How to broach this issue with rich friend?

[Anonymous]

I have felt similarly about a friend (well the DH and DW both are friends). I say it about her, because I was closer to her of course.
They hit it big, and then again. So they went from our level to more rich. Then like.. just way above our means.
Same good friends, same values and fun times. (More fun times, it’s like nonstop fun for them when they just can buy their fun).

But, I think I’d be the same as them…. It’s like they were upgrading everything. Like I said, I’d do the same. But, they became SO busy. Fast paced life.

I’ve had slow times in life when our project money/fun money/upgrade money/guilt-free money is dry for the month. Say, it’s July 20 and I have to wait for Aug 1 when we set a new budget, in order to spend. Those last 10 days I take things slowly, we do free stuff, I appreciate what we have around me.

For my friends, it just non-stop. The budget is wide open, so there’s always something to plan and change. New cabinets arriving, dislike a new foyer table (sell it to a neighbor, get a new one), hiring the pool cleaners, picking a new dog house for the new puppy, going shoe shopping).

So our friendship was different, because that’s what she has to talk about. And I’m like, “we only spent $15 on dinner the other night, that was cool.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she is just not being a very good friend right now. If she were to talk all about her rich person problems but also express interest in you and offer you support, then you'd overlook the rich person stuff, right? That's the vibe I'm getting.

I'm wealthier than my friends too, but I generally (try to) eschew rich person stuff just for its own sake (with the exception of owning a second home). Our kids go to public schools, I try to be anti-consumption and use things until they wear out, etc. I'm sure I do trigger envy when I talk about our vacations or second home, but there's enough common ground from staying in our regular neighborhood, joining the cheap neighborhood pool, keeping our kids in public, etc., that I think that makes it easier to maintain friendships.

It kind of sounds like your friend thinks she *has* to do this stuff just because she's rich, and it's making her unhappy. But that's neither here nor there when it comes to whether this friendship is worth maintaining. For your part, you just need to decide if this friendship is serving you any more, or if it's irreparably one-sided now. If you want to give it another chance, I'd probably spell it out . . . "Hey, I really need a friend right now. Do you have the bandwidth to listen to all my 'stuff'?"

Exactly. Most people don't have a lot of money. When someone does get a lot of money, it reveals their true character. Some people have greedy, materialistic, ugly character.

If someone falls into moemy and doesn't use it to help people, and just complains about inconvenient all these darn luxuries are, why waste your time on this person?

We have money. I’m not sure why money would make some greedy or materialistic. If anything, I think my friends with less money are more materialistic. People with money just don’t care about material items. We are generous to our friends and family. I would say most people with money are kind and generous, not the other way around. Money solves a lot of problems.

I'm 16:51 and I disagree. Money makes it easier to forget what is important and lose yourself. It's not impossible, of course. But it tests our resolve, you know? And our sense of what constitutes wealth changes. I remember when we made 1/4 of what we make now, and I thought that was wealthy. And somehow your expenses just grow to match your income, even when you make conscious decisions not to upgrade your own or do private or join a country club, etc.

Money doesn't make people greedy or materialistic; it facilitates and augments those characteristics which already exist in a person. And in a status and consumption obsessed society, of course they exist in us to some degree.

I'm honestly curious what you mean by saying most people with money are kind and generous. How does that show itself? Like, they give their housekeepers a nice bonus?

Our friends with money are more generous with friends and family because they can. They are generally more confident and happy. While I don’t think money buys happiness. It can solve a lot of problems. When I look at my friends with or without money, the richer ones seem more content. Look at the pp calling rich people greedy, materialistic and with ugly character. I don’t think a rich person would say that about a poor person.

I’m not a materialistic person. I wasn’t before we had money and now that we do. We are usually the dress down family. I don’t think we look or act like we have money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have felt similarly about a friend (well the DH and DW both are friends). I say it about her, because I was closer to her of course.
They hit it big, and then again. So they went from our level to more rich. Then like.. just way above our means.
Same good friends, same values and fun times. (More fun times, it’s like nonstop fun for them when they just can buy their fun).

But, I think I’d be the same as them…. It’s like they were upgrading everything. Like I said, I’d do the same. But, they became SO busy. Fast paced life.

I’ve had slow times in life when our project money/fun money/upgrade money/guilt-free money is dry for the month. Say, it’s July 20 and I have to wait for Aug 1 when we set a new budget, in order to spend. Those last 10 days I take things slowly, we do free stuff, I appreciate what we have around me.

