DH thinks best friend is a freeloader because of facebook

[Notanotherhousepost]

Firstly I want to say, money is not the issue. We are more than comfortable. We have also always had joint finances - everything goes into a joint pot.

So, BF - lets call her Jane, works for the NHS as a band 4 - used to be a band 6 but when her job ended the best she could get was a 4. She's late 50s and works in admin.

Her outgoings are greater than her incomings even before food - her mother helps her out each month.

Most of her friends, including me, are a lot better off. I live the opposite end of the country from her. If she comes to visit I pay her train tickets and cover the cost of anything we do including food and drink. She literally can'f afford it.

Other friends will take her to gigs etc

DH has a massive issue with her because (1) he doesn't believe you should get help from people to the extent she does and (2) she never posts on facebook the way he thinks she should.

She'llpost about going to XYZ gig or going out for the day but does not say "thank you to notanotherhousepost for buying me the ticket"

Or"thank you to my other mate for getting me the ticket to XYZ"

Frankly I couldn't care less and she always sends a thank you note. But apparently she should be making it clear she can only do these things because people pay for her.

I just don't get it - I don't understand even vaguely where he's coming from.

The question people should be asking here is not “why doesn’t she move somewhere cheaper?” but “why the fuck have rents been allowed to get so out of kilter with salaries that a full-time NHS worker can barely afford to rent in the South East, where these jobs are needed just as much as they are further north?”

God this makes me angry.

Why does he want her to do this? So you publicly look like great benefactors, or so she is publicly exposed to the world? That's repulsive .

I never to lie to my DH, but on something like this I'd tell him she'd paid her own way (even if I paid), and I certainly wouldn't discuss any details of her private struggles with him. I can't see myself in this situation though because your husbands attitude gives me the Ick so I'd probably be in the relationships forum asking for advice on leaving him.

Does she have to have her dignity stripped off her as well as everything else? So your DH feels validated ... how ...? That the world order of rich and poor is publicly recognised? That the poor recognise the superiority of the rich and grovel appropriately. Honestly, totally revolting values and such a breathtakingly unattractive quality.

I know so many people in your friend's situation and my heart breaks for them and I worry so much about how bad things have got in this country that professional qualified people working full time jobs can't make ends meet. My DH and I are a heart-beat away from being in this situation - extremely well-educated (seven degrees between us), middle class, working etc. Your husband is embarrassingly clueless about whats actually going on in the country.

It absolutely terrifies me that people with empathy bypasses and a streak of ignorant self-righteous self-centred selfishness like your DH might vote in the Tories more self-centred selfish bastards with empathy bypasses to wreak more damage on the country and destroy more lives.

Your friend isn't a free-loader, she's a victim. And your husband is victim blaming.

She's missed that her rent is much too high. Unfortunately if she has a low income then she can't afford that much on a nice flat to rent. In many parts of London she can get a studio for £800-900, which would revolutionise her budget. Anything below £1200 would also allow universal credit contributions. She could also go for bank shifts to top up salary, apply for roles with travel etc.

I don't think she needs to thank people on Facebook, but I also don't think you and your friends are actually helping her by making her into a charity case, it must be so humiliating for her and that will breed resentment and friendship issues over time.

She can't go to gigs and restaurants otherwise because she is paying too much for housing. Her friends aren't physically paying her rent, but they are subsiding her chosen lifestyle (ie the obvious thing being her rent is unnecessarily high).

The pretzels you are twisting this into to justify your anger at a woman who isn't taking a penny from you or anyone who doesn't wish to give it are laughable.

She covers her housing, so all your guff about that is irrelevant. She just can't do much fun stuff outside of essentials. Her friends who like her want to do stuff with her and can afford to treat her, so they do. If they stopped, she'd carry on living in her house and just not go to gigs etc with them.

She's not "relying" on them. They don't pay her rent. They pay for her fun stuff. They want to.

You sound like those men who refuse to pay CMS because the mother goes to the gym or something and they can't grasp that that's not what they're paying for.

If you have 5k disposable income a month (wow, can only dream of that) and she can’t even afford her bills then I think to expect her to put a thank you on Facebook will probably make her feel like scum of the earth, saying thank you to you should be enough, the world + Facebook don’t need to know that you’re to thank and it’s quite entitled to expect a public thank you.

@grex Jesus Christ. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ I suppose you think she's probably eating to much avocado on toast too <sarcasm>

OP can do what she likes with her own money (and it is described as her money). She also spends money doing things for her DH.

So you view friendship as a financial transaction whereby the one who hands over money for a trainfare is the donor and the person bringing friendship and fun on that train provides nothing? I think you have a skewed view of relationships, very depressingly so.

Why on earth shouldn't she post as normal if that is what she and her friends normally do. Again - absolutely nothing to do with DH, she isn't even one of his friends. He isn't required to snoop through her FB posts.

Perhaps you think the OP should ditch any friends without equal income and instead take up the proverbial MN hobby and spend the money on lycra and an overpriced bike. Then go on solitary cycling routes and not see anyone. Would that get DH approval do you think?

Fuck that - she spends a small amount of her money (in annual terms) on maintain a friendship of value to her since before she knew DH. She has known this woman in good times as well remember.

Everyone saying she should ditch a friends who can't keep up with her financially is undervaluing friendship and telling us a lot about how they value people.

Jane sounds like a scrounger.

