I’m So Envious of My Closest Friends, It Hurts

My mother married and divorced a few times while I was growing up, which was problematic for me in ways that remain so today. My adult children don’t get along. My husband has been unfaithful. I don’t have any siblings to do life with. My husband and his siblings aren’t close. My mother-in-law is the sort they make jokes about.

And it all is what it is. Until I glimpse my friends living out the kind of close, loving family life I dream of.

I’ve dealt with my perceived lack over the years — in therapy, with convulsive tears and fists raised at the heavens, on medication, etc. I get as close as I can to acceptance, to being as well-adjusted as possible given the splintered state of my family.

Often though, watching friends luxuriate in the joy a tight family can evoke takes me to the brink of death. Death of spirit. Death of hope. Death of gratitude and being present in the moment.

My envy doesn’t hurt my friends. I hide it from them because I’m ashamed it plagues me. Envy only hurts me. But while a faction of envy may be automatic or involuntary, allowing it to remain permanently is optional.

Rather than soldiering on with a rock in my shoe like envy and trying to endure the friction it causes, though irritating to be sidelined by it, it’s better to take the time to stop walking for a bit and excavate the rock.

I’d order up for a close-knit family if I could, but generational family dynamics, inherited trauma and gene expression have been obstacles in my way. Mental illness, addiction, sexual abuse and narcissism have not helped. These circumstances beyond my control have made my path a gravelly one.

It helps to smooth my way by surrounding myself with gracious friends who may write me into their enviable stories. A close friend’s daughter recently got engaged and bought her first home with her fiancé. While my adult daughter has never had a serious relationship and has trouble forming bonds with people, I’m still overjoyed for my friend and her daughter.

“Come over and check out their fixer-upper so you can see the before and after,” and “start saving up for a destination wedding,” were sentiments that saved me from turning inward, where loneliness and longing threatened to take hold. Because they shared their experience with me and brought me along for the ride, celebrating them was automatic.

The difference is in the dangle. I have friends (a loose interpretation of the word) who want to get together but occasionally, just to dangle their bright and shiny at me.

One friend had me out to her family’s new ranch, and I’d swear it was just to show me where all her lovely events take place, with no intention to include me in them. She pointed out where other friends park their RVs for frequent gatherings and the newly installed court where she and her mother-in-law play pickleball. The custom 18-foot dinking table that barely seats their extended family. The acreage they’re turning into a family business. A scratch and sniff, look but don’t touch tour of her wonderland.

That’s not a friend, but something else entirely. No thank you, ma’am. I’m trying to keep envy out of my shoes.

My path has been smoother since I stopped scrolling on social media, too. For me, taking in the highlight reels of families who regularly vacation together or make goofy videos with each other over the holidays is like mainlining envy at its highest potency. So, I stick to real-life interactions with friends who share both their highs and their lows with me.

Experiencing envy is natural. It’s letting envy bog me down and hold me back from appreciating what I do have in life that’s untenable. I’ll never be free of envy entirely, but it won’t be the death of me either. And I can live with that.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.