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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

I probably am being unreasonable but i need to vent.....

336 replies

smileitlightsupyourface · 17/02/2025 21:05

I have an "friend" who is on benefits. She receives universal credit, PIP ( for MS) and has a car on the motability scheme. I know she has MS and has bad days but she lives a very active life...goes to the gym regularly, goes on active days out with the children each week and has a very active social life. This friend has literally never ever worked a job. She had kids young and has always been on benefits. Her dc have expensive hobbies such as horse riding and golf and are also season ticket holders at a premiership football club. She has none of the dc fathers on the scene and her family don't have much to do with them. She is constantly posting pictures on social media of her dc doing their hobbies and expensive days out. They are currently on a very expensive long haul holiday for half term. Its really starting to grate on me that she doesn't work and never has but lives this type of lifestyle while i work full time and as well as being constantly knackered i would struggle to afford her lifestyle. I know im being unreasonable but she seems very tone deaf when posting all this stuff on social media when so many are struggling to pay bills. I really don't want to be bitter but its winding me up!

OP posts:
Emeraldsrock · 27/02/2025 07:10

Sounds like she could work though. Everyone I know with MS works.

sashh · 27/02/2025 07:33

she lives a very active life...goes to the gym regularly

If you have MS then going to the gym is a for or treatment that can improve your life, but not for ever.

If I was in her position I would be giving my kids the best life I can before I am unable to walk or hug them. Before they start to take on the roll of carers.

Oh and she doesn't get PIP and a car, her PIP is reduced by about £60 per week to pay for the lease, she will never own that car.

Thunderpants88 · 27/02/2025 09:00

Sorry but you are evening very judgemental and nasty. So what that you have to work? Welcome to the real world. I would and so does my husband. It’s EXHAUSTING with 4 very small children. But would I dream of swooping my life for a life of MS? No. You need to give your head a serious wobble and if you are this bothered put her on mute.

A side note. If someone called themselves my “friend” and was thinking this about my disease I would be so hurt

sashh · 27/02/2025 09:44

Role I mean role.

Everlore · 27/02/2025 09:58

I say this every time someone starts one of these tedious and predictable disability benefits bashing threads on here but, cheer up OP, you and your loved ones are only an illness or accident away from a serious, permanent and life-altering disability of your very own. When that happy day comes you too can look forward to the tax-funded life of riley all us disabled people supposedly get to live. Until then I guess you'll just have to live with the burden of being able-bodied and getting to live in a world where all public spaces and facilities are accessible to you and where ignorant mean-spirited people don't stand around tutting 'special treatment' about the very basic accommodations which are occasionally made to make it possible for disabled people to do things that many non-disabled people take for granted.

XenoBitch · 27/02/2025 10:18

Emeraldsrock · 27/02/2025 07:10

Sounds like she could work though. Everyone I know with MS works.

Everyone I know with it is unable to work.

Everlore · 27/02/2025 12:39

XenoBitch · 27/02/2025 10:18

Everyone I know with it is unable to work.

It's almost as though personal anecdotes were not as reliable an inicator as official professionally gathered data! That's why the people on here moaning about PIP being handed out willy-nilly to anyone who asks for it by posters whose friend/neighbour/cousin's window-cleaner supposedly got it for having a bad back while simultaneously being world limbo champion are always extremely unconvincing.

XenoBitch · 27/02/2025 14:20

Everlore · 27/02/2025 12:39

It's almost as though personal anecdotes were not as reliable an inicator as official professionally gathered data! That's why the people on here moaning about PIP being handed out willy-nilly to anyone who asks for it by posters whose friend/neighbour/cousin's window-cleaner supposedly got it for having a bad back while simultaneously being world limbo champion are always extremely unconvincing.

Yes, exactly!

And if someone on here has xyz condition, no one tells them that they don't have to work because they know people with the same thing who can't.
Yet, if someone with xyz says they can't work, you always get someone with the same, or they know others, who can work therefore everyone with it can.

ruethewhirl · 27/02/2025 22:22

Emeraldsrock · 27/02/2025 07:10

Sounds like she could work though. Everyone I know with MS works.

How many people is that, then?

EmeraldShamrock000 · 28/02/2025 08:11

OP, can you start retraining, boost your income and your confidence, giving you a secure income for your future.

No point wasting time judging neighbour and their lifestyle.

It won't improve your finances or emotional shortfalls

Genevieva · 28/02/2025 12:13

HiEarthlings · 27/02/2025 07:02

I got seconds in when I realised it's one of 'those videos! You've obviously never had to apply for PIP. There's always someone going on about people scamming benefits, in particular disability benefits, as if its the easiest thing in the world to do! But they have no idea how damn difficult it is to actually get ANYTHING if you're GENUINE, never mind if you're scamming. The timy percentage that claim disability benefits that they aren't entitled to is nothing compared to the amount of money that politicians get out of the system for doing very little, except of course, to ignore what their constituents actually want them to do! Cut THEIR wages AND their expenses AND their little 'perks', and that would be a much better saving! And posts like this one, where someone has a truly debilitating condition, and is no doubt struggling immensely with normal day to day living whilst trying to keep life as normal as possible for their children, but because they dare to actually try and give their kids a decent life whilst they are able to, they're vilified for it. I'd guarantee that 99% of people with a debilitating condition would happily swap that condition, AND any extra money that they had to grovel on their knees to get, with any able bodied working whinger! This post, and this video, has made me so damn mad!

UpI’m didn’t get far enough in. He’s hugely sympathetic to people on PIP because it’s the system, not them at fault.

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