For my friends, it just non-stop. The budget is wide open, so there’s always something to plan and change. New cabinets arriving, dislike a new foyer table (sell it to a neighbor, get a new one), hiring the pool cleaners, picking a new dog house for the new puppy, going shoe shopping).

So our friendship was different, because that’s what she has to talk about. And I’m like, “we only spent $15 on dinner the other night, that was cool.”

I sometimes wonder why friends don’t want to go somewhere or go out when I know they enjoy it just as much as I do. I wish they would say they are tight on money. I would happily pay for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say “to be honest . . . I find it unappealing” that sounds like you might actually be a wee bit jealous. Whether you realize it or not.

Ask yourself this: if she was bending your ear about stuff NOT related to money that you also couldn’t really relate to, would you feel the same way? If not, then yea it really IS the money.

Op here. And I really mean it when I say that talking to her makes the money seem unappealing. Like talking about the giant house they are going to buy and all the stuff that goes into it (like having a house that basically requires full time staff) sounds unappealing to me. So does a lot of the stress around the very elite privates they are applying to. Talking to her has actually made me appreciate my own life a bit more because it really does sound very stressful.

But to answer your question, yes, if she was going on and on in this same way about like a really specific-to-her work issue (while never really taking time to listen to me talk about my job) or something else non-money related, I would feel the same way. I feel like all we do now is talk about her life. Like I said, I have stuff going on in my life, too. But I feel like it gets short shrift both because she is so anxious and focused on these big changes in her life, and because I think something like me dealing with my kid's special needs or my DH and I managing some issues with my MIL's declining health, don't have the immediacy and largeness of the stuff she is currently worrying about. Basically whenever I share anything about my own life, I feel like it just becomes a jumping off point for her to launch into a monologue about her stuff, and that is the source of my resentment. Not the money.

You can believe me or not.

I think this sounds frustrating and honestly it’s not like other problems someone might have because it’s all optional - if buying a super $$$ house is crazy stressful and applying to elite privates, we’ll, don’t do it. Just because you have money doesn’t require you to spend it. By chance, is there a marital issue here / like she isn’t into all these trappings but the spouse is insisting? If this is a close friend I might be very blunt, like hey, you se unhappy and like you aren’t excited about x, y and z…why are you doing it? And so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You don't seem interested in what is going on in my life right now. And it's hard."

Speak your words, Op.
Better to speak your words and see what happens. Better that, than letting the relationship die, without question.

I like this. It gets the point across without criticizing her ‘rich person problems.’

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where did they get their money OP?

She needs perspective, you are probably not going to have much in common for long.

I do know people who are rich who have most/all of their lifelong friends, but they handle their good fortune MUCH better than your friend does.

I have rich friends and they never mention the things that your friend bangs on about. They don't mention money at all.

It sounds to me as if your friend is extremely stressed about her change in income, and not as if she's bragging. Change the subject, or just nod and make comforting noises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say “to be honest . . . I find it unappealing” that sounds like you might actually be a wee bit jealous. Whether you realize it or not.

Ask yourself this: if she was bending your ear about stuff NOT related to money that you also couldn’t really relate to, would you feel the same way? If not, then yea it really IS the money.

Op here. And I really mean it when I say that talking to her makes the money seem unappealing. Like talking about the giant house they are going to buy and all the stuff that goes into it (like having a house that basically requires full time staff) sounds unappealing to me. So does a lot of the stress around the very elite privates they are applying to. Talking to her has actually made me appreciate my own life a bit more because it really does sound very stressful.

But to answer your question, yes, if she was going on and on in this same way about like a really specific-to-her work issue (while never really taking time to listen to me talk about my job) or something else non-money related, I would feel the same way. I feel like all we do now is talk about her life. Like I said, I have stuff going on in my life, too. But I feel like it gets short shrift both because she is so anxious and focused on these big changes in her life, and because I think something like me dealing with my kid's special needs or my DH and I managing some issues with my MIL's declining health, don't have the immediacy and largeness of the stuff she is currently worrying about. Basically whenever I share anything about my own life, I feel like it just becomes a jumping off point for her to launch into a monologue about her stuff, and that is the source of my resentment. Not the money.

You can believe me or not.

