Reduced to Our Income Brackets

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A close friend and I are in very different financial brackets. We’ve been friends for the longest time, and I can’t really pinpoint when this began to affect our relationship, but lately it’s become a real issue.

My husband and I do fairly well financially, baruch Hashem. My friend and her husband both work very hard but they can’t make ends meet. I know there are areas of her life that I cannot ever truly understand — just as there are areas of my life that she cannot — but I always assumed every relationship is like that.

And yet, money keeps coming up between us because, understandably, that’s always on her mind. I cannot recall a conversation in the past several months where she hasn’t brought up the fact that I “don’t get it” because I don’t struggle financially. She tries to say it in a light way, as if it’s no big deal, but she keeps mentioning it and I can hear the pain in her voice.

I try to be very careful around her, but it’s hard for me to know what she wants. In our early mothering years, I offered her baby items or clothing that I wasn’t using anymore, and she seemed happy to take them. Every so often she’d even ask me for something specific. When my in-laws were getting rid of their gorgeous living room furniture, I called her immediately and she was thrilled.