To struggle with this friendship because of the sheer inequality?

[friendssship]

I know I’m probably being unfair. I have a new friend I met while we were both pregnant, I’ve been back at work a year now, as has she. We became quite close and speak every few days at least via text.

Her life is so so so easy in comparison. She logs in from home 99% of the time and will shower in peace over her lunch break or go to the shops in peace etc. She will do all admin for the home and hoover or clean the kitchen. Her house is always spotless. She works for a company in a professional role and her salary must be well above 50k. I earn 40k and I am slogging my guts out in the nhs. Last week she had to go in for a meeting and was telling me she was ‘going to have to find’ 30 quid for travel and parking… I have to pay for parking daily. I have no time at all, the moment I am home after collecting dd I am on the go with dinner and Bath time.

she has gone to nursery early to collect her child and mine is in until the latest moment as I just can’t leave work early and get away with it! I’m really struggling to maintain the friendship which I know is NOT her fault at all… I guess I just want to rant. It’s so much harder for mothers who can’t work from home when they have young kids. My life really couldn’t be more stressful in comparison to hers and I feel like it’s a constant reminder whenever we chat in the week. I don’t want to lose her as a friend, I wonder if maybe she doesn’t actually realise how bloody difficult it is when you can’t work from home?!

You're on 40k with your child in childcare for long hours... if you want to compare then think of all the mothers working late shifts for mimum wage then waking up early because they can't afford childcare.
If you're going to compare then find something that makes you grateful rather than ruining a friendship.

I still can't believe the audacity of this post 😂

I know but in fairness the OP has had her arse handed to her on a plate.

With your attitude I think your friend might be better off without you.

I will be renting for the rest of my life, all of my friends own their homes, some own more than one property. I don't give it a second thought, it has nothing whatsoever to do with our friendship. I don't sit here every evening and think how they just don't realise how difficult it is to have to pay rent and possibly keep moving house.

What do you want your "friend" to do? Give up her WFH job just to please you? Why does she need to focus on how hard your life is in comparison to hers? Maybe you could find a WFH job yourself if you are so consumed with envy. No-one is forcing you to stay in your current job. Don't put all this on her, the only one with an issue is you.

You aren't "probably being unfair" you are being unfair.

You’ll drive yourself crazy with that mindset op! Such an overreaction must be a symptom of you feeling very unhappy with your own lot. Therapy?

A woman I know is insanely madly wealthy not just normal rich. Our lives are intertwined due to our kids and it boggles my mind. She’s lovely though. Yes I muse how nice it would be if my own grandfather had started and owned were an international conglomerate but he didn’t so that’s that!

She’s working in a professional role, is it possible that you just can’t comprehend the mental strain of her career because it’s so far placed from your own?

Im a partner in a legal firm, I work 50% of my week from home since covid and the ability to do life admin in my lunch hour doesn’t take away from the huge mental pressures I am under at work which are there whether I’m at home or in the office.

I do think if this is something you think has a genuine ability to affect your friendship, you need to address this with yourself? A well rounded human being needs to understand the fact that people have different circumstances and that shouldn’t be a barrier for friendships.

I cam't help but notice, OP, that you only reply to those people who have shown you sympathy.

💐 I do feel for you. But you do need to work on these feelings as they are probably indicative of something more.

You are a relatively new mum. Your life is hard. Unless this new government do something radical, working in the NHS is going to remain hard. Especially trying to juggle it with parenthood.

It's not this mum's fault that she is showing you another path that you could have taken. So now you need to weigh up your options. I changed path within my career when I had small children. They became my priority, it was no longer getting promoted. I needed enough money to make life work for us, but I needed to be there for them. I wanted a job where I could be mum at the school gates. It was the best decision I made, ever. We were a hell of a lot poorer for it but rich in time spent together.

If you work for the NHS you will have some fabulous transferable skills. You are likely a problem solver, a people person, used to working under pressure, in a team etc. you need to find a new employer that will value that and take a job that works for you.

I'd get on the employment boards and start asking which agencies you should be speaking to who will have ideas about where they can place you. In a working from home role if that's what you want!

Seems a bit bonkers to me.
My v good friend and I have completely different lives and it doesn’t affect our friendship
me - married, DCs, work p/t, financially secure. Own own home, but no other family really.
she - single, self-employed, struggles financially, rents, but has close (living!) family (who I know v well).
OP is def jealous here, that’s a normal emotion but not a healthy one. We’ve all been there, but it’s not worth losing a friendship over.

