To feel envious of next door neighbours?

[MovieQueen12]

A couple in their fifties, deeply in love, both highly paid and are able to work from home and are on holiday/mini breaks all the time as well as going to loads of social events such as concerts etc.
Aibu to feel envious of their happiness, their money and the fact their families all adore each other?

She never said she was envious of their house?

No but it shows that others could look at OP and be envious of their house situation!

these threads always bring out lots of people who are quick to tell you they probably don’t have the things you are envious of or a good life - the assumption is that this is an unlikely situation to find yourself in in your 50s.

I think that’s a really bad reaction because it stops you doing the really important part, working out if you could get that and what changes you need to make to your life.

it is perfectly possible to be very in love in your 50s. It is also likely to be in the situation that you’ve paid off mortgage and other debt from younger adult life and are now able to have spare cash to spend on fun things. In your 50s, it’s likely dcs are either grown up or old enough to be left without needing to arrange a babysitter so you can have more “me time”.

take your envy and think “how can I achieve this?”

I like how it's always doom and gloom people make others feel better with like with "they are probs in debt/have health issues/dying or dead relatives". Nothing makes others happier than people's misfortune?

Hmmm not sure about that Lime - for many of us it simply isn't possible. (Sounds a bit like the Tory response to affording heating bills- "get a better job!")

But agree it's not worth giving time to feeling envious.

Why is everyone gleefully saying “ooh but they might be secret alcoholics” etc? Maybe they just have a nice life.

It's so begrudging, isn't it? 😂
Some people just aren't nursing a secret sadness 🤷🏻‍♀️

Could be. But it's a good thing to note we are comparing our inner life and how we feel with the public exterior of their life. Most people present a good front to the world so what you see on Facebook or chatting to the neighbour might not be the whole story.

It's not glee- it's just worth noting so we don't compare our inner selves with the sanitised outward facing profiles others present. You never know the whole story.

This!!!! Disturbing posts

Mumsnet is hilarious. No one can accept that some people are happy and have pretty great lives, there is always extensive speculation about all the reasons their lives are actually awful. It’s as if some people cannot accept other people may be happy and content and feel the need to speculate about how awful there lives must actually be, I can only assume that those people have very unhappy lives and are deeply bitter about it.

You never know what goes on behind closed doors. I believed a colleague to have the perfect life. 2.4 children, lovey dovey on the phone with her DH, loving close family, nice holidays, nice nights out… then she told me she was surprised me and my DH share all the household chores. She does everything, even down to making packed lunches for her DH & grown up kids to take to work. She gets up at 6 on a Saturday to do all the dusting and when her family wake up, she does all the vacuuming and cleans the bathroom. She then does all the laundry for all 4 of them, irons and then they either go for a meal or she cooks dinner for them all.
On a Sunday, she gets up at 8 to make them all a cooked breakfast. I said I couldn’t be arsed doing all that and asked why her DH and kids don’t help. She said DH goes to play golf or to the football at the weekend and only ever mows the lawn! Apparently, housework is a woman’s job to him despite her working more hours than him! Never envied anybody since.

I’m so confused by the “you don’t know what happens behind closed doors” brigade. Do you typically go about life wishing the pox on seemingly happy people?

everyone has good mixed with the bad but shock and horror there are some people who are mostly happy and have good lives. Let them be!

OP, of course it’s fine to be a little jealous, that’s you telling you what you want in your own life. Don’t go overboard, but it’s fine to use that little bit of jealousy as aspiration fodder for your own life.

It takes considerably more effort and self-determination (and luck) to make improvements to your own life than it does to obsess about other people's lives.

They sound like my sister and her husband, I'm happy for them despite my life being the polar opposite.

@MovieQueen12 I actually hope that they are the couple to be in love and happy in their 50s. Life throws so many curve balls but to actually end up in a happy relationship is amazing. It's not an easy path. But love the motivation to go for it and try x

Social media is like photo albums, you only see the good photos! They might be trying to make the best of a terrible situation.

You can stop following them if it concerns you so much.

This thread explains why every psychological thriller starts with ‘she had an idyllic life: perfect husband, two cherished kids, four-bed with kitchen island … but IT ALL WENT WRONG’. We enjoy imagining successful people’s lives aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Perhaps a British thing …