Dealing with Envy

[Sheusedtobesomeonelse]

Just had to get this down because this is so unlike me, and I feel horrible for feeling this. About someone I care for very deeply, as well, which is even worse. I’m so happy for her, but I just don’t want to end up feeling bitter for myself, which is horrible.

Envy – it’s a fucker, isn’t it?! I think it’s slightly different to feeling jealous, because my sane mind is not jealous as such – but at the moment I’m feeling very envious of someone in my close family circle for many different reasons.
I’m desperately trying not to compete in my mind – but am so far away from being in her envious position, there’s no actual point in comparing though I know that.

She has finally what she wanted for so long, and she really deserves it - I just feel like I have screwed up my life it’s almost too painful to bear when I think of her happiness.

I’m hoping time will help, I cannot put distance between us as we are quite close and in contact very often (nearly every day), I just hope she won’t guess how bad I’m feeling and I hope I’ll be strong enough to swallow my pride, and to carry on being there for her, and vice versa.

I don’t know what to do or and how to live with these feelings without them spilling out in the open. Is it normal to feel so happy for someone whom I love so much, but at the same time desperate with envy ? – I’m usually quite level headed and objective and all the rest.. I know full well that she has waited a long time to be this happy and she thoroughly deserves it.. I feel almost teenager like with these feelings I’ve never really felt before!

Just had to write it down.. if anyone has any tips I would be very grateful, I feel like a total bitch too which is even worse…

No tips only a response to say you're not alone. I'm (hopefully) coming out of a time if my life when so much went wrong, so much was a struggle and so much just wasn't 'given' to me (complex, possibly wrong word but hey) and I found it /find it incredibly hard. This to the point where I have probably lost two very old friends. I simply couldn't cope with being magnanimous and listening when they moaned about the difficulty of getting the right nanny for their two kids, when their nanny earned more than me and I had been diagnosed infertile etc.

Life is not fair and anyone who is truly able to not feel envious is a wise woman indeed.

I think your honesty is commendable and being aware of it will probably be what helps you through.

Oh God, I am quite well positioned to know that life is not fair, life can be very, very unfair - and has been to me in the past but i have never let me affect me in such a way before.

I think its the accumulating problems (in my life) behind other peoples happiness which are accentuating the envy.

I'm sorry to read your post, I really hope you are coming out of the worst of it, i really do. Perhaps leaving two old friends behind was the only way to live through it.. sadly? Choices are sometimes made for us, or dictated by our circumstances too..

I'm hoping I will cope with these feelings, as I haven't much choice really. This is not someone who I can cut out of my life, and i really have no desire to - but how can i admit to feeling so horrible i feel like crying? Life is hard at the moment which makes it all so magnified and intense (not sure if that is the right way of explaining it?). If honesty can avoid the bitterness then i'm all up for it ..!

Thanks for your reply, really.

Envy isn't about the other person, it's about their 'success' being a trigger for you not coming to terms with your perception on what your life should be.. That's where your focus should be, coming to terms with where you are, just remember a significant proportion of the planet would kill for your misfortune because their situations are so much worse.

How you feel is how you feel but it's how you act on those feelings that are the measure of you. If you're really scared that you might vomit your dissatisfaction onto your friend, then let her know that you having difficulties (not with her success) but coping with your dissatisfaction with your own life.

I agree, trying to identify something you could and want to change, and focussing energy on that might help. I think I'm a way that's what I've done - things were so crap that I've ended up with an unplanned career change, which has really helped as there is no way I could do what I'm doing now if I have kids. Hopefully I'll be reconnecting with one of my friends soon but the other one - probably not.

For what it's worth I think you sound like a very decent human. It's natural to wish we had things we didn't - isn't that how we all grow? Maybe envy is just when we get too much of that and it's too close to home!

Well thats the thing, I really had thought that I had nothing to come to terms with, as i have always tried hard to keep my life in such a way that if i was dissatisfied with something or similar – I’m not the sort of person who will complain without actually trying to do something about it.
Whereas, toady I’m in the position of not being able to control what I thought was under control, her circumstances are hard to compare – and shouldn’t be compared to mine!

Your last sentence Isetan is key I suppose. Though I wouldn’t use the word dissatisfaction, it seems slightly too harsh! My life has been fucked up – which was all my doing - trying to keep everything on track went tits up for a while, and I have worked so very hard to try and get it all back on track.
I suppose it’s still a work in progress – perhaps I thought I was further along down the line, than I actually am.

I would love to feel her happiness without the twinge of "christ why not me"..

What are you envious of OP? Obviously I'm curious- but also - while you can't help what you feel, you can help the way you think about the way you feel. So if it's about what someone you love has - Ade these things you have lost, never had or can never have?

Are* these things

Good question Dadaist her happiness is related to things that i have had in the past, and will never have again. The point in her life is probably (i imagine) one of the happiest times in her life.

I was very happy, even better than that : i was satisfied with my lot about a million years ago - today I am trying to work through lots of things in my head about what went wrong, and how i can live comfortable in my own skin knowing that my life has taken a turn for the worse.Though I prefer to think that my life has just taken a different path, not a worse path, tough that it is.

I will never be able to have what she has, in my rational mind I know this and understand that this is "her time".
I think this is better to just come to terms with rather than wishing, hoping, waiting, for "my time".

Gawd, the self centredness is killing me!

I think OP - that this is not just 'envy' - its dealing with loss and regret. Especially in circumstances where we make choices that turned out to be poor ones, or had a strong hand in shaping things - we can live a life of 'if only'.
But who knows what might have been? You live you learn you grow and you share your leaning. Who knows what path any of us are on. Life can be precarious- wherever you stand. Better to stop looking at what's on everyone else's plate - unless you want to share what you have with those who have less?

Would you rather she didn't have those things (whatever they are), and was miserable?

Would you rather be her support system and comfort her? Perhaps you feel at a loose end because she doesn't need you like she used to?

Dig deep. Do some serious self reflection and ask what you'd want for this person you care for.

I honestly can't quite say I've ever been envious of anyone so close to me. I may wish I had one or two of their physical attributes, but I'm glad that they have those and other things in their lives.

It's just general advice, because your post was vague. I guess to protect yourself from being outed.