To think best friend's comments about her job vs my kids are rude?

[pregnantbestie]

One of my closest friends is trying to compete with me non-stop and humble brag with any excuse. We’ve been best friends since primary school (now 28) and I don’t want to lose her as a friend but I’m struggling with the constant attempts to compete. How do I address it without sounding btchy?

We did quite similar degrees and started out having similar careers (her in finance, me in law) but I realised that the corporate world and working 12hr days wasn’t for me, my boyfriend proposed around the same time and we decided to start a family with me being a SAHM. I love it, it’s the happiest I’ve been. No plans of going back to work, at least not until my youngest is close to secondary school. Financially we’re fine: we’re lucky enough to have both sets of parents helping out with costs like house deposit, nursery furniture etc and my husband earns just over 100K.

Meanwhile my friend loves the high paced environment, gets a buzz from the promotions and high pay, takes pride in her career in a male dominated field. I’m super happy for her, very proud of her and have always supported her. She is, however, someone who relies heavily on external validation ie she needs friends and family to say her boyfriend is lovely, how well she’s doing in her career, how nice the things she buys are, and if she doesn’t get that she will outright ask “do you think my boyfriend is nice?” “Do you think 90K at our age is a good salary?” etc. Since I’ve quit my job / got married / had a baby she’s made little comments like “so you’re not bored at home?” or if talking about our day “I’d shoot myself having to go to the playground every day”. I just saw those as passing comments, something not intended with malice, just her pointing out she’s got different preferences. Recently I told her I’m pregnant (first person aside from my mum and husband to know!) shortly after she’d received a promotion she was really after and suddenly the comments intensified: her response was “oh congrats, just when you thought your nappy years are nearly over you’re back in them hahahaha!” or “do you think you’d want to go back to work if you earned 90K though, instead of having a second?” or “does it scare you that you won’t be totally free from kids till your late 40s?” (ie when they move out) or “does it ever make you think what a nice life you’d have if you didn’t have to look after and buy things for kids?” or [shows a watch she bought] “do you wish you’d never had kids, kept earning and now you’d be buying yourself little treats here and there?” or “i think men find it sexy when you’re all dressed up in a dress and heels, in a high paying job, rather than in a dressing gown making purees”. All said in the last 5 days that she’s known about pregnancy (yes we chat a lot).

AIBU to think these comments are off? Or am I just being a hormonal pregnant lady?

I really don’t think she is. She doesn’t want to be still in a dressing gown in the afternoon. Their worlds are just miles apart atm.

This sounds looks something the friend would say, with 'atm' tagged on the end to soften the blow. The irony is crazy

Oh god, this thread has turned sanctimonious now.

It is lovely. I didn't go back to work until ds2 was at secondary.

I don't think she's jealous, I think she's struggling with how much your worlds have diverged away from each other, when you initially started heading in similar directions. I have to say at 28 without children I couldn't understand people wanting to be SAHM's either, although I kept my opinions to myself on the matter. It still wouldn't be for me although I understand why people do it now I am a Mum myself. She will need to reign in expressing her views on this to keep you as a friend so it's good that you addressed it.

Some people aren’t great at being happy for their friends, they just make comparisons with their own lives instead of thinking about their friend

This also works both ways. Some people aren't happy for their child free friends having amazing holidays and lots of freedom.

You’re 28. Wait until you’re in your 60s and you’ve still got someone trying to compete with you. Put downs, digs, sly comments. These people aren’t friends. They’re people we’ve known for a long time and kept in touch with x

It's sad isn't it? I'm 50s now and come across some awful women through work. Luckily they're brief interactions. The men aren't bad funnily enough?

@LuckySantangelo35

I actually said this:

It's not about having kids or not having kids it's about thinking of what is important in life. You can still have great relationships and be single and child free but I feel like when we were dithering people always brought up the material stuff as a reason not to have them.

Tell her that you find her comments insulting?

Her comments weren't clumsy, they were bitchy. I would give her one more chance now you've pushed back on her passive aggression, but if she does it again, I'd end the 'friendship'.

Yep. Endless topping and oneupmanship. No, never seen it in men x

It sounds like you're both moving in different directions and are growing apart. She doesn't sound jealous at all to me though.

Is she struggling to conceive?

@SoreAndTired1

i don’t know, I don’t know her

it’s just that jumping to the assumption she’s jealous insinuates that all women secretly desperately want kids and if they don’t they are highly unusual and abnormal

I don’t think she sounds jealous I think she sounds like she just doesn’t understand where OP is coming from and that’s OK. What’s not OK is the way she addresses this.

OP, can’t you just say to her (apologies if you have and I haven’t read your posts) ‘look, you want your life to look a certain way and I want mine to look different. That’s fine and I’m more than happy with that but it feels like you’re trying to undermine my life. I get that it’s not for you, it doesn’t have to be but I’m happy and this is what I’ve chosen’.

I do think that having kids changes us and can make us see things very differently from before. She probably just isn’t in the same head space.

Nah, she’s a grade A bitch
And I would say she envies you

People are saying she's jealous because she's constantly trying to put down op. She's not being clumsy, she's straight up trying to make op upset.

If op was the one bragging about having a family and a DH, the popular option would be swung the other way.

The over the top bragging and comparisons is indicative of either jealously, insecurity in her life choices/regrets, or just nastiness because she feels her choice to work is superior. None of which are any good.

Maybe she’s not jealous but worried that her best mate has got herself in a potentially precarious situation relying on husbands income. If so, She is expressing her concern in the wrong way though.

If she was worried about that, she'd just say it.

This. Or that they’re struggling to conceive.

I do notice with some mums that they become so content in their family life that they assume this is the goal for everyone and everyone without that is jealous or to be pitied. It’s a bit odd really and sort of the mirror image of what this woman is doing.

I think at 28 it’s probably unlikely she’s trying to conceive

Just say:

"Isn't it great, we are both living our lives exactly as we want, you with your amazing job and me loving staying at home with my child and being pregnant again. I'm so happy things are working out just as we both want"

What posts are you reading to even make this comment?

OP hasn’t said her life is better whatsoever. She has said she is happy with her choices.

Maybe she’s concerned for you? You’ve left yourself without a career and completely financially dependent on a man. We’ve all seen these kind of scenarios a million times. You’re at home in your dressing gown doing the ‘mum work’ and he’s mixing with women who seem dynamic and exciting at work. Next thing…..

I’ve seen incredibly educated and bright women ending up earning minimum wage at Tesco's when their husbands left.

What a pain, my life long friends tried different paths, yet were able to respect each other’s choices and be happy for and support each other. We could each moan when things were tough, knowing it would not be used as ammunition to gloat and brag.
Have a chat, tell her how you feel, then give one chance then dump.
Or fight fire with fire with come backs ‘ prefer the park to a stuffy office’ or ‘prefer being with the kids to office politics and game playing men’
’get the chores done in the week so weekends are fun’ or ‘ would hate to be a wage slave for 40 years’ Decending to her level, but might shut her up