Jewish Musings, Thursday, March 21, 2024

[peachymom1]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda (hopefully)?
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[peachymom1]

Good morning! Here I go making comparisons between people again. This time it’s two women friends of mine, both of whom I know well, for a long time. I’ve recently had dinner with each of them to catch up, as we do periodically. For the first time, I noticed some similarities and differences between them that I found interesting, and I thought I would juxtapose them and ask you for your comments.

Both women went to college, neither are working in an area that relates to their degrees, both come from families with strong cultural emphasis on women getting married and having children, and both of them very much wanted to do both of those things. Friend A did get married and had kids. She’s been unhappily married most of the marriage, but she’s crazy nuts about her kids and has always gone out of her way to do everything for them that she could. When I met her (25+ years ago), she was an admin like me, but was laid off after a few years and never found another admin job. She’s had a few part-time low-paying jobs since then, but hasn’t put much effort into either learning something more lucrative or updating her admin skills to get back into a good office job, even though she has the time and resources to do so. Her parents gave them a very generous downpayment when they bought a house, and my friend’s husband is a saver, which is fortunate for Friend A, because she can’t save or manage money to save her soul.

What I have always found puzzling about Friend A is that she can talk to me half the night about how miserable she is in her marriage, how her kids are spoiled/entitled, and how she can’t find a job that pays decently, yet she is not interested in doing anything about it, won’t go to counseling, doesn’t want me to teach her new office skills or how to create and follow a budget, etc. I learned a long time ago that all I can do for her is listen and sympathize, because nothing I suggest or encourage her to try elicits any positive response from her at all. She’s convinced that the world is against her and she just can’t get anywhere. I love my friend and wish she could be open to accepting help, but it seems that she gets some kind of energy from her martyrdom. Most of the time she presents a happy face to people, usually even to me. But when she calls me in tears because life just isn’t fair, I want to shake her and say, well then, Sugarplum, DO something! Make a change already!

OK, on to Friend B. This woman is the only coworker I’ve ever kept as a long-term friend after she left the company (over ten years ago). She has a great work ethic and was fun to work with, and I was sorry when the company had to eliminate her position and she was laid off. It took her a long time to find another job, but she knows very well that she’s terrible with money, so she didn’t wait until she was evicted or penniless to figure out a solution. She gave notice to her landlord after a month or so, and moved in with her parents, who have plenty of room for her and her stuff, and were delighted to have here there.

Friend B also experienced the frustration of not being able to find a decent-paying job. So she looked for temp jobs, short-term contract jobs, anything and everything to earn money. She learned some new skills to add to her resume and relentlessly pounded the pavement, literally and figuratively. She got a job that didn’t work out well, so she went right back to the drawing board and kept trying until she got a better one. She simply refused to give up. And yes, she would vent to me about everything, then make a joke or laugh it all off.

Friend B has had serious relationships with men but has never been married and doesn’t have children. She’s great with kids and is quite the favorite with all her friend’s children (including mine). Not having her own kids was a bitter pill for her, and now she’s past menopause, but she still says she’d rather not have kids than have them with the wrong partner, and she never found Mr. Right. So she enjoys the heck out of everyone else’s kids, of all ages.

Both these women have lots of friends and busy social calendars. Both of them are pretty terrible at managing their own money. Both are dependent on others for housing and other support and could not support themselves financially if they had to. They’re also both good listeners when I need a friend, and they sympathize without judgment. They’re both fun to share celebrations with too. I love them both and want them to be happy. But they see the world with such different eyes. Friend A cannot believe that she has the power to change her own future, and I don’t think she really wants to. In contrast, Friend B cannot believe that the world intends to throw her curve balls – she’s convinced things will turn out all right if she doesn’t give up.

Do you know people like this?

[gazelle18]

What stood out to me reading this is that you, Peachy, have been able to keep these friendships, especially with Friend A, despite the fact that your advice falls on willfully deaf ears. You have learned that with Friend A that you can either get frustrated and start arguments with her about her attitude, or you can accept her as she is -a good friend who has many good qualities.

I do know a lot of folks like Friend A. Their “default setting “ is “complaint,” and they refuse to try to change that. It can be hard to have friends like that. Sometimes I have to set boundaries, or take breaks from them.

Friend B has her quirks, but she sounds like a reasonably mature woman who knows her limits and tries to push herself to improve.

