To always feel like I'm not good enough..

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I'm a SAHM to 2 children. Partner earns around £65k and pays all bills. We live in a 3 bed semi, have just been able to afford our first new kitchen and bathroom in the 12 years we've been together. It's not a brilliant house just your standard early 2000s build with a small ish garden.

I often feel like I'm lucky in the sense that we've got a house, and that I don't have to work and we can still afford treats.

But then when I see my friends - one of which has just inherited a house close to 1mil, I've not come from money, I come from a council estate. I feel like shit. She's always talking about how she's paying thousands to do extra things to this house, making the 6k we spend on our kitchen feel like nothing. I feel I work hard to keep my house and fit and it's like she looks down on it. My other friend is financially probably in a similar position to me but she works full time, and her house is lovely too. I try to tell myself health is your wealth etc but I just keep feeling down like I live in a scruffy hole.

I don't know what the point of this thread is really.. does anyone feel like this?

I'll trot it out before anyone else does

Comparison is the thief of joy OP

Life if hard for most of us normally, and has got even harder over recent years. The fact that you have your own home, and are no longer subject to the whims of a landlord, is quite something in itself these days, and the fact that you've been able to manage to afford a new kitchen is marvellous!! Be proud of your achievements, and remember, in order to inherit, you usually lose someone you care about, which is much harder than being skint. Your friend is being a bit insensitive going on about how she's spending her money, but is probably excited to be able to spend freely for once without having to worry about it. Be pleased for her, who knows, you might win the lottery one day, then if you do will you remember to think about what you say in front of friends who haven't been so lucky?

It affects us all at times. Yes I sometimes get these feelings around health, I’ve had a very debilitating illness for many years which ended my career and meant I couldn’t have a family. It’s hard sometimes, to watch people who have their health, who can work, have a family, and even enough money and energy for holidays, travel etc..

Does the friend who inherited actually look down on you? If she does, she’s not a friend and you might feel happier if you back off from her. And even if she doesn’t look down on you, it’s still not very tactful of her to talk endlessly about how she’s spending thousands on her house.

You’ve worked for everything you have..that’s more of an achievement than inheriting a house.

Thing is you've made your choice to be a stay at home parent. You could have worked yes. Then you would have had to spend loads as a family on childcare. If you want to you could work now? Do you really want to though? Try and ignore everyone else. If you want to improve your financial situation then do it.

If you focus on what you do not have you will be miserable. Someone, somewhere will always have better

You have much to appreciate, focus on your warm safe home, access to medical treatment that won’t leave you bankrupt and being able to be supported to stay at home with your kids

Those are pretty big pluses most of the world don’t have

Isn’t this more about choosing only to spend time with people who make you feel happy and positive rather than crap about yourself?

She’s had a massive inheritance so even if you worked full time you’d be feeling less well off than she is, you still wouldn’t be able to spend as much on your house as she can, she’d still be bragging, you’d still be envious. It’s not a SAH/WOH thing. And loads of people would LOVE to be able to spend the 6k on a kitchen you could.

See less of her if most or all of her conversation is about money and spending, how boring.

You need less gloaty friends!
If you are looked down on that's the issue!

I'm the poorest by some margin in my friendship circle (just to put that in perspective I live in a 3 bed detached in a rural idyll and work part-time, so I'm not doing bad at all) no one ever makes me feel this way and my early background has left me with crap self esteem, so really I could be feeling like you if my friends were like your friends.
Luckily my friends genuinely value me and don't measure the worth of people by material possessions (we met through mutual a sporting activity, so the glue that binds is is fun, not who can keep up with appearances).

Sounds like inheritance friend feels she's finally got the life she deserves and is unfortunately letting it show that internally she's clocking who does and who doesn't measure up. Which is all about her values and psyche, but the effect on you is crap and it's not a good basis for a friendship.

If you want more material stuff go back to work then. I do t mean that garahlyi mean at least you have options for expanding wealth. You arnt trapped.

If you want a better standard of life in the medium and long term than you need to work. Dh and I couldn't afford the brilliant lifestyle we have on 1 salary. We haven't had any inheritance or parental help.

I doubt she's looking down at you it probably just feels like that because deep down you see her as "doing better" than you. She isn't. It's not a competition. We all race our own journey and die in our own time.

You chose to be a sahm. You could have worked and built a career but you prioritised different things which is fine.

Agree that it's to do with choices. I have always worked and although I'm not on crazy money my pay has at least gone up by 50% in the last 10 years, that would never had happen if I had been a sahm.

You are living 4 people on one salary, not many people can achieve that these days. So in that sense you are lucky as a family, but you as an individual will most likely feel the effects of this decision for many years to come.

im not really sure she’s looking down on your home, nothing you’ve said indicates this, more it’s how you feel. Which is steeped in envy

look you made your choice, which is not to work, and with that comes financial sacrifices. You need to accept this. If you want more, then you need to get a job.

True, valid choices and similar to my own, but given that you are saying partner not husband, they are also high risk choices. If life changes in an unplanned unasked for way you are very vulnerable to being high and dry when you have invested yourself so entirely in the children without the legal protections of marriage.
Not saying you shouldn't do that, but it's much more risky outside of marriage.

I've only recently become a SAHM, quite literally in the past few weeks. But the career I chose was so low paid it was no longer making sense to work after paying childcare and I was fed up of missing out on various things with my older child at school. So it's not really relevant. I'll go back to working probably when my eldest starts school but hopefully something either a bit more flexible and better paid. We have £200k in savings so it's not really about that.

My friend is only 24 and is also a SAHM, she has never worked full time. Her partner gives her £1,500 a month out of his salary.

She keeps saying things like "I think she's jealous we've got the house" (if anyone mentions anything they're doing that costs money) "he's changed with us since we've got the house" (as though she thinks everyone is jealous)

She'll tag me in things that says stuff like your home is a mess but your friends don't care, or stuff that insinuates my house is a mess when she comes round. I offer her to come round but she always refuses and says come to mine I've got lots of room.

200k in savings? OP, you clearly have NOTHING to worry about, other than a need to get married in order to ensure financial security. However, you do need to get this inferiority streak under control, and from what you're saying, it seems that your friend may indeed have people around her, who are jealous about her inheritance, and doesn't necessarily include you among them.

However, there is one question I would ask, ARE you untidy at home, as your friend seems to indicate with the things she's tagging you into, and more importantly, is your house actually clean? The reason I ask this, is that we had a friendship with another couple, all got on really well, although were aware that financially we were much better off, but that to us made no difference at all. However, the first time we visited their home, (they had come to ours for a long time, as we lived a long way away, and they liked coming to our area as it was a seaside location) we discovered that as expected in a poorer household, their furnishings etc, were a bit shabby, and worn, which again, didn't bother us one iota, but what did bother us, was that the house was FILTHY!! I'm afraid this totally put me off of them, because while money and possessions mean nothing to me, I'm afraid in my opinion there is no excuse for a home being dirty, and I'm not talking just not put the vacuum round, but toilets which were so gross you really wouldn't use them unless you were desperate.

So could this be the real reason why your friend prefers to invite you to hers OP, and nothing to do with her looking down on you about what you have or haven't got? Sorry if this is a bit blunt, but it's not something most people would be comfortable with saying face to face, for fear of causing offence, but it could be what she's trying to tell you in a roundabout way.