If a friend became rich would it affect your friendship? Mine has.

[pooroldme]

Opinions and experiences please......

a good friend and I are drifting apart for various reasons- we don't live close by which doesn't help- but she has become seriously rich over recent years.

She doesn't flaunt her wealth but her perspective has changed hugely. eg she buys Armani jeans at £150+ and says they are good value as they last ( so do Uniqlo @ £20!). Recently she bought 3 designer hand bags totalling around £3K. I ummed and aaaaahd for ages over £150 for a bag I liked.

When we first met my DH and hers earned almost the same- now her DH earns goodness knows what- about £400K I think- and they are millionaires if you add up all the property they own. She doesn't work, whereas I have 2 p/t jobs. We aren't badly off compared to others but compared to her we are.

I know this comes over as a green eyed monster- it's not that- I just feel the money has driven a wedge between us and she has lost track of how most people live.

She refers to friends she has who are 'so kind' and 'so generous' but they are in the same boat financially as she is and think nothing of spending a huge amount on a gift for her etc.

Can money change things?

Hmmm. Difficult to comment on your friend without seeing this in context.

Dc's mum takes great delight at digging for detail on anything I own/buy and then giving me unsolicited advice on how I could have got my purchases cheaper.

It drives me insane, and I consider it a really unpleasant trait of hers that she's so bloody nosey and judgey about how I spend my money. I really hope you don't do this, even unwittingly. Its so wearing to feel you need to justify yourself.

Dp's mum, not dc's, given that would be me. Doh.

OP: no matter how much I ummed and aaahed I could not afford a bag for £150 so you are better off than a lot of people !

Agree! I actually don't have a handbag at the moment because mine broke and I genuinely don't have the £10 or so for one from Tesco (or similiar)

Rich is all relative. So is poor.

If she's a nice person, that's all that matters.

indeed, I think that it mght not change you, but it does change other people.

DH is fairly well off and i have noticed 'friends' making comments and expecting me to foot the bill etc.

Money only matters as much as you let it. Are you both really into fashion? I am trying to understand why the pair of you talk about who has bought what. In my social group income differences are large but beyond who foots the bill for dinner/moderately priced tickets for the opera, it matters very little. I am much more interested in the contents of someones mind than the maker of their handbag.

99% of the conversation with your friend does not concern money. Yet you have chosen to dedicate a whole thread to her taking about money and how it is affecting your friendship .

If I spent 6 hours a week talking to my friend that would make 360 min. 1% is 3.6min.

6 hours is a generous estimate given that I have a full time job and a family so in reality 1% is about 1min. Short of calling me an ugly.twat in that one minute, I can't imagine the wellbeing of our friendship being affected by anything that last for one minute a week.

Although you deny it (to yourself) I suspect that it is the green eye monster that is controlling what you say.

Only if they, or I, also became loud and obnoxious to boot. The material differences would not bother me so much.

Any kind of change in people can change the nature of friendships. It's why many grow apart over the years because life = change. It can be hard when you stop having things in common. Especially for the party that is left behind as it were.

In My experience , changes in financial circumstances can affect friendships especially since often spending time together can revolve around money oriented activities like shopping or restaurants. Equally, parenthood can - one good friend of mine has withdrawn from her friendships with people with children as a result of her fertility difficulties because it's too hurtful for her.

Ridiculously the straw that broke the camels back with a close friend I had was me losing weight and her bitchy comments about me not being a 'real' woman and her reluctance to want to socialise with me because 'me being thinner made her feel fat' (I went from a 16 to a 10....whereas she had done the opposite)

I know exactly what you mean. One friend is wealthy (due to her DH) as you describe, and she makes a conscious effort to be down to earth. The difficulty arises when I visit her (she lives abroad) they go out to dinner in places I just cannot afford; they know this and always pay for me. It does make me feel a bit like a little girl, but they mean well. As much as neither of us want it to be an issue, it does have a little impact on our friendship. Not enough to ruin the friendship though - we did have a frank discussion one day about what stressed us, and for both of us it was money. She just has higher expectations.

My sister is also wealthy (due to her DH) and she's a bit different. She buys gifts for our parents/nieces etc and then tells me how much I owe her, and organises skiing holidays with the express idea of it being a sisterly thing, etc without a question as to whether I can afford it. It's really annoying and I avoid visiting her sometimes for that very reason (she also lives abroad).

I have a friend who suddenly became seriously wealthy. She remains down to earth, friendly, and kind. She is also quite generous, which is lovely.

What becomes tricky is how to reciprocate her generosity and hospitality. Frankly, I have stopped trying because what I can offer her seems so modest. Also, whenever she comes over to us, I can't help thinking that our entire flat is the size of her entry hall. She is not flashy, but I'd estimate their annual holiday budget is more than we live on for an entire year.

I don't begrudge her and don't wish I had her life, but clearly she moves in very different circles now. We lead a very nice life and are not deprived in any way, but it is easy to feel a bit 'poor church mouse' next to her. But that is probably my perception rather than something she communicates.

Some people are just plain unpleasant when their friends have good fortune in life, or even wealth they have gained through sheer hard work . I think you resent her wealth so are looking for ways to make her the bad guy to justify your resentment. I may be wrong... but I don't think so.

