To feel my SIL doesn’t know her privilege and is tricky to be around

[Chlosbows]

My brothers girlfriend is 25, she’s lovely in many ways. She is quite privileged for 25, her mother passed away and she inherited a huge amount of money (I know the loss of a parent isn’t a privilege and is a tragedy, but many lose parents and receive no money or very little), so she owns a flat outright in central London worth over 1 mil (I only know as my brother told me).
She is very intelligent, has 2 masters etc.
She now works freelance, predominantly in translation services but also editing etc. She mostly translates academic papers, this seems to be made easier by her having good relationships with the universities she went to.
She earns well, especially compared to other translation jobs. I’m not sure if this is typical for someone with her education or otherwise but I do commend her intelligence.

However she is always talking about how lucky she is to work freelance, she can take more weeks of annual leave, start work later and finish later etc. She is also forever talking about her expensive holidays, expensive skincare, how she couldn’t possibly go a month without a facial etc. I find it all a tad insufferable, she is nice, I don’t believe it’s bragging, I think she is just genuinely unaware of how privileged she is in someways.

I don’t feel I can have an open relationship with her as anytime I mention a part of my life I’m unhappy with she always tells me I must go freelance. Unfortunately in my industry it’s not as simple as going freelance, most freelancers earn a similar amount for more work and as I have a small child the unpredictability of work would make it extremely difficult. Whenever I tell her this she replies with something flippant like “when there’s will there’s a way”. I also mentioned to her that I want to learn to play piano, I was seeking advice really as I know she plays well. She brushed it off with well why didn’t you learn when you were young. My parents couldn’t afford music lessons! She went to an international school, had high earning parents who had the money and time to dedicate to her piano, ballet and tennis lessons when she was young, my parents were struggling to make ends meet when I was young (slightly different by the time my brother was born 7 years later).

AIBU to feel like she doesn’t know her privilege and to not want to do another 1 week holiday with her over Christmas. My brother doesn’t seem to see this, but he was born once my parents were earning more money and in many ways benefited from that (such as he was privately educated in secondary school where I wasn’t).

How old are you? Honestly, and say this with kindness, you just sound a bit jealous. I don't think she's doing anything unusual.

She likely won’t have a job in 2 or 3 years thanks to AI so I’d let her enjoy it while she can…

I suspect people will accuse you of being a bit envious (and who wouldn’t be a little bit envious!) but actually I sympathise with you finding this wearing.

However she is still young. In honesty every time she says something crass i would remind myself “but her mums dead”. Luckily my mum survived until I was 40 but I still miss her every single day. I expect this young girl is desperately trying to stay positive and I commend that.

Obviously you don't have to go on holiday with her, I personally wouldn't go away with any of my inlaws and they're really nice.

But who cares if she's had a bit of financial help? The idea of my son being orphaned in his late teens is utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

I did mention this to her; however she feels academic translation is the least under threat of all translation services since while AI is decent at literal translations, maintaining nuance and a consistent argument over many pages is tricky for AI, and even with AI it often needs checked and edited by a human.

However I’m not sure she’s worried as she plans to do a PhD and start writing her own work.

I don’t feel I can have an open relationship with her as anytime I mention a part of my life I’m unhappy with she always tells me I must go freelance.

I'm not sure why you are having conversations like this with your son's 25 year old girlfriend. I don't talk to my 25 year old dd's friends about bits of my life I am unhappy with. You don't need an open relationship like that with her. you need to just be nice, welcoming, chat to her. If she says freelance is great say "yeah it is working brilliantly for you" and move on. I think you are envious of her - which is normal. I'm nearly envious of her myself and I don't know her.

Your shackles are your own.
She looks at life differently than you.

And, losing her mum at 25 isnt a privilege because she got an inheritance (despite others not getting any - shocker). Her mums dead. Say it louder... her mums dead. She doesnt have her mum, her biggest champion, her confidant. She has a flat and a carefree disposition.

You sound bitter, jealous and envious. Work on those and stay away from her til your happy in your own skin.

I can understand how grating this and YANBU for feeling irritated by it. But really, there's nothing you can do about it.

I have a friend who has inherited from a parent, grandparent and godparent. Stands to inherit £££ from her remaining parent, in time. I'm sure she'd rather they were all around but as you say, I've had significant losses and zero inheritance, so it definitely is a privilege to be set up for life in your 20s.

