Have you become more jealous of your friends now that you're older?

[Anonymous]

I’m jealous of those with happy and healthy kids because I want that for my own kids, but they have many struggles.
I’m jealous of those with close local friends, because mine keep moving.
I’m jealous of the many former neighborhood friends who bought much nicer houses in much better school districts (mostly because of the schools).

[Anonymous]

No. Never. I couldn't be around anyone that's jealous. It's a wasted emotion on par with being greedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not exactly jealous but stunned by the 99% of people happily carrying on apparently not concerned about covid. Big groups, indoor dances, crowded sports venues. I live in 2021.

I agree with this. I have significant health issues and Covid, or any communicable disease, would be challenging. I have grandkids and my goal is to enjoy them in good health. My friendship circle has gotten much smaller to the point where I don’t want to be included. This is not uncommon as you get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not, but I understand why. Financial gaps are widening and becoming harder to change. Kid problems are big kid problems. Marriages are failing or not failing. The world no longer feels full of possibilities.

+1 this part is tough.

Not so much jealousy but a lot of my perspective is tinged with my own regrets about decisions I made along the way that have foreclosed other possibilities.

I feel this alot too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not, but I understand why. Financial gaps are widening and becoming harder to change. Kid problems are big kid problems. Marriages are failing or not failing. The world no longer feels full of possibilities.

This. In my 40s, I am in my 0 spoons left to care era and doing my own thing. However my mom is in her 70s and her regrets seem to be mounting. It definitely makes me consider my choices now. My mom is always waiting - for what? For the “right” time? I don’t know. Her friends went on all these cool vacations in their 50s and 60s and she didn’t. Now she is scared to plan a trip because she doesn’t think she can walk far enough or quick enough for a tour group. She just sits home sad that she “never goes anywhere or does anything” but she also makes no effort to plan anything. It’s tough to watch because I sense that she senses time is running out.

It’s helped nudge me to NOT wait and embrace being a little uncomfortable. Life always feels busy. I used to put things off because I thought next week or next month we’ll be less busy or less tired. Life with kids means next whatever never comes and if I wait until I’m ready to plan the trip or the activity, it will be too late.

Take her on a trip! How about Italy or Spain for 10 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not, but I understand why. Financial gaps are widening and becoming harder to change. Kid problems are big kid problems. Marriages are failing or not failing. The world no longer feels full of possibilities.

This. In my 40s, I am in my 0 spoons left to care era and doing my own thing. However my mom is in her 70s and her regrets seem to be mounting. It definitely makes me consider my choices now. My mom is always waiting - for what? For the “right” time? I don’t know. Her friends went on all these cool vacations in their 50s and 60s and she didn’t. Now she is scared to plan a trip because she doesn’t think she can walk far enough or quick enough for a tour group. She just sits home sad that she “never goes anywhere or does anything” but she also makes no effort to plan anything. It’s tough to watch because I sense that she senses time is running out.

It’s helped nudge me to NOT wait and embrace being a little uncomfortable. Life always feels busy. I used to put things off because I thought next week or next month we’ll be less busy or less tired. Life with kids means next whatever never comes and if I wait until I’m ready to plan the trip or the activity, it will be too late.

Take her on a trip! How about Italy or Spain for 10 days.

Yes! Take her! Mother & daughter trip.

[Anonymous]

Bo, as you get older money become much less important than your health and your relationships with your spouse and kids. When people your age are dying and their kids haven’t amounted to anything you become incredibly grateful for what you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bo, as you get older money become much less important than your health and your relationships with your spouse and kids. When people your age are dying and their kids haven’t amounted to anything you become incredibly grateful for what you have.

Bo = No

[Anonymous]

I used to be jealous of women who had good, loving husbands. I was in a financially comfortable and stable marriage but so lonely within it. Since divorcing I have realized it was me making myself unhappy - I always had the power to leave and find someone who was capable of love. I think envy/jealousy is partly due to feeling no power to change your situation.

