{"id":33288,"date":"2025-07-02T18:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33288\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T18:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T18:48:12","slug":"our-friends-are-rich-my-husband-resents-their-wealth-i-think-theyre-still-worthy-of-empathy-are-rich-people-just-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33288\/","title":{"rendered":"Our friends are rich. My husband resents their wealth. I think they’re still worthy of empathy. Are rich people just like us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? <\/strong>Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here<\/strong><\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My husband and I live in a pricey city. We work hard and make good salaries and save money, but we don\u2019t have a windfall coming. We rent a small apartment, but we\u2019ll never be able to buy here. Many of our friends have super high-paying jobs, family money, or both. They\u2019re rich. Some of them are very rich.<\/p>\n

One friend\u2019s parents had bought her apartment for her in a doorman-building (snazzy). Another friend\u2019s mom owns the building he lives in, and he doesn\u2019t pay rent. Another friend was recently got a half-a-million-dollar bonus. When we first learned all this, we were both super envious!<\/p>\n

But as I got to know these friends more, and understood more about their situations, I realized the money isn\u2019t as great as it seems. Several friends\u2019 parents use wealth as a bargaining chip with them\u2014they dole it out at their discretion and threaten to take it away. Others work so much they never see anyone or feel stuck in careers they hate. Their apartments are very nice! But I wouldn\u2019t swap our situation for theirs.<\/p>\n

My husband has not come to the same conclusion. He still insists that these friends all have it easy because they\u2019re rich. A lost job, a health setback\u2014 he says these things are no big deal for our friends, that they\u2019ll be fine because they\u2019re rich and that the money they have access to will insulate them from anything truly bad.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really worried that he\u2019s become callous, and I don\u2019t know how to tell him without it sounding like I\u2019m criticizing him. He has joked that I\u2019m picking the wrong side in the class war. Help!<\/p>\n

\u2014Meet the Rich<\/p>\n

Dear Meet the Rich,<\/strong><\/p>\n

It sounds like you and your husband are dealing with financial inequality in your friendships in different ways. For your part, you\u2019ve found peace in recognizing that wealth often comes with hidden costs, like being manipulated by others or staying in a job you hate.<\/p>\n

    \n
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    But your husband, understandably, is more worried about the stability and security that money provides. And he\u2019s not wrong. Wealth protects people from so many hardships in life, from housing decisions to medical conditions to car troubles. In other words, both your perspectives have some truth to them, and your husband\u2019s frustration about this inequality is totally valid, even if his expression of it is starting to seem callous or cynical.<\/p>\n

    The real issue, it seems, is that you don\u2019t want your different perspectives to cause tension in your marriage. So rather than try and convince him to see things your way, you might acknowledge his feelings while gently steering the conversation. For example, maybe you could say something like, \u201cI understand why you feel frustrated. I just worry when I hear us talking about our friends in ways that feel dismissive of their other struggles or too pessimistic about our own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

    And then, instead of debating whether your friends have it easy, maybe focus on what you two can control \u2014\u00a0 your financial goals, your relationships, and how you talk about people you care about. The real issue isn\u2019t whether money is \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad,\u201d it\u2019s about processing your own (legitimate!) frustrations about inequality without it creating tension in your relationship.<\/p>\n

    \u2014Kristin<\/p>\n

    More Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

    My sister got married recently. Some weeks before the big day, she pulled me aside and asked me to dye my bright blue and purple hair a more innocuous color so that I wouldn\u2019t stand out too much. She wouldn\u2019t listen to reason as to how I love my hair, nor as to how the process of bringing it to a more natural color would be difficult, expensive, and damaging. At the suggestion of a friend, I invested in an excellent honey-brown human hair wig, similar to my actual hair texture and length. Her big day went off without a hitch, and she never even seemed to notice my \u201cinnocuous\u201d hair. At the end of the reception, after nearly everyone had left and my family and I were helping tidy up, I removed the wig<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The latest sex, parenting, and money advice from our columnists delivered to your inbox three times a week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[600,64,255,1087,5597,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-33288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-relationships","12":"tag-slate-plus","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114785137670487114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}