Finished a friendship with a middle aged male friend who aggressively complained about his luxurious life

[Nicewoman]

I finished a 15-year friendship with a male friend (I’ll call him Mr Mediocre) who aggressively complained for the past year about his luxurious life: £1.5m house, wife on £100k, he was in and out of work but bitterly complaining about it, how he thought he should be in a mega paid job and do short hours. He was thick as s and lazy. All his family are healthy, no money worries. I tried to explain that everyone’s situation is 10x times worse than him, do charity work etc, appreciate his life, be grateful for small mercies, but the ungrateful conceited toe-rag just couldn’t get past his extreme conceit & self-obsession. He’s just pathologically greedy. He admitted he had no friends & people avoided him. After I blocked him he tried to text me to have the last word and turned nasty I was ending the friendship. He was just making my blood boil. Now I’ve terminated the friendship I feel 1000x better, but think I wasted a lot of time on a man who I only realised was a total arsehole late in the day. Hope other readers learn from me and as soon as there is red flags, get out immediately & not let things drift on or give people the benefit of the doubt. Some people out there just aren’t nice people, but do a good job of hiding it (for a while, before the mask slips). Incidentally, I have a feeling his wife will hand him divorce papers once his teenage kids leave home & his wealthy parents pop their clogs. Then he’ll be one of those bitter old men living alone, that his own family avoids.

totally sounds like a bitter ex

"middle-aged male friend" yeah right 😂

Well, I didn’t want to mention it really, and I have male middle aged mates who are fantastic, so I don’t want to seem I’m picking on that group. But I thought it would give the post context: he was moaning about his lot whilst owning a mortgage free £1.5m home, having a spouse on £100k, savings, fat pension, having loaded parents who regularly gave him a lot of cash whenever he wanted. Yet he thought life was unfair. He and his family had great health, and no other misfortune or trouble. He didn’t have mental heath problems, just a bad character/personality which I discovered late, as he covered it up until he revealed all the rest of the friends he made, also dumped him because he was ungrateful, selfish, self-obsessed moaner with a weak cowardly underhand weasel snivelling conceited character.

still haven't told us what he has actually DONE to piss you off, after "15 years"? 😂

I've just read your other thread, never mind, I get it now.

Stop flirting with married men!

Good point. In the early days I didn’t want to pry too much as I didn’t want to appear nosey, so just let the “acquaintance ship” drift along. I did actually try and distance myself from him for a while but he kept messaging me for a chat. But he then would get insulting to me why I was ghosting him, then try moaning for hours on end again, slagging off his family, then I thought, you know what, I don’t have to put up with this nonsense anymore and politely ended the friendship & blocked him. He then texted me to ask for a favour which I refused then he insulted me again. Then I had to spell it out to him that he was never to contact me again.

Definitely wasn’t flirting with this guy at any stage. Absolutely not. He reached out to me for jobs as his wife had asked, don’t you know anyone at work who can help you out, when he was about to lose his job. I got him a job, so actually helped him and his wife out.

You are well rid of them. Do not ever be tempted to start up the friendship again..

When I tried ghosting him he insulted me. When I got him a job, I used my contacts to get him a good job he would have never got by himself. He managed to balls that job up by being shitty in the workplace, knifing people, being lazy, incompetent and dumping his work on others whilst skipping out the door, demanding pay rise, promotion etc.They had to sack him, so because I had talked him up etc that made me look bad to useful contacts as I referred someone who was terrible in every aspect. Also, separately from that, I don’t like chronic ungrateful moaners, who’ve actually got it good. Real good.

How could you be this worked up about the behaviour of someone else's husband. Who cares? You sound like you have your own issues OP - way over-invested.

To follow on from what I said earlier sbout my narcissistic ex friend...... when I finally called him out on various things he'd written in the emails he started to send me increasingly insulting emails criticising me....culminating in an email that literally told me to "F off.".....I never wrote to him again. It was the end of years and years of communication. That type of personality hates to be challenged or criticised or called out on their bad thoughts and behaviour. But it is a shock to the system when it finally dawns that you've been dealing with a narcissist for years. They are often clever at hiding the true extent of how unpleasant they really are. Snd I felt like a bit of a dummy for not spotting it years earlier.

