and their lives just look perfect
Anyone have a life like this 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's frustrating, isn't it!

It sounds to me like you are looking for a bit more fulfilment. Have you got a bucket list OP? Run the London Marathon? Go to Glastonbury? Go up the Eiffel Tower? Holiday. In the Greek Islands? Learn to paint? ....... whatever floats your boat, start making it happen. You will then forget about these other people.

This.
We have friends who a life like that
But grass is def not greener
They are permanently anxious about that 1lb weight gain.
Sweating on their Peletons
Constantly scouring internet for a particular dress to look amazing For an event
Always having to be planning to be at the right things
Constant entertaining means constant tidying up After others
I would find that exhausting

I agree about the fakeness.
The only people I know who bleat on and on about their superduper, fabulous, wonderful other halves,are indeed those whose ohs have cheated on them. Without any exception. It's quite embarrassing really.

I have friends like that (I'm not included type friends), they are not that happy in RL.
Most of the time one parent is always working to pay for the lifestyle, the kids always want me and they are worried about what would happen in they lost that money.
Don't get me wrong I have great friends. We have children who are friends but we spend our time camping, walking and on water sports.

How old are these people? I do not see any of this myself - isn’t it just cringe posting and boasting all the time? My teens and their friends dont do this !

YANBU to want the life these people show on Instagram - I think most of us would. But the reality is very different.

Count your own blessings, and maybe see it as a kick up the arse to plan some get togethers with your own friends.

And? They're just going for it, best way they know how. We all only get one life. Unleash yourself too OP, life is to be really lived so find your way of maxing out on life and loving it.

Also social media is depressing, it's designed to be to keep you doom scrolling and addicted.

It’s literally a snapshot, like others have said. My friend has this kind of life. It’s wonderful for her but she has ups and downs like everyone else. Cancer in the family, losing dad young, money worries that don’t look like they have as their company car is a Jaguar.

Mt life is idyllic, not like you describe because I’m widely introverted but amazing. Online it must look like the dream. In fact I have an Instagram about my farmhouse and I’m told I’m living the dream. I am. But I also have a long history of being severely abused as a teen, think Rotherham child exploitation type.
i battle every day to heal and to survive.

You don’t know what’s going on with anyone really.

I disagree that Insta isn’t real life. Some people have this life.
I think it’s really fucking weird to “follow” friends of friends living their life though.
People say SM can make you feel inadequate, but I think it’s the people who feel inadequate who seek out this weird sycophantic voyeuristic shit in the first place.

Lots of wise words on this thread. I guess I would want to (kindly and supportively) ask you - What is following these people giving you? Beneath each behaviour is a feeling, and beneath that feeling is a need. I wonder if you could get curious about what need might be underlying your social media activity in terms of following these Instagram accounts?

Others have said variations of ‘water the grass you’re standing on’… and maybe it would be worth thinking about what small actions you could take to pull more joy / fulfilment / fun / glamour into your life. Sort of to tilt the satellite dish of your attention in the direction of a life you can be truly content with.

Also, I think there’s something in here about values. The sainted Brené Brown talks about living in, or outside of your values and how important it is to be aware of them and how your choices and actions and words line up with them.

I’ll bet there is a ton of terrific stuff in your life, and you are probably a lovely person who is kind and helpful and fun. Get excited about that, and about the relationships that are precious to you.
Your 40s are when the trapdoors of life all start flying open, and nobody gets through without experiencing loss and pain and failure… and yet there’s so much beauty and delight too. So hold onto the big picture. In the words of Ram Dass… ‘in the end, we’re all just walking each other home.’

But just look at Boris Becker, had the fancy lifestyle, multiple houses, all that...and now bankruptcy and prison!

Same with Kerry Katona, Katy Price, to name just a few more, they've all had the big money and then the big crises with no money, relationship breakdown...

Just because what you see on the outside/house/business looks fancy, for all you know it could be built on a house of cards!

For most rich people they can never ever have enough, and so still take on more debt to have the ever better, fancier lifestyle. It's often an illusion.

I had the very fancy house (not me at all, the ex wanted it and what he wanted he got), the nice cars (ditto), private school for our son, nice holiday once a year and 2 yrs ago it all finally fell apart after years of trying to hold it together...there was emotional and psychological domestic abuse and a monumental secret of my ex's came out after we had left due to social services' intervention due to the effect on my son.

Trust me, wake up each morning, breathe in, give thanks for your life and the love in it, your health, the fact you're able have kids, the roof over your head. Practice gratitude every single day and it will rewire your mind and the way you see things.

I'm now ill, unable to work and on benefits, my son hasn't been able to go to school for 2 yrs due to the trauma, and yet we are both so much better off, and weirdly happier, definitely more peaceful (not stress free for sure, but safe and loved).

As I say to myself, and my son, if tomorrow you only had the things you were grateful for today, what would you have left?

I also thoroughly recommend sponsoring a child overseas through a charity like Compassion, when my sponsored daughter (as she calls herself), writes to me and tells me that with her birthday money from me she was able to buy a mattress to sleep on for the first time and a suitcase to store her clothes in, and a can of fizzy pop as a birthday treat and a dress... it is extremely humbling - and that was with a fraction of what I would spend on my son (and that's not lavish).

I have felt like you, and I unfollowed, muted, deleted people who brought out that envious and less grateful side of myself which I didn't like too much.

As they say with social media, don't compare your unedited life with someone else's highlight reel.

Good luck feeling better about the lovely life you already have x

Excellent post @NightyKnight