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 mean yes it could be what PP have said, a reaction to her own insecurities but i suspect that some people like to feel superior and and she is one. Do you find her condescending or judging of others or in other areas of your life? from what you say she is attention seeking and potentially has some narcissistic traits, needing a lot of external fuel to keep her emotionally fed as it were.

The only thing to do is to have an honest conversation. if you want to be gentle make it about her, that she keeps questioning your life and whether you are happy and is SHE ok? You are find it really repetitive and annoying now and it's making you question your friendship (because it is) and that you feel like she is trying to put you down when you are perfectly happy with your choices.

If she is capable of reflecting on this and changing then she is worth keeping, otherwise I would start slowly pulling away. Stop speaking every day. If she questions it, refer to the previous conversation and tell you don't feel like she is a positive influence and you feel like you aren't enjoying the friendship etc.

Is there a chance that you've unknowingly (or knowingly) talked about your family in a way that sounds like a dig at her life? I'm in my mid 30's and childless and I've had quite a few experiences with how friends talk about their family. Some sound like a judgement to me, some sound like they're defending their choices, some are just neutral and talking about their lives.

Another thing I can think of is that your life is 180 from what it was. It might feel like an adjustment for your friend since being career driven was something you shares. And it might feel such a big change for her that she has hard time understanding it is your choice?

Why is everybody assuming that the friend is jealous and insecure? Maybe she’s genuinely worried about the fact that you’ve packed up your career and thinks you’re selling yourself short? Maybe she’s trying (clumsily) to find some common ground with you now that your circumstances are so different to one another? She doesn’t have any experience of being a sahm, so maybe she’s trying to tap into your mindset but isn’t being massively tactful about it. Did you have a jokey relationship before you were a sahm? The sort where you could comfortably take the p with no hard feelings? Now, what do you talk about? What do you still have in common? It can be very hard to maintain even the closest friendships when you’re at very different life stages. For context, I was your friend - high powered job, single, no children- and all of my close friends were married with kids in their 20s and 30s. I found that no matter how much effort I made, they didn’t . Conversations and activities revolved around their children. Fair enough but it completely changes the friendship dynamic. I was relegated to the forgotten friendship bench (the one where people call you when they need something and assume you’ll step up because you don’t have DC ie. A Life) and found that a lot of my friends became quite bitchy about anything I did or achieved. Frankly, I ended up gritting my teeth a lot of the time at the passive aggressive comments. It was ‘all right’ for me slogging my guts out because I could go on holiday ‘whenever I liked’. No I couldn’t- like most people I had 4 weeks annual leave and led a team of 50 people, clients and bosses to work around; I had ‘no idea’ what not getting any sleep was like; of course not, I was just working across international date lines, crisis managing and juggling multiple balls while supporting my parents after my DF terminal diagnosis.
It cuts both ways.The point is we all take different paths in life, some (like being a sahm in your case) we choose and some ( like being single or unable to conceive or having to rely solely on yourself financially) we don’t. Friendship is a two way street. What are you putting into it & what are you getting out of it? if the answer is ‘not much’ to either,if you want to keep the friendship then make more of an effort -starting with an honest conversation; if you’re not bothered (or don’t want to hear what your friend thinks or feels) let the relationship fade.

Since this friendship has reached a fork in the road anyway, as a last ditch effort to keep it you could show her this thread and the comments. She'll either get it, or not.

No.

If she was, she'd outright say that, not insult her friend.

You are the same age but at different live stages. She maybe your BFF until you die but right now she isn’t your daily or weekly BFF. You need new friends and so does she. Doesn’t mean you can’t still be long term BFFs (just accept there will be times when you might not always be so close). It will happen naturally once your children start school.
In meantime best to either ignore her comments or tell her you are at different live stages and you are happy. If she keeps on just cut her off with “I thought we agreed to accept, and not to probe, each others life choices”

At best she’s suffering from a pretty impressive lack of self-awareness/sensitivity

TBH, I think what your'e seeing here is the natural split between women who want kids and those who emphatically do not.
Your friend does sound like she could've been far less blunt, but her comments aren't rare amongst people who don't want children and take no joy from them.
I dont think she sounds jealous or insecure at all, she's saying exactly the same things as other 'dont want kids' people say, the difference being most of us are wise enough to not say it to the faces of friends with kids/who are pregnant.

I think ultimately you'll part ways due to both incompatible lifestyle and her inability to keep her thoughts to herself.

This seems drastic without at least trying to talk to her about it.

Childfree and strongly disagree with this. There's a difference between responding to the friend if she was making comments about how amazing life with children is, and going out of your way to put someone down.

OP is just minding her business when her friend makes a point of saying 'oooh look at this watch, don't you wish you could afford this but whoops you've got kids!'

The reverse would be the friend minding her business and the OP making comments out of the blue like 'gosh, aren't you scared of getting old and having no one to take care of you? I could NEVER live a life like that!'

That's just plain bitchy, rooted in low self-esteem and not simply an issue of not wanting children.

I'm surprised you missed the parts in my post where I said the friend should've kept her thoughts to herself.

It is time to put in some boundaries. You wouldn't accept this from a stranger never mind someone who is supposed to ove you.

I lost a 34 year friendship when I divorced and had to put boundaries in place with my best friend. It was like a bereavement but I deserved better as do you.

I think I'm just sad to let go of a friendship of 20+ years! I don't have anyone as close as she was, we literally grew up as sisters, shared everything, told each other everything. But I guess I have to...
if she has been your friend for that long and you consider her your bestie why on earth can’t you communicate with her.
I thought the point of having a close friend is being able to share how you feel. Tell her she is acting like a dick and you don’t like it. It’s not difficult.

I don’t think she’s necessarily jealous (because I think a lot of women who don’t want kids have the same sort of disbelief at why anyone would choose to have them), but she’s being very rude to say stuff like this aloud.

I think she’s maybe insecure in the friendship or worried about what effect your increasingly divergent choices will have on it, but I don’t automatically go to jealousy. I think many mums overestimate how great their lives look to others.

Call her out on the rudeness but FGS don’t start going on about unconditional love or what you feel on your deathbed. There’s no need to stoop to her level. Just tell her to stop it and if that doesn’t work, dump her as a mate.

I’m not sure being a ‘non-wage slave’ is better than wage slave tbh…..

TBH I think she sounds nice from these replies. You’ve sent a shot across the bows now so I’d see how things go. It’s fine to let friendships sit on the back burner for a while but I don’t think I’d be cutting her off based on this alone.

Life can be very lonely if you cut people out the first time they start to wind you up!

Me neither! At least being a wage slave means you get to have money and buy yourself treats!

I think she responded well too.

I agree

Really? I felt I was getting on starting at 28.

Well then, sounds like it's all fine - you can't pick people up on every single comment that irks you, but you can ask them to clarify. Tbh some of your comments to her come across as a bit 'smug married'

I hope you also value your friend and tell her she's doing great

But why is this poster’s observation that she likes the trip she is on “insulting “ to people who haven’t visited this land while OP’s friends direct attacks on her (you are no longer attractive in your robe and your dh/all men prefer my type to you sexually) not a problem? Are people who enjoy their choice for themselves not allowed to comment and compare to their past unknowing self?

I don’t think she sounds nice from these responses at all but its good op talked to her. Perhaps things will pan out.