No, I don’t care what other people think. I’m not shallow. I don’t abandon friends in need. If a friend was in a bad way, I would help them out. I wouldn’t have cared if he had no friends or a million friends. I just judge people on character. He was just all take, take, take, and he couldn’t see it or refused to see it. The reason why I said he had no friends was because he was complaining he had no friends, and he was jealous of people with friends, then I said he must have had friends at some point, then he gave examples why other friends ended it, which to me sounded they had reasonable gripes & he was behaving outrageously. He didn’t see it that way, he saw it that they were mean and bad. He couldn’t take ownership of his bad personality traits. He wasn’t going to change. He thought he was always right and everyone else was in the wrong. It was always someone else’s fault. If someone ends a friendship and gives the reason, wouldn’t you take on board what they said and try and change your personality? What if you hear the same message over and over again from friends who are ending friendships? Wouldn’t you think it’s your fault? Nope. Not if you’re conceited & think you’re top dog and always right.

You keep going on about his rich parents and his wife waiting until they're dead to leave him. Presumably with half of what he'll inherit. The wife who is on 100k and is the breadwinner.

You are obsessed with his money and are sounding more and more bitter and jealous with each post.

I've done this a couple of times for the benefit of myself and my wellbeing. I cut all contact with a friend in 2006 after 11 years of friendship because he'd become a nasty, foul tempered, entitled monster. The same thing occurred recently with a childhood friend I've had since 1980. He'd become an insufferable, opinionated, boring curmudgeon who was so intolerable of things I, and he used to, hold dear. It happens. You have to do these things to give yourself the best shot at a decent, stress free, and peaceful life. You did the right thing.

If you start to realise you’re drifting apart from a friend, the normal thing to do is just let contact tail off and stop seeing them. Not to have a sudden furious attack of hate and bile and start ranting bitterly about them as if they’ve somehow betrayed you. You really need to calm down and take a look inside your own head.

I think you fancied him for years and are colossally in denial about that, frankly. Seriously, get some therapy because this reaction is truly bizarre and unhealthy.

Nope. Didn’t fancy him, tolerated his moaning for a while until it became too much. Listened to his sob story about needing work, tried to help him and family out, because I’m a nice person and sympathised by what he said at that time. I know you would think that was there something more, seeing as Mumsnet is full of posts ranting about exes, etc, but this is a post about ending a friendship. Just that.

You sound awful. Sounds like you are terribly bitter and it’s all about money for you.

I am lucky in the context that i have pots of the stuff. However, one of my DC has to go through a massive operation so she’ll be out of school for months recuperating. You have no idea what is going on behind closed doors health wise or in any other way.

Ywbu to have an affair for 15 years with someone like this. Was money the attraction for you?

You seem like a deeply unpleasant person. Bitter, jealous and disingenuous.

Thanks. Because in the lead-up to blocking him I was questioning if I was doing the right thing, but I’d given him so many chances to do the right thing, try and improve his character etc. I’m happy now. And in fact when I ghosted him for months he was messaging me and somehow we got back into friendship before his bad traits started showing themselves again. Then I cut him off for good.

Not an affair! A friend who was asking for favours all the time.

What does ‘giving him a chance to improve his character’ look like?

How did you want him to improve his character? What would be the outward signs of this be?

No, it was all about money for the ex-friend. He was obsessed with getting as much money as possible and making sure the world knew about it. I live a modest life, but I’m happy with my lot. Also, he did tell me about what was going behind closed doors, and he and his family had perfect health, no problems or troubles. That’s why I pointed that out. I actually had to give examples to him of where people have disabled kids, single mums or single dad’s struggling, money worries, housing worries, caring for parents or other relatives, job worries. He just didn’t care about other people. He just cared about having pots of cash so he could brag about his fabulous lifestyle to anyone who would listen. He and his wife never needed to work again in their lives as they had so much money, but he was just greedy and self-obsessed.

@Nicewoman firstly you contradict yourself. On the one hand he complains at how awful his life is and then on the other hand he wants to show off - which is it? Secondly the thing is if you are actually at peace of someone having that kind of life you actually just don’t care. My DB makes us look poor even with what we have and his life is just adtonishing. I genuinely don’t care.

firstly, I don’t think someone in their late 40s is going to magically change their personality they’ve had all their lives. That ain’t happening. But wouldn’t you if you lived in a nice area in a nice home with healthy family all doing well, wouldn’t you think wow, I’ve done well and just be down to earth about how lucky you’ve been? If people are pointing out how good your life is, and you don’t have depression or other mental health issues (he didn’t), then wouldn’t you take on board think they might have a point? If you aren’t struggling to pay the bills? I said to him once, speak to me if you have to sell your 2 nice cars and you have to downsize from your flash house in a nice area. I said some people have anxiety because they worry their kids or elderly parents will get mugged outside their front door, not him who bragged about his parents spending £60k on a flash half term holiday his kids can brag about in school.