to have weird feelings about friend's silence re. sudden wealth

[NewNameforThisPost2025]

So, I have a wonderful friend who I love very much.

Long story short, she and her husband had a crappy rental when we met and now they're on their third absolute palace of a house. I only found out about her change of circumstance when I went to her first amazing house. She said nothing at all, just gave me the new address. I was stunned when I saw it, and happy for them. Assumed they had just been saving hard for years. He's a GP and she's an eternal student - she's very clever, was working on a physics fellowship at Oxford when we met. Since then she's been doing a long PhD part time, which obviously doesn't pay but is important. They got married and had kids a few years ago.

Anyway, nothing was said about the amazing new house and what a huge upgrade it was from their previous rental. We (me and the other lovely friend in our trio) were simply invited over and nothing was said.

Then they got a second incredible new house, and kept the old one to rent out.

Then they moved across country and I haven't seen her for a while, due to me looking after my terminally ill dad.

She's just sent me a video of her sons dancing around, and their third house since their new circs looks more majestic than ever.

I do realise that it's her and her husband's business. This is why I have never asked her about it, and never would. She clearly doesn't want to say anything, or she would have. His grandparents died not too long before they got their first mansion, so I suppose they must have come into a ton of family money. Or won the lottery! But I remember their rental, and it's just SO WEIRD that she keeps pulling amazing house after amazing house out of her sleeve and has never said a word about their very-changed circumstances.

I don't know why, but it just makes me feel a bit odd, the way that things have changed so much for her and yet we are supposed to just studiously ignore it!

AIBU?

Who SAYS you’re not supposed to mention it? Sure don’t be crass (“so just how did you afford all this then??”) but if you are good mates it’s ok to talk about money a bit. Don’t be so British and uptight, I’d say.

Oh very “outing”, all of us will now guess who the poster is.

20 years ago there were times I had absolutely no money whatsoever. I mean none. No milk in the fridge money. Kids were well fed tk fk but on a v v tight budget. Bills were always rob Peter to pay Paul. Behind on the mortgage.
In about 18 months we are on track to have significant income increase circa 4 to 5 million.
My sister will know how. Ill tell my best friend. I have other pals but I wont be disclosing anything to them.
Anyone else can whistle and wonder and if they ask they will be told with a chuckle ' mind your own business '.
And i couldn't give a shit if it drives them nuts. Its not their business.

I love this and feel the same. You dont owe anyone an explanation and if they dont like it, well then they can fuck right off.

Nosiness and entitlement is not an attractive friendship quality.

I married someone with a lot of resources, and I've also worked hard in my career. Because of that, my circumstances quite quickly started to look very different from those of my family and friends.

The comments and assumptions I got from all angles were painful. People asked all sorts of rude and invasive questions - "How much did your house cost EXACTLY?" "Now that I imagine you've got infinite money, can you buy me a...?" "Oooh, dish the dirt about your husband's family!". People I loved and respected were suddenly behaving like utter boors around my husband and me. It was a shock and a disappointment, and it is still exhausting to navigate.

Maybe your friend sees you, her close friend, as an island of sanctuary from all that. I think you should take her lead and keep it that way.

I mean what actual difference would it make if she told you :

"Oh hubbys family are heir to a shipping empire".

"We won it in Vegas".

"We won 7 million on the lottery".

It makes absolutely zero difference other than satisfy your personal nosiness/curiosity.

At the end of the day she has got the money and that's the end of it. Either you can get over the fact she is going to live a lifestyle considerably different to you or you can't*.

*most people can't. And that's why rich people generally aren't friends with poor people.

I agree with you except for the last sentence. That's just not true.

People who know how to behave are friends with people who also know how to behave. That's it.

Most also add, a girl i went to school with. She very quickly, along with her husband, had a very wealthy lifestyle. House in Spain. Huge house at home. All that jazz.
Her own business, a childrens boutique. He would fly all over the world but he had a small engineering business. I use to think they were "good with money'.

Sadly she took her life when the CAB here were on the way to her house because they had arrested her dh at the airport.
He was a quartermaster for a drugs gang and using her boutique as a money laundering service.
I always liked her. Not one clue would I have had that thats what they were up to.
You just never know.
God rest her soul. Her poor children. Lives turned upside and God knows how many else destroyed.

THIS. What difference is it going to make once you know?

Fine, supposing she tells you - it’s not going to change anything, she’ll still be as rich as fck and whether it’s due to inheritance or lottery you are still going to notice the fact she’s far more rich than you as you keep noticing it when you see her house.

I am just not sure how knowing the reason is going to change anything unless you have a value judgement in your head about what’s “fair” and what isn’t. For example, maybe you feel if it came from a lottery win then that’s not fair and she should give you some of it etc

Simply knowing the reason why is unlikely to change anything at all and if you view her wealth as the elephant in the room that’s on you not her.

GP’s earn ok but not usually enough to buy multiple large homes, unless they’re doing lots of private work on the side perhaps.

I imagine it’s inheritance or they’ve won it.

Well I disagree.