Despite her privilege she regularly scoffs at people we went to school with living in council houses and having NMW jobs and other such things. 'Drops in' lots of info about her fancy house and multiple holidays a year. Yeah, we could all do that if we had literally hundreds of thousands of pounds in the bank 🙃

I simply limit my time around her and choose carefully the social occasions where I interact with her. She can be lovely but she is definitely a tone deaf snob.

AI will take her job and many for all of us
She is not lucky
She lost her parents at a very young age
That is NOT a privilege

I don’t know why you don’t openly state this stuff.

”My family couldn’t afford that”

Or explain why it’s more difficult for you.

But yes I can see you envy her - a lot would. She’s been both unlucky and very lucky.

You're so dismissive about the death of her mother. How devastating for someone so young. I'm lucky to still have my mother around and even I know that no amount of inheritance would make the slightest difference to the grief I'd feel.
And she's lost someone who might have guided her in life. Have you ever acknowledged her loss? Stop being so unkind.

Hopefully you’ve changed some of the details in this post as it’s very identifying if not? I can’t imagine there are many 25 year olds with a dead parent that own a flat in central London worth over a million quid that have 2 masters degrees, work in translation, went to an international school and play the piano. If this was a mate of mine I’d recognise that straight away.

Two people have mums.
Both mums die.

One grieving child gets a £1M flat and a fortune in the bank
The other gets a funeral bill, a flat to empty and maybe a couple of personal belongings to look at occasionally.

One is privileged and the other isn't. Whether you like it or not.

To be honest you do sound jealous. She is talking about her own feelings and experiences. She might be tone deaf and not reading the room, but if you bring up this as a subject, it will go down like a lead balloon and you'll sour the relationship.

I immediately thought this too.

I have a friend who has a lot of inherited wealth and does contract work in finance as an accountant. Lives a nice life - takes a 9 month context as maternity cover, then has 6 months off and they does another contract etc. Wealth gives them the back up to be able to take such roles, which would be too precarious for those of us who have a mortgage to pay. It’s like doing an unpaid internship at a fashion magazine in London for months. The sort of thing that is designed for the wealthy only.

I don’t begrudge my friend at all - they’re bloody lovely - but it just shows another less obvious side to privilege.

It’s brother's girlfriend, not son's girlfriend.

It’s her brother’s girlfriend

Do you need to have an open relationship with your brother's girlfriend? Can't you just make polite chit chat and not delve too much into things? That would be the least stressful way of managing the fact that you had different upbringings and different lifestyles now.

@AphroditesSeashell not necessarily life isn't that black and white.

What if the million pounds flat had an awful mum.who didn't love her had a hard upbringing where as poor lost mum had the most invested loving caring mum whose love will envople her for a lifetime ?

You do sound jealous, nothing wrong in feeling that way but you need to acknowledge that your feelings aren’t her fault.
I agree with others that you are very dismissive about her mum.
Like someone else said, I have a son a little younger than your SIL and the idea of him not having me around is heartbreaking.

Well yes, in many ways of course she is very privileged. But as I'm sure you already realise part of the problem is that you are slightly envious of her. I would refrain from discussing certain subjects, like jobs/career with her and work on those things about yourself you would like to improve. For instance, just go take piano lessons if that's what you want to do! You don't need to talk to her about it or even inform her that you're taking them. I think if you focus on your own life and how to make it happier you'll slowly have less of an issue with her.

Also having lost my own Mum at the age of 26, that is no small thing. She never got to see me get married or meet her grandchildren. No amount of money can make up for that.

She sounds like a pain in the ass and very immature. By 25 she is old enough to understand that people have very different backgrounds, it's different if she is 18 and only known wealthy kids. Even if your parents became wealthier in the years between you and DB, it wouldn't have been that vastly different. She should know all about your upbringing already from DB and not be surprised that you didn't grow up with her privilege. It's ok to say my parents couldn't afford piano lessons, do you correct her every time she makes a silly assumption? You don't need to be rude to her but it's ok to tell her that your circumstances are different. You don't need to be her best mate but you need to get along for the sake of DB

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she's young, thoughtless and lacks the life experience to know that other people's circumstances mean that some things that work for her, won't be an option for them.
If you want to have a closer meaningful relationship with her, you could try teaching her. So when she says something that is not applicable to people who are not wealthy/academic, you could explain that they're not, and why. When she talks about her privileged life, share some things about your own in return.
However if you're not that invested, you need to learn to let it go and hope she will learn tact with maturity.

I'm not referring to the privilege of their entire childhood. I'm referring to the privilege of wealth.

Obviously very different kinds of privilege; but doesn't negate my point in the slightest.