[Anonymous]

Definitely not. Someone will always have more of something but what I have in total is more than I could have hoped for 30 years ago. Jealousy is just wasted energy that can eat away at your happiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm usually pretty good at just being genuinely happy for my friends and not allowing myself to wallow in envy or jealousy, but I absolutely am green with envy over friends who have kind parents aging well who are still kind and loving and who have wonderful siblings. I am the verbal punching bag for my aging mother and every thing has been a living hell from trying to get her evaluated for dementia to praying she doesn't go off meds AGAIN and any interactions are miserable. I have a truly disturbed sibling who feeds her fire and lives a life of chaos and drama and I am the bad one for not getting sucked into all the ways she tries to make her ex husband's life hell or her latest friendship or work explosion.

So I distract myself. Life is very busy and I allow myself my feelings. I count my blessings and I get immerse in my every day life.

Truth. For me this started when I had kids and only got worse through Covid. It's not the kind of envy that makes me hostile to my friends. At all. In fact many of them, I've met their parents and/or siblings and enjoy their company too, and I feel lucky to get to spend time with these wonderful functional families.

But yes, there is a very specific kind of pain in watching my friends interact with and gain love and support from their parents and siblings. My husband and I both come from very dysfunctional families and there is not a single person in either family to whom we could turn to for even the kind of support where someone is just a pleasure to be around and it boosts your mood. All three of our living parents turn to us regularly for emotional support themselves, especially our mothers who are working very hard to turn us into their free therapy service (we work hard to dissuade them of this and set boundaries -- I've even gone so far as to make lists of therapists for them who are in-network and offer to help call and make an appointment. Most of our siblings are in constant crisis -- job losses, divorce, substance abuse, mental health, lather, rinse, repeat.

The older I get, the heavier all of this weighs on me. It's a combination of constantly worrying about them all, setting boundaries to protect our own sanity, and feeling the profound loss of just having no support system within our families. We can't identify a family member who could take our kid if something happened to us. She doesn't know over half her cousins because my sibling's ex-spouses have full custody and we no longer see those nieces and nephews anymore. We cannot have family holidays with more than a couple family members at a time because while we are not estranged from anyone, pretty much everyone in our family is estranged from a sibling or parent and there is a ton of bad blood.

So yes, when we have cookout with friends and their lovely parents are there, or we meet our friend's sister at his 45th birthday party and she's funny and terrific and clearly loves him a lot, there's joy in that but also just pangs of envy. The older you get, the more family matters. And the older we get, the more our families feel like anchors instead of supports.

I am the person you are responding to and I could have written this too. You express so much of what I have experienced so well. Thank you for posting this and than you to the others who responded to my response. It makes me feel less alone.

I have this pain/envy too. I came from a pretty rotten childhood. I was separated from my siblings. On the outside I appear to have much to envy, great husband, nice home, and financial security. But what little family I do have is not people I want to be around or for my child to be around. I wish I just had a relatively normal family who wanted to do fun stuff on holidays and make nice memories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was never jealous but I find now that I see my friends aging better and they’re more busy, I’m jealous. I gate feeling like this, I’m not bad looking, more average+ sude and I wouldn’t want to do everything that they do but I gate being seen as a dud. Middle age sucks.

Never jealous.

[Anonymous]

I’m jealous of some people and there’s definitely people jealous of me. I’ve had people tell me this which is always kind of shocking to hear.

Since my life is fundamentally different than 99.5% of the population it’s hard to be jealous of a lot of people. They’re just nothing like me and my life is nothing like theirs.

[Anonymous]

I’ m only jealous of parents whose kids are top students who have a good, motivating outlook of life,- honors, top in sports, friendships, work ethic.

I hope (encourage) my kids to do well but with their ADD and meh outlook, i dob’t think they will leaders. I remind myself that they are good kids. I’m just grateful their not into drugs and alcohol.

[Anonymous]

I was jealous in my 40s because nothing was working out for us. In my 50s, I've accepted where I am at in life and am no longer jealous, with some help from therapy.