AIBU to be envious of my sisters lifestyle?

[ihavenoidea1990]

Obviously I would never say this to her face because she is a lovely person and it would be cruel of me to make her feel bad for living her best life. But...I truly am envious of her lifestyle.

She has 2 kids who are 4 years apart, they are 8 and 4. My sister married her lovely husband who was born into wealth. They live in nice house, the kids have their own bedrooms plus en-suite bathrooms and walk-in in wardrobes. My sister is a stay at home mum. They can afford a cleaner a few times a week. Whenever my sister and her husband want to go on a date, they have a part time nanny. My niece and nephew have so many toys, expensive clothes and expensive shoes. My sister and her husband also have a swimming pool in their house. The kids are home educated but they have private tutors. Christmas at their house is...just magical, they decorate their whole house and my niece and nephew receive so many expensive gifts from "santa". And my sister, her husband and her kids are always travelling, they travel constantly. For the kids birthdays, one of their presents is always a holiday. They travel first class for long-haul flights. Literally tomorrow they are going on another trip.

Whilst I'm so happy for them, I'm also just extremely jealous and envious. I'm a mum of 4, my kid are ages 9, 7, 5 and 3 so they are all close in age. Me and my husband both have to work. We live in a 3 bedroom house so my sons share a room. Then my daughters share a room. We can't afford to go abroad, we are lucky to be able to go on a caravan holiday in a few weeks, but we haven't been abroad in years. My kids don't have the same luxurious life that their cousins have. My family can't go on expensive days out.

Don't get me wrong, my sister and her husband are lovely people. My niece and nephews are not spoilt and they are extremely polite. And I would never tell my sister about how jealous I am.

But I just had a thought today...am I unreasonable for being jealous? Is it unreasonable to feel the way I feel?

Then why didn’t you marry a richer man? If that’s what you wanted, that’s what you should have gone for.

As others have said, it's likely those kids will have huge problems coming down the line with how they are being brought up, and their life sounds extremely lonely. Your sister is probably jealous of your life for quite a few reasons (and the children probably are too):

• You have a lovely large family, close enough in age to want to do the same things
• You earn your own money and you're not beholden to a man - you can have a lot more self respect than she does
• You and your husband are equal partners in the relationship in every way
• You have multiple facets to your personality because you work outside the house, whereas your sister has to dedicate her whole life to her house and homeschooling and probably feels parochial and insecure about her conversational ability.

I know it doesn't seem like it when you look at a double -digit bank account before payday, but in lots of ways you have a fulfilling life that many would be jealous of, and I'm willing to bet your sister is more envious of you than you are of her

Everything is a choice. You chose who to marry. You chose to have 4 kids.

I woukd absolutely hate yk be as financially dependent on someone as @ihavenoidea1990’s sister appears up to be. And being a SAHM to Home Ed kids sounds like it could be rather insular and lonely, I agree.

But how could you know all this about a family you have never met? I presume they are happy with their life and have made their choices like the OP made to have 4 children, it cant be much of a surprise not being able to go abroad with 4 children but that was the OPs choice

Kindly, this is your perception.

I knew a family who had money and the mum didn’t work. The boys were home ed and then sent to boarding school. They had expensive holidays and everything money could buy.

The boys had a crap relationship with their parents, and were unable to form stable relationships and friendships themselves.

Both boys died young. The one I knew, from drugs and alcohol addiction. He ended up with a brain tumour and trust me it was not a good ending.

Be thankful for what you have. You chose to have your four children and presumably love them? Life doesn’t have neat gaps between births; I always thought I’d have a nice two year age gap - nope 19 months!

I regret nothing.

Be thankful for what you have and work for what you would like. Be happy, be thankful for healthy relationships and friendships. Enjoy a healthy life. Envy is ugly and nearly always misplaced.

Of course you can feel however you like but every life comes with compromise and tradeoffs. I really had a long struggle to stop being intensely and overwhelmingly jealous of women who could have many children - I struggled to have two and am so grateful I could do that, but nothing about it was easy and I had always wanted many more. It was hard to come to terms with it and to get to a place where I could stop having that grief at the forefront of my mind. So for me, if I was going to be jealous of anyone it would be you - I would have loved 4 children.

Your sister’s life sounds difficult - no job, kids home all day with a variety of tutors and Nannie’s and whatever other staff to manage, so many expectations and stuff - exhausting. Am sure there are many nice things too, but I wouldn’t trade places with her.

Why do you have to tear someone down to feel better about yourself? Posters are being unpleasant about the dsis but know nothing about her; she and her family could be lovely people and the OP a miserable so-and-so.

Wishing other people bad luck does not improve your own lot. We all make choices. Some bad luck is thrust upon us, but by and large I have realised that nearly everything we have some agency in or responsibility for.

I have an old friend who is Extremely Important. But she did say that she particularly chose to marry someone who had a home-based artisan-type job so her career could flourish unimpeded with no childcare issues. I “chose” to marry a workaholic so my career doldrums I suppose is self-inflicted.

There's another way to look at this OP, it's definitely a nice sounding life but your kids have got everything to hope and dream for when they forge careers but your sisters have had so much so young that life will hit them in the face when they have to stand on their own to feet and there's no swimming pool, no nannies for any kids they choose to have, no frequent travel. Kids that are luxuriated may have a massive culture shock when they hit adulthood and necessarily cope well with it.