You don’t know everything that’s going on in her life, she might have other problems/ worries. Just because her work life is easier doesn’t mean she has it easier.

My job is also very stressful/ long hours and no chance of working from home. But that’s not her fault.

I've recently had to let a friend like you go.

After a horrific accident 7 years ago that left my son and me disabled, we have finally had a financial payout. We were on the bones of our arse, scraping by, and still let her live with us for a while when she was made homeless due to stupid decisions on her part.

When the payout came and we did some upgrades on our house, including the garden, all she could do was complain that she didn't have what we had. That she also wants a nice garden. That life was so unfair.

Not for a minute, could she be happy for me. I told her that we couldn't be friends anymore. Her negativity was seeping into vicious, mean, sarcastic comments in our conversations, and after what we had been through, I wasn't letting her piss on the picnic I had paid a dear price for.

Be very careful that you don't become like this. She didn't check her envy and it took a few years, but it finally showed itself.

We are no longer friends.

I had a friend like you. If you don't get on top of how you are feeling, it will fester and also show. In the end, it was unbearable as my friend became such a martyr and even started to ignore any issues others had that didn't pass her threshold of bad enough.

I'd suggest some space for you to work out what it is you need to do about how you feel. I provided a lot of support to my friend who almost certainly would have liked to keep the friendship but her jealousy was obvious and once I get a whiff of jealousy, I'm off.

I think a genuine friend would normally feel pleased that their friend has a somewhat happy life.

It’s happening to me - I’m alone at home all day and the depression kitty is definitely sitting on me

Pretty much the same once you take into account the generous NHS pension.

Do you have a partner?

Do you work weekends?

I worked in the NHS for six years when I left school and that was enough, it was shite then and that was the 1980’s. I still when highly stressed have nightmares that I’m back in an operating theatre. It wasn’t so much the pay but the hours, ridiculous systems and people.

Life’s unfair for lots of reasons, jealousy is one of the worst character traits possible. It will leak out when you are unaware. Give yourself a shake and deal with because eventually it will turn to bitterness.

It might be something you can raise with her - not in a confrontational way but as a friend who needs support. I am thinking that if she is a good friend then saying to her that you can see elements of her life that highlight areas of yours where you think it could work better for you (without making it sound accusatory) may mean that you can brainstorm ideas about how to get what you want and also turn festering resentment into something a bit more positive between the two of you. If a friend told me that they looked at parts of my life and compared it favourably to their own, I wouldn't be angry I would be keen to help and also having an awareness of where my friend is struggling would allow me to consider my words carefully. If someone is important to me then I would want the opportunity to do this rather than lose a friend.

Also you need to work on it you don’t want to be like this as seeing your resentment and chippiness might transfer to your child as they grow up. It’s not good to model that.

I had a friend who kept subtly trying to convey to me that I needed to "realise" how hard life was for working mums - she knew I was infertile, but that seemed to make no odds to her. She just seemed to want so much recognition from me that my life was so much easier than hers was.

I ended up just backing out of the friendship as it was exhausting.

Change your circumstances if they don't suit you. Perhaps ask your friend to let you know if there are vacancies where she works!

She must have to work a certain number of hours so presumably if she is full time then she must be making up the hours in the evening or at weekends when her partner is doing childcare

So do I! I wfh part time and bring home 21k.

Other people will say 'I wish I had kids' or 'I wish I had a job'. I usually find that kind of thinking hugely unhelpful but I think it's needed here...

Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s easy to assume her life is a walk in the park but the reality of is that we all have different problems. Be mindful that many women in the world have it much tougher, they are starving, abused, see their children die.

Another example of where working from home means the employer is paying someone to take care of their life and family before actually doing any work. Sigh…

Why is it people who work in the NHS seem to think they work harder than everyone else?
During the pandemic I was made redundant from my usual line of work and got a job in the NHS, it was a skive in comparison! Everyone worked at a snails pace but then complained about how busy they were, we weren’t busy at all. I’m sure there are people who work hard in the NHS but there seems to be a culture of ‘poor us’.

YABU, I feel sorry for your friend, that her apparent friend is so jealous of her. I’m sure she will have her own struggles, working from home has its benefits but it isn’t the walk in the park a lot of people seem to think it is. I actually do more work at home because I worry that people will think I’m skiving at home.

And this is why people are more comfortable in their own socio-economic groups.

I'm not sure what your role is within the NHS but would it be possible to apply for roles that allow working from home? For example I used to be a ward nurse, now I'm a clinical nurse specialist, I come in to do my clinic, but I can wfh on office days. Much less stressful for an old-un like me