Lucky friend telling me my life is easy

[Sheila]

Forgive me for this but I'm steaming from Saturday night when I spent an unedifying evening with a friend who's got a husband, a nanny, a nice house in the catchment area of a great school, works part-time and has 2 great kids.

She spent the whole evening complaining about how hard her life is and how tough it is having 2 kids (by implication how easy it is being me with "only" one, even tho' I'm a single parent who works 4 days a week.)

Now I know that compared to many I'm lucky - I don't have too many financial worries as long as ex-dp continues to pay me maintenance, and I'm very glad (although I would've loved to have had more kids if the situation was different) I don't have more than one child to care for without a dad, but it infuriates me when women who I think are really lucky start telling me I've got an easy life.

I supect it looks easy from the outside because DS is a gorgeous, happy, well-behaved kid (in public anyway!) and I'm not obviously sinking under the pressure of looking after us both on my own. What people don't see is how bloody hard it is to keep us both that way.

Why do some people have to try to claim the moral high ground about how hard their lot is - a sort of maternal one-upmanship?

Incoherent rambling over - grateful for any comments.

Sheila, I know exactly how you feel. I am insame boat but work 5 days a week. No financial support from ex yet but not really much of an issue.

Just think, she is envious because you're DS is gorgeous and you make it look so easy. She probably think she couldn't cope if in your shoes.

Take it as a HUGE compliment

I think some people have a 'poor me' script. A friend of mine - admittedly with a lot more to cope with than yours - ALWAYS brings any conversation round to how tough her life is and how tough it has always been. She makes it clear how easy/lucky life is for me, which REALLY pisses me off as yes, I now have a job I like and which pays me decently, and a partner, and two kids...but god, she's known me at times when I was single, miserable, and actually rather depressed (although she kept saying I couldn't be, presumably because she was still 'worse off' than me).

I hope at least your friend provided nice food and booze while driving you absolutely up the wall?

I have given up moaning to friends in real life....we have no mortgage on our house, insignificant debts, and a whacking great big inheritance due in January.

But our income is so low that we can't realistically afford more than the most minimal mortgage, and DH isn't finding paid work. I want to move from the grotty neighbourhood where we live to a much nicer area, but we need to sell our house (6 months in and not going well), and it will take every penny of equity in the house and the inheritance to buy in the new area... Plus, if we don't sell soon, we will miss the deadline for school applications, and heaven knows how far we'll have to walk every day to get DS to & from his reception class. I have given up thinking it could possibly be a school of my choice, or anywhere near the house we buy.

If I try to tell my friends how stressed I am, they have no sympathy; they may have big debts & comment "Well, you've made your choices!" whatever that means. Or "When I was 35 I was jobless & sleeping on a friend's couch"; "Why don't you rent your house out and rent a house where you're trying to move to?" -- er, because it will still eat away at our precious, non-replaceable capital?! I have family (living on govt. benefits) who now treat me as the 'rich' relation, hinting that maybe they might borrow money from me in the future. They won't believe me if/when I tell them I spent it all on a house exactly the same as the house we have now, but in a nicer area. Maybe Shelia's friend is the same; even a seemingly good life may have a lot of stresses.

friend of mine ALWAYS moaned abut three kids.. till I had ds3.. now she shuts up.

coddy, snap! (I only had 4th in order to shut her up in fact.) (Just kidding...)

Sheila, aren't you doing the same thing here, assuming that her life is so great because she has a nanny, nice house etc? She may have a pig of a husband and too much cleaning due to big house etc!

I do agree with you though. I have a friend who moans all the time about her lot and to me she looks pretty sorted!

My mate versus me .....

• I complain about DH bugging me - she reckons she's going for divorce

• I complain about kids exams - she reckons her kids are dyslexic

• Feel sad for my Dad with Prostate Cancer - She says that I'm lucky I have a Dad

• I feel streesed out with family life - She reckons she's having a breakdown

It just gets rather tiring ... I have decided just to shut up and say nothing ... I can't be bothered to "compete" any longer ... there are other friends who ( equally suffer like me ) but know how to empathise and occasionally say " Yes poor you - Life's sh!t isn't it !! "

Know just how you feel Sheila !!

So many people seem to do this. You know that saying, 'there's always someone worse off' - well it seems like it's that in reverse.

It pi$$es me off, but I agree with Zebra too - you never really know what's going on behind closed doors.

Did you not politely contradict her and point out to her the challenges that you have to face alone?

Sheila - I'm with you all the way here! Ungrateful tw*t!!!

I wish I could afford half the things you are talking about.... I wish I could afford to move from my 2 bedroomed semi in a rough-ish council estate. I wish I could afford not to have to work 40 hrs a week...

Before everyone goes on about "money isn't everything".... I can assure you it is the route of 90% of my troubles!

I don't think I'm that hard done to, but I have a friend that complains about all her financial difficulties and then phoned me to say this:

"We got a digital camera to download photos onto our PC, we had the wrong software..... so we bought a brand new PC"!!!! Hmmm.....doesn't sccreeeeeam financial difficulty to me.

I know everyone has their problems, but.... come on!!!

Imagine thinking she has a tougher time than a single parent that has to work mor eor less fulltime!!! The cheek!

I had a good one yesterday. A friend has who has 3 children was going out for the afternoon on a jolly. I said she was lucky to have a husband who worked shifts and could babysit. She turned round and replied "yes, and you're lucky you only have one child to look after, much easier to find babysitters". She didnt say it with malice but she was there when I lost my second baby, she knows I had fertility treatment, so for her to say I am lucky to only have one child is unbelievable thoughtless and insensitive. I am still fuming. Pah, bloody woman.