I have rich friends but they don't tell me how much things cost. I find that rather crass.

I used to be fairly well off. I still bought in charity shops. I bought new too still do but they're just 'things'.

My rich friends are great and unless you went to their houses you'd never know. I don't mix with snobs. I used to have to for work purposes and don't have to now, so don't. It's bliss

If someone was going on about their bargain £200 jeans I'm afraid I'd howl with laughter. It's beyond boring imo.

Maybe she is bored being a lady wot lunches and insecure in her wealth and guilty for spending so much so has to excuse herself somehow by saying they are bargains.

I had a work friend that went the opposite way. she would buy expensive stuff and explain how it was a false economy to buy cheaper etc, but then she got divorced and had less money so would spend her time extolling the virtues of plain old palmers cocoa butter and how silly it was to spend more etc. I just nodded and smiled.

other than that friendships do often drift apart when circs change. It just is.

Thing is its interesting how some with little insight say your a snob just because you are wealthy when, the biggest snobs are often the ones saying it.

My mum picks about my husbands parents because they are wealthy when she doesn't know them, spoke to them a handful of times. It's my mum that feels inferior I think because she automatically assumes they are looking down on her or are snobs just because they have a lot of money. The ones she says aren't snobs are the ones that have less than herself and she calls them " down to earth", when in fact it's about the individual to me. There's plenty of snobs and idiots who don't have much too. Just like someone said above about you can be a knob at any money bracket. My mum does okay financially but she's the biggest snob ever going.

My sister has a bf , been with him 6 mths and his parents have okay wage and she calls them down to earth, wonderful working class folk. She doesn't even know his parents just like she doesn't know my husbands but because of the money infers there the opposite. She has a real chip on her shoulder, though she's the one being competitive, snobby and trying to keep up with the joneses.

So probably I think money does change people around you. Mum lumps me in with my husbands parents and equates that to me " being a lady of leisure" . There money has nothing to do with me. We have to make our own money! I get loads of snidely remarks constantly about money that I really can't spend much time with her.

Don't get me wrong mum has always been hardwork and jealous type but me being married to my husband has intensified it no end to the point where she cant ever sympathise with a single problem I have. Oh no I can't have any problems because I'm okay financially. This is where the relationship has changed so much.

People ALWAYS, always have different perspectives about money and the value of what they spend it on.

And also about what purchases say about you as a person, even if you're not trying to say anything.

Perhaps she isn't trying to be meaningful when she tells you how much her jeans cost: perhaps - I know this makes it not about you, but bear with me - she just likes chatting about shopping.

And what is laughable is she is okay financially. Not wealthy but okay and she has every problem under the sun and everything is so hardwork for her, she's the victim etc. she's aloud problems I'm not.

Although I do agree with the poster who points out how boring it is to tell people the price of things.

Surely any well-brought-up person doesn't talk about their new stuff and attach price labels to it all the time?

I had a friend once who remarried a wealthy man.

She came round in a new car once and I said 'ooo you didn't say you have a new car' (she had parked it round the corner fgs and when I was seeing her off I asked where she had parked)
She said 'oh I didn't want you to be jealous'. I was absolutely stunned at her assumption as I was actually EXCITED for her that she had a nice new car!

12m later her wealthy husband had moved on to the next one and she found out the hard way all her lovely stuff was on finance when the repo man came for the car.... me I was still using my older car that I owned outright having paid cash for it. That was years ago and she can't stand ANYONE else having money, so now her (relative) poverty has come between us too as she is always moaning about being skint (ie having to drive a 4 year old car and go back to work).

Then the only one of my siblings with no kids has changed so much through becoming a high earner herself and marrying one of those '£1000 a day consultant' types. No, I don't want to pay for a babysitter so we can join you for a night out at the casino. No I don't want to use up my precious holidays to pay full whack flights in school holidays to come and pay half of a very expensive villa you want to hire and no you are not doing me a favour going halves on a villa that costs more just for hire than the total of the last 5 family holidays we have had.

Other friends I have, have a ton of money. But they are nice people and always have been and always will be. So to me, its the persons attitude that affects the relationship.

YANBU. It definitely changes things. I have 3 friends/acquaintances from modest northern backgrounds (like mine) who have 'married up'. One now cannot say the word 'school' on its own, it's always 'prep school' or 'boarding school' as if to ram the point home, another refers to evening meal as 'supper' - was tea when we grew up together, and the other is trying to lose her accent by using long vowel sounds, barth not bath etc, which just sounds ridiculous when combined with her otherwise northern tones, and her dc prefer 'rugger' to 'soccer' - yet she used to love a good chat about the local football team. One precedes most conversations with 'we're so fortunate to be able to....' Anyway, all good for a titter.

Ooops not an AIBU - sorry!

My mother always taught me not to answer the question "how much did that cost?" I think this is why.

Bedtime1 your mother sounds adorable It's good you can distance yourself from her behaviour. My mum can be similar, not so much about money just a bit jealous. More so of friendships as she has trouble maintaining them.

Very adorable juniper :). My mum has trouble maintaining friends too. I wonder why that is? :)

Yes it's a mystery isn't it