[hollygail]

I too have someone in my life not too terribly different from your Friend A. One difference is that she's been diagnosed with OCD and Anxiety, so some of her complaining and and suffering can be traced to her diagnoses. I find it difficult to listen to her when she gets into an OCD mode, repeating the same things (often with the same words, sometimes changing vocabulary). In general, I like the way she thinks (when she's thinking clearly, which may very well be most of the time. She lives far away; we met online and outside of the group in which we met (which meets once a week), she and I talk on Zoom once a week (I'm teaching her how to read Hebrew for the first time in her life and she's in her middle 70s and is beyond grateful for my help). She lives alone, has two sons whom she loves dearly, three grandchildren from them whom she loves perhaps more than her own grown sons (one has a daughter, the other a son and a daughter). Her sons are not close with her, each seemingly afraid to alienate their respective partners (one is married to the mother of his offspring, the other lives with the mother of his). The two women dislike (I'm being polite) my friend...

I'm open to any advice about how to handle this friendship, ladies... I'll accept any and all advice. I have set a few boundaries and she's careful to stick with them...

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Re today's topics: Most of the women I relate to have more in common with your friend B. One sentence jumped out at me: "she's convinced things will turn out all right if she doesn't give up." I like that attitude, and try to apply it to my own life.

BTW, last night I had an argument with my DS. We apologized both last night and this morning, and are okay now. It just made me feel so bad!! (That's why I'm mentioning it.) It was a stupid argument that arose over nothing in particular, but we both hurt each other's feelings. I hate arguing. I am going to try harder to listen better, and to be kinder, and I'm sure he feels the same way. He is such a good person and is so kind to me that it is very distressing when we don't get along. I'm glad we made up.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[louise]

I have one very good friend that lost her job about 20 years ago. She is very bright and a good worker but has never worked again and is resigned to that. She had made good money (computer prgrammer or something like that) and owns her own apartment but she has to live very frugally becasue the plan neverwas to retire when she was only in her forties. And me, Idon't want to stop working and when I thought I was losing my job got a part time job i a synagogue to make sure I still had something. She also "slips into a ave" from timee to time and doesn't want to see or speak to anyone. For the first 5 or so years I acted like a cheerleader/life coach as far as her getting another job. At some point I became confused about what would be the most helpful - to cheer her on (or was that projecting?) or to support her in the direction she was taking (or was that enabling her?). I finally just decided to accept her as she is and support her when she needs support. Diffferent as we are our friendship remains in tact and I know I cancall her whenever I need somethng, as she can with me. So interesting what keeps friendships working. She and I are very easy together and always enjoy our days or evenings out together.

Last night we made the 444 bags (this friend was one of the crew). I was disapointed that a little more than half the bags came in the wrong color. The bags were supposed to be B&W buffalo check with tissue paper in a red bandana print. Over half the bags were PINK which does not look great with the tissue paper. Had no choice but to use them. Someone out there may be having a Barbie party or a girl's baby shower and is lamenting the black and white buffalo checked bags they received! The really good news is that I did not eat even one piece of candy. Yay me!

[peachymom1]

Holly, I don’t know that I have any real advice, but what has helped me with Friend A is actually something DH said to me once (though in a completely different context): “Her reality is different from yours.”

Friend A grew up in an intact family with plenty of material comforts and never had to learn how to manage money. So it’s not surprising that she doesn’t know how and doesn’t really understand that it’s an essential tool for most of us. And rather than looking down on me for coming from a poor family, she admires me for having made something of myself. (How could I not love her for that?) I think she sees her financial security as part of the package of her adult life, and an unhappy marriage is part of the deal she just has to accept. I, OTOH, see my DH as an equal partner who benefits or suffers right along with me, whether we’re doing all right financially or eating bean-and-cheese burritos for weeks on end (like we did in college). That might just be because we were teenagers when we met, and we learned how to be partners and then parents together. But we definitely live in a different reality than Friend A's.

The irony is that Friend A has had many more actual choices and opportunities available in her life than I’ve had, and she could afford to choose a different career path, or divorce her husband, or hire household help, for example. I’ve always had to think of ways to manage with hard work, talent, ingenuity, or sometimes a lucky break. Yet she feels stuck in her position in life, and over time, I’ve come to feel much more free than in my younger years.

Rabbi Schulweis (z”l) used to talk about the difference between having what you want and wanting what you have. This was a head-scratcher to me for a long time, until I finally came to see that the latter involves a lot more freedom and choice than the former. I can decide to be content with what I have instead of stomping my foot in frustration that I can’t get what I want. I can be grateful that I even have those bean-and-cheese burritos, instead of whining that I can’t have steak. And I can also decide that any relationship that makes me unhappy needs to be reexamined and either changed or ditched. I feel sorry for my friend for not being happier, but it’s all in her own hands, if she’s ready to do the work and change her reality.