Yabu. You chose to have 4 kids. Thats a huge expense. If having a nicer lifestyle was importing to you (which was to me) then you should’ve had none or stopped at one. It’s irrelevant if your sister could afford her lifestyle even if she had 4 kids. You can’t but you could’ve afforded a much nicer lifestyle- working less, more holidays, more day to day nice things if you’d had less kids.

Yes I can’t stand this as a way of reassurance. Jealousy is so ugly and people are reassuring her that her sisters kids are miserable. Sad.

Your sister sounds like she has a wonderful lifestyle and I would be envious too.

But I’m a bit confused by your reasons.

You chose to have 4 kids, knowing that you couldn’t afford to give them a room each and you chose to have them close in ages.

Yes your sister could afford 4 kids but she probably felt that this may impact them in some other ways and so chose to only have 2.

Unless you’ve chosen not to work and been lazy, then her being wealthy is down to luck and something to be envious of but everything else is due to her and her DHs good choices.

OP, I've travelled 1st class after the airline lost my bag on a long haul flight and I didn't get it back for 5 days. i stomped and screamed til they upgraded us on the way home from business. I wouldn't sit in first class again if you paid me. The people who breathe that rarified air are absolute cunts, in the main. Your sister lives in a world inhabited by arseholes. Whereas you, with your more normal life, will be coming across much nicer people every single day, trust me. I wouldn't be envious of her lifestyle at all. Other than the fact that she's clearly never going to struggle for money, that world is not a pleasant one to be around in my opinion.

fwiw, i'd choose a caravan holiday over the sorts of hotels your sister will be staying at any day of the week. That world is not real and that particular strata of society negatively contribute huge amounts to the climate crisis. I know who I'd rather be.

I assume you chose to have four children. You also chose whatever career you are in, as did your husband. You could have chosen better paying careers, chosen to have less children etc so, yes, you are being very unreasonable.

Enjoy your lovely life and your family .
you don’t know what people are going through.

Blimey, what happened to you in first class?? I thought people had big seats/compartments so they don't have to put up with each other!

I totally agree re. that world not being real. I have ex-in-laws like OP's sister, and the sheer money and luxury and famous, posh connections that they have really created such a bubble. I really felt it when I was hosted by them, at one of their parties or, once, at their estate in Tuscany. It was a little odd. Everyone in their world is SO posh and rich, it was quite a relief to get back to the real world, which is just so much more down-to-earth.

I know it's not true of all rich people, but they really weren't very nice, and their son is now 29, doing nothing, and suffering from depression. And his mum, the wife in the wealthy couple, died of breast cancer when he was only 16. All I can say is that having tens of millions and connections to the country's intelligentsia and beautiful homes and impeccable qualifications from the likes of Oxbridge and Harvard does not make one happy. Apparently. The widower doesn't work, either. So both father and son are jobless and depressed. (Not that they need jobs.)

As you say, it wasn't the most pleasant of worlds, despite the privileges. It's not like I came across a vast amount of much nicer people in that world, or anything. And the people in it did seem quite snooty.

You are not unreasobable at all. I'd be dead jealous. As it is I'm jealous of my friends who have married men who earn well. My husvsnf doesn't so i have to work too. Life seems unfair sometimes. Just try to be grateful for what you've got.

Having four children is a very expensive decision

Eh? Just because the children have to share a room with one other child, she can't afford her children? Are you for real? You do realise that it was the norm until very recent history for children to share rooms until they left home? Also, you don't NEED to pay for uni or cars or driving lessons or school trips or holidays. All children need is a loving home, a roof over their heads, and food. They can learn to drive later on. They can get loans for uni, like many young people have to. They have the rest of their lives to have holidays and cars. Some of the most successful people in the world grew up without all the trimmings.

Can't afford your children because each child has to share with one other...I've never heard the like.

I mean, if you read the comment without considering the context of the original post, I presume you would see it that way. But the person is unhappy that she can’t afford what her sister can, well the reason is because she had too many children, to the point she couldn’t even afford a house where they could have privacy.

Not sure where the nonsense about uni and other stuff is coming from? I didn’t mention that…but that’s ok, you do you 🤷‍♀️

A hit dog's gonna holler, or simply put there's a lot of projection in this thread, people don't like to be told they have too many kids, apparently 😳.
I don't think you were being unreasonable, the OP obviously wanted a large family - she has one.

It's human nature to experience jealousy. I'm not jealous of anyone's wealth but I'm jealous about peoples' ability to create things I'd like to have made. BUT you need to do some work on getting away from these thoughts. They are spiritual poison that will stop you enjoying what you have, which sounds good enough to me.

Absolutely. I had a moment when someone I taught on a CW MFA had his novel shortlisted for the Booker while I’m midlist. But you know, I get to do what I love for a living. I’m really lucky. When he didn’t win I was genuinely disappointed for him.

I suspect I'd read more of your books then his though. The booker prize is a strange beast.

As someone who’s been on other (much lower-key) judging panels, literary prizes can be strange beasts in general — sometimes it ends up with all judges passionately championing a different book, ending up after what feels like years of talking at a total stalemate, and compromising on a book no one loved but everyone thought was fine.