Friend keeps bragging about money, yawn

[Goditsmemargaret]

I'd appreciate some advice.

I have a friend - Sadie - who is lovely. She is great fun, really supportive, kind, generous. I could write a long long list about all the nice things she has done for me. She brags a lot, exaggerates and often tells lies. The lies are usually so silly everyone ignores them - there is no need to publicly embarrass her about her pretend careers and accomplishments. She's also not competitive in her bragging and is really complimentary towards me.

We were once on a very similar financial footing professionally (and if it's relevant with our upbringing) being relatively high earners.

We then each took different life paths. I decided to retrain. She married a very wealthy man and became a SAHM. I opened my own business and moved to a much cheaper part of the country. I had DC and also got married.

Life continued in parallel with us both living comfortable lives, multiple holidays, own homes,cars, social lives etc. Hers are all luxury or designer compared to mine but that's all good.

So the problem? She cannot stop pointing it out and we can't have a single conversation about anything without her explaining that it would likely be out of my budget or giving me a cheaper alternative suggestion.

Like the lifelong bragging it usually only merits an internal eye roll as it comes across as insecure and ridiculous.

However it's moving beyond the nonsensical in recent years with the DC wondering what she means when she 'jokes' about how we could trade our entire street for her house (she's not wrong).

Deep down I think she is actually jealous as she's lonely in her marriage and she was highly motivated in her career. I think she is bored.

I've tried saying
"You don't need to keep telling me the price or offering me things I don't want, I'm not poor"

She tries to dump her unwanted stuff instead of taking it to the charity shop like everyone else and she makes weird throwaway remarks in public like "our nanny is away for a couple of months next year if you want to do some extra hours (I'm not a nanny and pay a childminder as I run a business"

The meetups have been less fun and less often as the years go on. We are not really close enough now for me to feel bothered about talking it out.

I took out my phone to message her about meeting up, realised it had been quite a few months with no contact and wondering should I just let this friendship die? Or should I be the bigger person and say "come on, what's really up? You don't need to keep telling me how much money you have; I KNOW and I'm constantly admiring your house, cars, clothes so what's the problem? You're upset that you know I don't really covet them?"

She sounds really strange. Have a think if her good points outweigh her bad. I wouldn't be able to be around her but you know her much better than me.

If you choose to keep the friendship then be very clear about her fixation on money and how you're not interested.

Ugh. She sounds like my brother. He's tiresome.

If you want to maintain the friendship then say something. If she doesn't respond well then you'll have your answer.

Just let this friendship go. She doesn’t seem like a nice friend and you don’t enjoy spending time with her anymore, equally she’s not bothered to contact you either. You guys had some good times together and in my opinion it’s best to leave it rather than confronting her

I'd let the friendship go. I don't think such ingrained behaviour will change so why have the difficult conflict. I think the damage is done and even if she stopped patronising you, you wouldn't go back to humouring her.

My cousin is like this, she thinks she is the only person with any money.
I cured her when she started bragging about how much pension her husband gets. I said Oh is that all? How do you manage?
She looked shocked and shut up.
If she wasn't a relative I wouldn't bother with her, it's so boring when she talks about money all the time.

The money rift is absolutely massive, she wasn't joking when she said they could sell their house and buy our street, it's worth 20 times our value.

But we can still do the same things we always did; going to restaurants, for drinks, coffees, park etc.

Fuck that! People like this a so insecure that they have to put other people down to make themselves feel better about what is lacking in their own lives.

Friends are supposed to make you feel better and build you up. Slow fade all the way.

She’s probably up to her eyeballs in debt wearing fake clothes/bags/shoes from DHGate.

I do think you might have hit the nail on the head with the last few words of your post, @Goditsmemargaret. She knows that you don’t covet what she has, because - even if your whole road is worth her house - you are no way as materialistic as her, and have more than enough, and are happy with what you have. She really wants you to covet what she has.

For whatever reason, she isn’t happy. You are. I think this might be why she keeps up with the oneupmanship in the financial sense. She feels the need to remind you of the things she has which you haven’t because you have other things that she doesn’t…

This friendship does sound like hard work for you, and you say that you have reached a point where you can’t be bothered to have all this out with her, which may be your answer on where this friendship does or doesn’t go x

Just let it go. You’re her “poor friend” in her mind even though you aren’t poor!

Thanks for all the replies.

I've decided to let it fade out for the moment.

It's a shame as we used to have the type of friendship where my whole body would hurt from laughing after spending time with her.

I think honestly she's feeling unhappy or unseen and wants validation. I'm fine with that but the sneering directed at the DC peed me off and I don't want them around that sort of attitude.

Maybe it will be one of those situations where we pick up again in the future when our life stages are more aligned.

Why someone less than a twat and arsehole would point out that? I would leave her friendship. It is rude and insensitive.