I have been with my husband for 10 years and we have mutual friends “Alex and Anna” who we met in college. We have grown very close to them and after graduating college we made a promise to each other that we will meet up once a year (we live on opposite sides of the US). We have been doing it regularly, but I am not sure if I want to go on the trip this year…
Our mutual friend Alex is a computer programmer and has had good jobs since graduating. Anna went to school (6 years) for biology and had a great job for a long time. Recently, Alex got another promotion and is making around $145,000 every year. Because he got this job Anna decided to quit her job and feel a full-time wife….. When we last caught up, she mentioned how she stays up until 2am on tiktok, wakes up around noon, then gets brunch, then goes to a knitting club, then goes to a book club, and then joins whatever protest is happening in their town. When we were catching up she just kept saying how she is busier than ever and stressed out… and I just want to laugh in her face.
My husband has a job in event planning and I am a high school teacher and we have a two year old… I don’t want to hear how your stay-at-home-wife job is going because its a joke. I have lost so much respect for her and don’t even want to ask her about her day or what’s going on. Is that bad? Alex has even said she doesn’t do the chores when she is home so he has to do a majority of them (he did that while she was working too so that is their norm)
I guess I view it as lasy and I am struggling to get past it. If she was a stay at home mom, that’s totally fine because its your responsibly and childcare is pricey. So am I overreacting/how do I get over this so I don’t ruin our friendship/is it too late?
TLDR: Friend quit her job to be a stay-at-home-wife and complains about how hard it is and its annoying the crap out of me.
8 comments
Why are you allowing this to get to you?
IMO, you sound pretty judgemental about Anna and how she chooses to spend her time because they are fortunate enough to only need 1 income to live off of.
Do I think Anna should be helping with housework? Yes. But I am not part of Alex and Anna’s relationship so I don’t have a “horse in that race” so to speak. If Alex and Anna’s relationship suffers because she doesn’t help around the house, that is their issue to deal with and not mine (or yours). You even said yourself that Alex doing chores was already their norm even before Anna stopped working.
It also sounds like you’re comparing your busy life of working/being a wife/being a mom to Anna’s childfree life of doing things she likes to do and being a wife. The two *are not the same*. You are busy doing your things, and she is busy doing hers. **Her stress might not be the same as your kind of stress, but it’s still stress, and you’re invalidating her experiences because they aren’t the same as yours.**
As far as “what to do”, I can’t give advice there. Your feelings are your own and you need to work through them.
You can either choose to end the friendship because you don’t like hearing what she has to say about her existence, or you can work through your own feelings and move past it and accept that different people have different life experiences from one another. You’re not on the same journeys, but you still get along as people.
If all you want to hear about is how stressful life is with kids and a job, go make some new “mom friends”.
Personally, I enjoy the company of different types of people doing different things because it’s interesting for me to hear about different experiences and perspectives.
>Recently, Alex got another promotion and is making around $145,000 every year. Because he got this job Anna decided to quit her job and feel a full-time wife
Or alternatively, ‘a kept woman’ perhaps?! That is not a job in any sense of the word. If you fundamentally disagree with the way she has chosen to live her life (that is, seemingly at total leisure and on her husband’s income while he still has to do the chores after he gets home from work?!) you aren’t obliged to maintain contact with her…
It sounds like your lifestyles aren’t compatible anymore? Someone wrote that you’re being judgemental of her lifestyle and that may be true.
What is it about her lifestyle that bothers you? The fact that she doesn’t acknowledge her privilege? Does she go out of her way to present how stressed she is with her lnew ifestyle? Or does she talk about specific tasks she has to complete that are stressful? For example: does she say she’s stressed from her hobbies (which would indicate she’s just rubbing her carefree lifestyle in your face)
or something she has to manage that involves responsibility and other people? The latter would a valid reason to create stress (even if that stress seem ridiculous to you compared to what you have to deal with in your routine).
Does it bother you that she has no ambition? Does it bother you that she doesn’t have to fight difficulties like yours?
Does she seem oblivious /dismissive to others’ feelings and their struggles? Cause that would also be a good reason to break the friendship.
If she’s not boasting about her lifestyle, if she isn’t purposefully inconsiderate of you, what’s the deal? I think many people would choose her lifestyle if they could. If she’s a good person, talk to her. It’s ok to feel upset but if she’s your friend, talk to her.
Hmm I’m gonna take a slightly different angle than other commenters here. I actually have a lot of sympathy for you.
What I see in this story is a high school teacher, meaning someone who works their ass off to contribute to society for piss poor compensation, having to constantly hear about how allegedly difficult the life of Little Miss Privilege is. I do not blame you for getting annoyed.
I know people like Anna. One of my highschool friends grew up to be like her. Married some guy who makes lots of money and decided to lean into easy street. And then she started moaning and complaining about how hard it is to be an upper middle class housewise. Lmfao, okay babe, how about you trade places with one of the single mothers I know for a week? “Oh no, I have to clean my own house!? What is this madness?”
She moaned and complained to our friends who were living in abject poverty, like, *constantly*. These friends were working their asses off, but life ain’t a meritocracy. They couldn’t get ahead because they didn’t marry some rich guy.
No one from my social life bothers with her anymore. All her friends are now her fellow rich housewives. I suppose they can sit around and talk about how terrible it is that their husbands’ Range Rovers need to be in the shop for 2 days more, or how COVID messed up their wine trip in 2020. Us poors will be here, on the bad side of the tracks, working our fucking asses off while they cry into their $150 bottle of cabsav.
I see other people saying “well her pain is real too”, and okay, sure. Rich people are human beings and their pain is real. There, validated it, now let’s look a little more critically. She has more opportunity than 99% of humanity does to change her situation. If she’s unhappy, well maybe leverage some of that enormous privilege to do something about it instead of telling your high school teacher friend how hard it is to go to so many protests uwu.
This sounds like it’s coming from a place of resentment or jealousy but you’re labeling it as losing respect for her because you’re not processing your feelings about her lifestyle. Like someone else said earlier you don’t have a horse in this race so unless she’s going out of her way to rub things about her life in your face this is a YOU problem.
Everyone’s situation and mindset is different. I would try not to judge my friend.
I mean I definitely understand feeling a certain way about someone who doesn’t have to work the way you do, but aside from not helping with chores (which still doesn’t affect you), none of this affects you. she can be stressed out from her hobbies and clubs and personal life, she allowed that. if you think that anyone who isn’t working or doing as much as you is a joke, that’s your problem, and low-key a rude opinion to have. you sound (at least in this post) like you are slowly climbing onto a high horse. I’d recommend not.
people in your life are going to complain about issues seemingly smaller than your own. you need to not make a habit of wanting to laugh in someone’s face because you feel more stressed out, or exhausted from work or more whatever. you meet with these people *once a year*, if it was all the time I’d say just create a little distance, but once a year, where I’m guessing the whole visit isn’t “this is my day to day what’s your day to day,” I feel like it shouldn’t be hard to maintain a friendship like that. unless you just hate her, I guess.