Rich generally affects your whole live. Your kids schools and clubs. The clothes you can buy. The house you live in and the improvements you choose to do to it. The holidays you have. The restaurants you want to frequent. The cars you drive.

The common ground you have with anyone who is poor to discuss things becomes vanishingly small. Pretty much anything you talk about will come down to discussing money at some point.

Of course you could be a rich person living like a poor person. Or a rich person who only every wants to talk about quantum physics. In that case it might work.

But generally you would have to avoid discussing any "lifestyle" topics.

It's difficult. Because even if you try very hard, it's difficult to maintain the presence of mind not to discuss your new £100K kitchen worktops with the friend who can't even afford to take their kids on holiday. And it is very hard for the other person not to feel envy in that position.

Goodness knows how my friends and I have managed it for years, then. Maybe I just don't find countertops fun to talk about.

Yes, discretion is tricky to navigate sometimes, but if it's the price of community, then I'll take it.

It's difficult. Because even if you try very hard, it's difficult to maintain the presence of mind not to discuss your new £100K kitchen worktops with the friend who can't even afford to take their kids on holiday. And it is very hard for the other person not to feel envy in that position

This is true. It doesnt mean that rich people cannot be friends with those who are struggling but its naive to think it wont affect the friendship at all.

For example- you go out for a meal - they want to go to a high end place, you cant afford it. You have a girls holiday- they want to stay in a 5 star hotel, you cant afford it. They offer to pay for you- you end up feeling like a charity case. They buy a new car that costs 75k, you get in in and feel like shit about your tiny old banger that wont start most mornings. Its not impossible for a friendship like this to survive but there are going to be awkward moments and envy will rear its ugly head at times no matter how much you adore your friend because we are all only human.

it's difficult to maintain the presence of mind not to discuss your new £100K kitchen worktops with the friend who can't even afford to take their kids on holiday

It is actually very easy not to discuss kitchen worktops at all, whatever they cost, with anyone. Same goes for most material purchases. They're not interesting topics of conversation!

Saving and investing?

No one would know to look at me that I have nearly £2 million. Frugality, prudence, riding the wave of financial markets. No inheritance, no lottery.

I have recently started to splash out on holidays and some upgrades to my house. Anyone who quizzed me about how I am affording these things would be reclassified as a nosy boor. It’s no one’s business.

I really thought about this one and pressed you are NOT being unreasonable because of being envious of her new circumstances; that's human nature
But you ARE being unreasonable in how you're querying how she's got what she has
It's none of your business?
You don't have to know everything about everybody..........
Also, lucky me; knowing you're not crippled by a mortgage!

”strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people."

Sorry but it is not your business

I don’t think I’ve ever discussed kitchen worktops with anyone except my husband when we were planning our new kitchen and the bloke at Howdens!

You're not wrong. It’s all part of our great British culture—people often feel quite entitled to other people’s money.

OP, it seems your friend made a poor choice in trusting you, and I’m a little worried she might also handle her money poorly. Hopefully, she’s more careful with her finances than she is with the people she trusts.

For anyone reading this: Avoid sharing financial or personal information with people who have a social media presence, including those active on online forums, especially if they’re known for posting things that aren’t theirs to share. Doing so can easily make you a target.

They may hold debt, but debt whether holding debt is a negative or not depends very much on circumstances. Debt can be leveraged strategically, in that it can be used to generate and save money.

Borrowing money based on the value of unrealized gains, for example, means not having to cash them in and become liable for CGT. Let’s say someone has borrowed money at a low interest rate of say 5% to invest in a stock that gives them a 15% return - they’ve used debt to their advantage. It’s very, very common for wealthy people to hold debt for this reason.

Not everyone is comfortable enough to share their news of wealth, if I won the lottery I wouldn't tell anyone except my mum, I wouldn't even tell my kids because if i did I know it's likely to get around then you start to see the jealousy and bitterness in people and it puts you at dangerous risk of being burgled or killed, yes I know that people have security measures in place to prevent this but people are not always lucky, OP's friend could be on her own on a night out when she is attacked and threatened for money. There really is many dangerous people out there that could target wealthy people and jealousy drives some people insane. They have the right to live their brand new wealthy life without having to explain how it's funded or without fearing for their safety

6 figures for a wedding is unbelievable. I’m not surprised people were struggling to wrap their brains around that tbh!

If you want to know so badly, which it seems you do, then I don't see why you can't just ask tactfully and obviously not push it if she is evasive? People have asked me similar when I took time off from work etc. I do agree that british people are weird about money - there's definitely a lot of jealousy and bitterness when someone does well for themselves. Maybe it's a hang up from the class system - this unwillingness to accept that people can and do climb the ladder. There's always judgement about how the money is spent (see the post before mine!) and where it came from.

I agree with this - it depends on the gap of course but it becomes hard to be close because you have to censor so much of your life. Normal topics like picking a dress for an event, or caring for your kids, or holidays, or big life decisions like work become so fraught. It tends to be that the richer person feels they just cannot open up or complain about any aspect of their life and the relationship becomes quite one-sided.