I’m very envious and bitter about how much money my best friend gets in benefit money.
I love her like a sister and she’s an amazing friend but she claims for fibromyalgia and chronic pain and does struggle with mobility but also has adult children with autism (high functioning- I know that’s not the right term technically but just using it for this post) and she gets benefits for them all.
Her ex husband bought a huge house and she “rents” it and gets the whole housing costs met from her benefits when actually her LHA would technically be giving her half. Her kids will also inherit the house when paid off in full.
Her ex husband is incredibly wealthy and she gets thousands in “maintenance” each month, he also pays for holidays, brand new cars for them all etc…
I wasn’t as bitter over it but she’s recently been on several holidays abroad (to dream destinations) and trips and I’ve noticed that despite saying she can hardly walk a short distance when claiming PIP that she manages long walks, swimming and shopping trips. We shared data on Apple Watch and I noticed on one holiday she was doing 10,000 - 20,000 steps a day.
I am really really struggling for money to the point where I’m living off credit cards to get by. My partner has just left me and I grit my teeth when I hear about fabulous trips all over the world or told about how she gets more in benefits in a month then I do for six months.
She also has a lot of domestic help paid for by the council, her own kids work cash in hand but refuse to help at home and she won’t encourage them to.
She has had several cleaners leave because her attitude is just to leave everything for them and they end up doing jobs they shouldn’t really be doing.
Her current cleaner has just walked out and I offered to take some of the hours paid legitimately for extra cash. She wants me to do it to help her as my disabled friend for free, I’d have happily done it but when I asked if her kids were also helping I was told no. I then found out she’d found a way for the funding to go to her kids so they would be paid for cleaning their own house!!
I’m glad I got that off my chest because I could never tell anyone and wouldn’t want to fall out with her because she is an amazing kind, supportive and loyal friend, I do struggle with feeling bitter over it though.
My other shameful secret is I really don’t like young children!
They are annoying and noisy and sticky and I get bored of conversation with them and hate the attention seeking.
I like them when they get older and you can have a conversation but even my niece and nephew bore me. I often just want an adult chat with my sister but she lets them constantly interrupt so I have stopped spending time with them, I just want to tell them to go away after half an hour of being talked at about Lego and what Milly said to Jessie in the playground.
I also hate babies crying and toddlers shrieking, I think it’s due to being autistic and I feel so full of gratitude for loop earplugs.
This seems to be something you can admit to when you have children and say you dislike other people’s kids, when you are childfree you just get accused of being a child - hater. I usually deny it but inside I’m secretly agreeing I am a child - hating witch 😂.