I think this sounds frustrating and honestly it’s not like other problems someone might have because it’s all optional - if buying a super $$$ house is crazy stressful and applying to elite privates, we’ll, don’t do it. Just because you have money doesn’t require you to spend it. By chance, is there a marital issue here / like she isn’t into all these trappings but the spouse is insisting? If this is a close friend I might be very blunt, like hey, you se unhappy and like you aren’t excited about x, y and z…why are you doing it? And so on.

Everyone has different problems. Colic babies. Toddler tantrums. Kids with special needs. Tween friendship drama. Kids who are too smart for kindergarten. Boys who aren’t athletic when all the other boys are and boy doesn’t fit in. Cheating spouses. Deadbeat dads. Money problems. Sick parents. Unfulfilling jobs. Being laid off. Having a top position but constantly worried about being pushed out. Wrinkles. Weight gain. Applying to college. Applying to high school.

I don’t think OP or any other person has the right to think their problem is bigger or smaller than others. You can choose to listen or not but don’t dismiss bc they are rich people.

[Anonymous]

Did she get rich off others due to the pandemic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she is just not being a very good friend right now. If she were to talk all about her rich person problems but also express interest in you and offer you support, then you'd overlook the rich person stuff, right? That's the vibe I'm getting.

I'm wealthier than my friends too, but I generally (try to) eschew rich person stuff just for its own sake (with the exception of owning a second home). Our kids go to public schools, I try to be anti-consumption and use things until they wear out, etc. I'm sure I do trigger envy when I talk about our vacations or second home, but there's enough common ground from staying in our regular neighborhood, joining the cheap neighborhood pool, keeping our kids in public, etc., that I think that makes it easier to maintain friendships.

It kind of sounds like your friend thinks she *has* to do this stuff just because she's rich, and it's making her unhappy. But that's neither here nor there when it comes to whether this friendship is worth maintaining. For your part, you just need to decide if this friendship is serving you any more, or if it's irreparably one-sided now. If you want to give it another chance, I'd probably spell it out . . . "Hey, I really need a friend right now. Do you have the bandwidth to listen to all my 'stuff'?"

Exactly. Most people don't have a lot of money. When someone does get a lot of money, it reveals their true character. Some people have greedy, materialistic, ugly character.

If someone falls into moemy and doesn't use it to help people, and just complains about inconvenient all these darn luxuries are, why waste your time on this person?

We have money. I’m not sure why money would make some greedy or materialistic. If anything, I think my friends with less money are more materialistic. People with money just don’t care about material items. We are generous to our friends and family. I would say most people with money are kind and generous, not the other way around. Money solves a lot of problems.

I'm 16:51 and I disagree. Money makes it easier to forget what is important and lose yourself. It's not impossible, of course. But it tests our resolve, you know? And our sense of what constitutes wealth changes. I remember when we made 1/4 of what we make now, and I thought that was wealthy. And somehow your expenses just grow to match your income, even when you make conscious decisions not to upgrade your own or do private or join a country club, etc.

Money doesn't make people greedy or materialistic; it facilitates and augments those characteristics which already exist in a person. And in a status and consumption obsessed society, of course they exist in us to some degree.

I'm honestly curious what you mean by saying most people with money are kind and generous. How does that show itself? Like, they give their housekeepers a nice bonus?

Our friends with money are more generous with friends and family because they can. They are generally more confident and happy. While I don’t think money buys happiness. It can solve a lot of problems. When I look at my friends with or without money, the richer ones seem more content. Look at the pp calling rich people greedy, materialistic and with ugly character. I don’t think a rich person would say that about a poor person.

I’m not a materialistic person. I wasn’t before we had money and now that we do. We are usually the dress down family. I don’t think we look or act like we have money.

"Generous with friends and family" is pretty vague. Paying for people to go out to dinner with you or vacation with you is really just self-interest . . . you're getting the experience you want because they couldn't pay their share. So I'm still not sure how we are qualifying this as generosity. I'll share something because this is an anonymous forum: I met a single dad experiencing homelessness and have let him live in an apartment I own for the last 7 years. He's paid maybe a couple of months rent in all that time. This is what I think generosity means . . . doing something hard (at this point his never-to-be-paid debt to us in the six figures, and we still field his calls about broken appliances and loud neighbors at times) to benefit another human just because they exist. If it's just, hey, I'm getting an AirBNB at the beach, everybody come stay for a few days! then that's just a party that some people paid more for than others. Generosity is making a material difference in someone else's standard of living, not giving $50 to a GoFundMe.