It isn't even about thanks, that's what's so nasty. She gives her thanks. The husband wants her to make a public statement to the world that she is enjoying things that were covered by others. Could anything be crasser?

Let's be honest, if I shared all the things my husband's salary and not mine have covered, and stated "Thanks for spending all this money, husband, I didn't pay for it!", I'd look like an absolute twat on so many levels. Who cares? Who needs to know? And why?

Jane needs to claim universal credit to see if she can get any help with her housing costs.

Except scroungers ask for or insinuate they want things and tend to give nothing in return which quite clearly is not happening according to the OP.

she never suggests doing anything, I invite her. She would never dream of inviting herself. several time a year I stay at hers for the wekend and she cooks etc and makes me more than welcome

Thank you for second guessing my emotions, while chucking in the personal insults and personality assumptions, while ironically showing you're somewhat more emotionally involved in this than I am.

To remind you, the AIBU question in the OPs original post is her husband thinks the friend is freeloading. Which clearly she is, for all the reasons I've explained to you. Solved by all the solutions I've given to you.

As you suggest, if of course she wishes to continue to do this and her friends wish to continue subsiding this ad finitum, they're at liberty to do so, but ultimately, over the next 40 years or so, if she doesn't seek these solutions, there will be a bad outcome.

Some people play chess and some don't.

Do you know, I actually feel sorry for all these posters who have never just wanted to do something nice for another person without trying to work out how the person could move house to pay for it themselves or whatever.

Some people want to do nice things with people they care about and don't mind covering it if that's the only way it can happen. You don't have to be one of those people if you don't want to.

Your DH sounds mean - and more importantly, has an enjoyment of humiliating other people publicly. That is not a nice characteristic.

He wants to 'put her in her place' publicly. Maybe wearing a sign around her neck and ringing a bell while announcing her gratitude would please him? Bit of scraping, grovelling and doffing of cap?

He's a bully, basically.

What a strange reply. The rent is a problem, and OP was explicitly asked to help with her budget, so buying her a few drinks on a night out instead of discussing it is frankly strange. She is over the rent limit for universal credit, because she's actually spending a lot on her rent.

Nice to see lots of empathy for OP's friend here.

I'm not sure how it's your husbands business tbh.
Who would expect their friend to grovel on social media?
If said friend is thanking you in a way you find appropriate then tell him to butt out....
Is it something to do with you being the higher earner? Does he thank you on Facebook? Are you expecting him to increase his earning potential?
It sounds mean and a bit distasteful imo.

It's not just OP's situation that you like to make all about you, is it?

She is clearly not freeloading because as OP says, she does not expect the gifts, she does not request them, she does not need them to survive. They are offered to her by people who want to give them and she accepts with thanks. It's a pity you can't understand the difference.

If you are so sure that she's heading for some terrible punishment for the great crime of not being like you, then it's hard to see why you're so pissed off. Her comeuppance for accepting the gifts is coming, so what's the problem?

The "solutions" you offer are for what you consider the problem to be: someone being treated to things they couldn't afford otherwise. To me, OP and others, that's not a problem. The problem is that OP wants to do nice things with her friend but friend can't afford them after covering her housing and bills. OP can, so she covers it.

Maybe that will change in future, maybe it won't. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with the situation as it is unless you have an issue with people who are able to treat the people they care about choosing to do so.

Your DH's views on how she posts on Facebook are bizarre

Haven't read the entire thread but it's clear from what I have read that this friendship to OP means enough that she's happy to sub Jane and can afford to. The DH OTOH has been pretty much summed up by lottiegarbanzo's comment. He likes, it appears, the power to humiliate lesser, less well off people that money gives him and thinks they should acknowledge that power imbalance all the time. I do wonder what his attitude would be if Jane were a male friend of the OP, as well.

*Your DH sounds mean - and more importantly, has an enjoyment of humiliating other people publicly. That is not a nice characteristic.

He wants to 'put her in her place' publicly. Maybe wearing a sign around her neck and ringing a bell while announcing her gratitude would please him? Bit of scraping, grovelling and doffing of cap?

He's a bully, basically*

I do honestly wish you'd stop transposing emotions that you seem to "know" I'm feeling. It's quite cringey and embarrassing. Do try not to be personal towards people in a discussion, it's really not helpful.

It's also really not about me, it's about how most fully functioning adults, with the privilege of freedom and choice operate and get through life.

I would ask your husband why he needs to put other people down, or to see them being put down (putting themselves down even!) in order to feel good about himself. Why is he 'not enough' as he is, as you know him to be?

The obvious implication is that he has low self-esteem and derives his idea of self-worth from a very fragile and subjective idea of public status.

That is not a healthy way to be - for him, or for the people around him.

Haven’t read the whole thread, apologies if this has been mentioned already.
Im amazed a Band 6 nurse could only get an admin Band 4 job. I’m Band 6 NHS and could have my pick of so many jobs. I know it’s not ‘the point’ of the thread, but it’s very hard luck if that’s all available work wise.
I think you’re a lovely friend OP, I’d do the same for a pal. Can’t believe your DH needs/wants public confirmation of his benevolence. 🙄

You missed the bit out about her mother bailing her out on essentials presumably because she can not meet her rent and bills .

something has to give somewhere .

Agree , if she sends thank you notes that’s lovely and adequate . But agree with him about her living beyond her means . .