OUCH Bunny2!! How insensitive!?

aw, bunny, poor you

She will have said it without thinking though - she must have felt awful afterwards - well, I hope so. Did you show that you were upset by it?

Message withdrawn

Blimey Bunny2 - that takes the biscuit!

Sheila, sometimes, I just want to ask the parents with more than one child telling me how tough it is for them and how easy it is for me - "Okay, so maybe the first baby was an accident, but the second child too?!!". It is so annoying, I didn't force them to have more children so why have a go at me about my so called 'easy' life with one child? I don't mind people moaning - just the ones who tell me that I have no right to moan as I have it 'easy'. There, rant over.

I find it's often the people who are most privileged who are the worst in this respect and suspect it's to do with their middle class guilt about not really having anything to worry about!

It is possible to moan without making the person you're complaining to feel bad, as you rightly say sis.

I suppose in the end it's all relative, as I realised the other night watching the documentary about the single mum with six kids, one of whom has severe AHDS. And I thought I had a tough life!

I have this issue so much with my sister....it used tp wreck my head. Now I don't give a stuff. I don't expect any help nor do I bother moaning about my lot (2 kids, very sick with 3rd on the way,p/t job) she has one kid at school and has one day off a week plus all w/end.......I think as someone else said its just a question of what you find hard. If they insist their lot is hard as well, you might as well call it quits - they aren't going to see your point of view I'm afraid. I've just about learnt to paddle my own canoe. They are my kids, I did opt to have 2 (and a bit) so a better get on with it. It hurts she doesn't offer to help more, but I'm not gonna moan about it cos it doesn't help.

Jahn, she went bright red within moments of saying it. Then quickly changed the subject. I did enjoy her obvious embarrassment though.

Well I think all you single mums are heroines however many kids you have. I am always astonished at how my single friends manage to juggle work and kids and how finely balanced it is re financial worries/sick children etc. So here's a big round of applause to all of you.

Must say the funniest thing I overheard was in a restaurant when the woman of the couple next to us suddenly came out with, 'well, you don't know how hard it is being at home all day looking after the dog and cat.'! So I guess we all have our own point of view!

They are around everywhere.....and a national competition who can have the harder life..

My SIL, despite a wonderful life from the outside would be in the running for the Title...
Large house complete with indoor pool, tennis court, housekeeper, Nanny, house abroad, husband, 2 healthy children etc etc never ever stops moaning.....eg: the hassel of packing to go on holiday - all on her own - bless her!!, children misbehaving - "you're so lucky your children are good", Her children are always the "illest", "wake more times in the night etc..Gardener prunes the bush the wrong way, etc etc. In fact she was having some work done in the house recently and the workman got so fed up with her he downed his tools and walked off the job....and has never been seen since.
I can sum it up by saying that if you were to admire her lifestyle she would look at you as if sucking lemons. On the other hand if you were to express how hard it must be for her to cope she would beam and nodd away and then brush it all off with a shrug of her shoulders - I know, I've done it to see!
I use to get so so wound up....but not anymore.
I have now developed a calm exterior that comes over me whenever she starts, I refuse to ever moan in her hearing and I nod and agree to what an easy life I have!!!!! - makes me feel better anyway!!

Maybe she's just down playing her life so as not to lord it over you - like a sort of compliment in an odd way. IMHO all single parents are marvellous - it's bloody hard I expect and they deserve great respect.

I think comparing specific probems in your life with a friend is a conversation topic best avoided if poss. If you moan about your non sleeping child and your friend says 'well my child is even worse,' then you can feel she's belittling your problem. If she tells you her child is a wonderful sleeper you want to throttle her. So if a friend describes a problem to me, I try to be sympathetic and empathise, without referring to my own experiences of the problem. Difficult to do and I forget to do this sometimes.

I have a different take on single mothers' problems: I used to know two single mothers and they did have their share of childcare and babysitting problems. But I did too! Yet, when I mentioned childcare problems they always said, well you've got dh so it's easier for you. Both these single mothers had supportive family living nearby. I had no other relatives to take over care of my sons. My single mother friends had ex partners or other relatives who took their children on sleepovers each week, so they had at least one day and one night 'off' out of every seven. I haven't had a day 'off' in the 10 years I have been a mother. Dh and I have never yet spent a night without the children in all that time.

I do think that different people have different problem tolerance threshholds. Finding small hiccups a huge problem is also a sign of depression, isn't it? It's easy to channel a general feeling of unhappiness into a small practical problem. If I hear friends complaining about seemingly trivial problems, I try to focus on their real sense of upset, as that's problem really.

How very well said Tigermoth - I agree 100% with you.
In my own SIL's problem She is a very self absorbed person and I believe that she genuinely believes her life is harder than others.

i must be lucky -

old work colleague/acquaintance has it tough with twins with a number of sn - yet I have never heard her complain or moan and she is doing it tough... I would never dream of moaning about silly insignificant things to her - when we have chatted it is usually comparing hospitals etc, medical staff and funny encounters we have had.... as well as the achievements of our little ones....

Oh i have plenty of the other - oh I need money to pay for my new sportscar, or how tough they are doing it when in reality compared to acquaintance they have NO idea and definitely no grounds to moan........

I usually just walk away... or I did get fed up once with one in particular and asked rather sarcastically if she wanted some cheese to go with that whine

I say "I'm fresh out of sympathy at the moment, but you can still have the tea" to competitive moaners.