Passive aggressive comments

[supercali77]

A freind of mine of a long long time has become...bitter?

Her and her dh are objectively comfortably off. large house, good area, tutors for the kids, enormous amount of savings. Im happy for her. The same cant be said in reverse though. I'm not well off. Single mum to a child with health issues. Self employed so i can work round my dd, and sometimes receive help through UC if my earnings fall low on a given month. Many times I've sat through her rants about benefits scroungers etc. Generally I just let it go over my head. This time I'd mentioned the Help to Save initiative from HMRC. I use it to save for my daughter. Just £50 a month, for low income households. She went off on one about why these initiatives aren't available for 'people that work hard' (like her). Why should people on benefits get this help and not her. She said 'oh I don't mean you though'...who else does she mean here? And it directly applies to me anyway. This time I didn't let it slide and said...you already have an enormous amount of savings. You'd really begrudge someone objectively worse off from getting a decent return on a small amount of savings? Seriously? It got very tense. Awful actually.

I left the call and since then I've said over text what my issue was. And that it's happened before. She's sticking to the fact that it isn't aimed at me. Well, if it's not aimed at me, it's clearly incredibly ignorant of who she's actually talking to, and how they might feel.

She's a very very old freind. But she's changed beyond belief. I don't know what to say any more. I just cannot believe that she can't see how outrageous her pov is.

I don't know whether to even try to patch this up

Why bother unless you get a lot out of the friendship?
If she means a lot to you then, you can either ask for apologies, move past it and agree to avoid discuss politics or finances again. A lot of people are feeling the high COL these days and therefore have negative feelings towards people they perceive getting handouts or benefits or whatever.

Some ppl (ie your friend) are just basically greedy.
They have a lot, but they want more.

Moreover they begrudge ppl on less getting any support.

As a mate of mine says: They are rich because they watch their money v carefully, and give very little away.

That sounds like a really upsetting situation. It’s hard when someone you’ve been friends with for a long time starts saying things that feel hurtful or unfair. Even if she says her comments weren’t about you, she knows your situation, so it’s not kind or thoughtful to talk like that around you. It’s tiring to always let things slide or pretend it doesn’t bother you. You were right to speak up this time. A real friend should care about how their words make you feel. Only you can decide if the friendship is still worth keeping, but it’s okay to expect kindness and respect.

@Keroppi mm I get that the middle class are getting squeezed. I work hard myself, but I'm on my own and can't always work re dd. Maybe that would be an idea re not talking finances

@BingoBling she never used to be like this. It's so incredibly baffling.

Christ, the pair of you need to stop oversharing with each other about your incomes.

@TinyTempest 😂 I don't disagree

Life's too short to hang around people who make you feel bad about yourself. Friendships end, people change. I would let her go.

I couldn’t stand being friends with someone rude and insensitive, it’s not her situation so she doesn’t understand how hard it is to be on a single persons income and raise a child on it, she never will unless it happens to her at some point.

I have an acquaintance like this who is very well off and so disparaging about anyone on a low income (just not ambitious or work shy) or on benefits (scroungers).

as we know each other through a shared interest I really enjoy I tend to just ignore it but one day she was talking about salaries and scoffed Linda Evangalista style “god I wouldn’t even get out of bed for £30k” .I earn less than this and work bloody hard for it so I’m afraid I really lost my shit and told her exactly what I thought of her. The room went quiet, she spluttered that she obviously didn’t mean me (WTF is that about?!) but did have the Grace to apologise.

We still see each other, but suffice to say she’s kept similar views very much to herself and a couple of people in the group came up to me afterwards and said well done for speaking up. You won’t change her views so I’d be pulling back if she’s still determined this is a ‘you’ problem

@smallsilvercloud I did devilishly consider suggesting that if she wanted to leave her husband she too could have the same vast rewards I have 🙈

@lechatnoir good on you! Freind knows I work hard for middling returns so it's not like she has the excuse of ignorance.

Yeah the old 'I don't mean you' get-out clause. Right after describing exactly your situation. Doesn't really cut it does it