As for contentment, the only difference, according to research, is between not having enough and having enough. Once you have enough for a quality standard of living, any additional income doesn't really impact your overall happiness at all. And that number is, like, comfortably middle class, not in the 1%. And of course, many ills can haunt you (look up the "lottery effect") when your economic status changes drastically. I view increased wealth as something that means I need to lash myself to the mast to ignore the siren call of materialism, status signalling, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she is just not being a very good friend right now. If she were to talk all about her rich person problems but also express interest in you and offer you support, then you'd overlook the rich person stuff, right? That's the vibe I'm getting.

I'm wealthier than my friends too, but I generally (try to) eschew rich person stuff just for its own sake (with the exception of owning a second home). Our kids go to public schools, I try to be anti-consumption and use things until they wear out, etc. I'm sure I do trigger envy when I talk about our vacations or second home, but there's enough common ground from staying in our regular neighborhood, joining the cheap neighborhood pool, keeping our kids in public, etc., that I think that makes it easier to maintain friendships.

It kind of sounds like your friend thinks she *has* to do this stuff just because she's rich, and it's making her unhappy. But that's neither here nor there when it comes to whether this friendship is worth maintaining. For your part, you just need to decide if this friendship is serving you any more, or if it's irreparably one-sided now. If you want to give it another chance, I'd probably spell it out . . . "Hey, I really need a friend right now. Do you have the bandwidth to listen to all my 'stuff'?"

Exactly. Most people don't have a lot of money. When someone does get a lot of money, it reveals their true character. Some people have greedy, materialistic, ugly character.

If someone falls into moemy and doesn't use it to help people, and just complains about inconvenient all these darn luxuries are, why waste your time on this person?

We have money. I’m not sure why money would make some greedy or materialistic. If anything, I think my friends with less money are more materialistic. People with money just don’t care about material items. We are generous to our friends and family. I would say most people with money are kind and generous, not the other way around. Money solves a lot of problems.

I'm 16:51 and I disagree. Money makes it easier to forget what is important and lose yourself. It's not impossible, of course. But it tests our resolve, you know? And our sense of what constitutes wealth changes. I remember when we made 1/4 of what we make now, and I thought that was wealthy. And somehow your expenses just grow to match your income, even when you make conscious decisions not to upgrade your own or do private or join a country club, etc.

Money doesn't make people greedy or materialistic; it facilitates and augments those characteristics which already exist in a person. And in a status and consumption obsessed society, of course they exist in us to some degree.

I'm honestly curious what you mean by saying most people with money are kind and generous. How does that show itself? Like, they give their housekeepers a nice bonus?

Our friends with money are more generous with friends and family because they can. They are generally more confident and happy. While I don’t think money buys happiness. It can solve a lot of problems. When I look at my friends with or without money, the richer ones seem more content. Look at the pp calling rich people greedy, materialistic and with ugly character. I don’t think a rich person would say that about a poor person.

I’m not a materialistic person. I wasn’t before we had money and now that we do. We are usually the dress down family. I don’t think we look or act like we have money.

"Generous with friends and family" is pretty vague. Paying for people to go out to dinner with you or vacation with you is really just self-interest . . . you're getting the experience you want because they couldn't pay their share. So I'm still not sure how we are qualifying this as generosity. I'll share something because this is an anonymous forum: I met a single dad experiencing homelessness and have let him live in an apartment I own for the last 7 years. He's paid maybe a couple of months rent in all that time. This is what I think generosity means . . . doing something hard (at this point his never-to-be-paid debt to us in the six figures, and we still field his calls about broken appliances and loud neighbors at times) to benefit another human just because they exist. If it's just, hey, I'm getting an AirBNB at the beach, everybody come stay for a few days! then that's just a party that some people paid more for than others. Generosity is making a material difference in someone else's standard of living, not giving $50 to a GoFundMe.

As for contentment, the only difference, according to research, is between not having enough and having enough. Once you have enough for a quality standard of living, any additional income doesn't really impact your overall happiness at all. And that number is, like, comfortably middle class, not in the 1%. And of course, many ills can haunt you (look up the "lottery effect") when your economic status changes drastically. I view increased wealth as something that means I need to lash myself to the mast to ignore the siren call of materialism, status signalling, etc.

If you have an apt and can afford to let a homeless man live there, you are also rich. You are probably included in the people with money who are kind and generous.

I actually think people who are MC and on the lower end of UMC seem most unhappy. They work hard but don’t ever have enough. They did well but not as well as their friends and always have less.