<p>I feel weird writing about this, but I know how supportive this community is, and I hoped you guys could help me. </p>
<p>A friend of mine from college (she’s a few years out) is engaged to marry a very wealthy man. I’m not joking. He has a private jet. A yacht. They are in Europe right now, traveling about. She has never wanted to work (and majored in something quite easy in college), while I took the hard route. She’s not extraordinarily beautiful, but nice and normal looking (like me, I guess). She’s not from a particularly wealthy background. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have heard the whole relationship saga and I am pretty sure she hasn’t been making it up for the past year and a half.</p>
<p>I’m very happy for her (and he seems like a wonderful person as well, I haven’t met him), but I just feel kind of… well, stymied, as I try to get my own life off the ground.</p>
<p>But since comparative misery loves company, I’d love to hear any tales you have of friends or acquaintances who have had outlandish luck (even perhaps after lots of hard work and are nice people too). Or your own amazing luck. Anything so I don’t feel so alone in struggling with these feelings.</p>
<p>I guess it’s how you define luck. I am lucky to have met and married my second husband, who is kind and patient and accepts me for who I am. My first marriage was to someone who was very materialistic, who treated me more as another of his acquisitions than as a person. </p>
<p>I grew up in a resort area and had summer jobs working for billionaires. They had more and nicer stuff, but I can’t say I saw many happy, contented ones.</p>
<p>I hope your friend will be happy in her marriage, but money truly isn’t everything sometimes. Though I am happy I’m employed and we’re able to keep our family semi-solvent.</p>
<p>A college classmate of mine married a movie star and they were featured on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”</p>
<p>My former college roommate recently got divorced and complained to me that she had “only” $500 k in her bank account and a $6 million house in Marin County – a house with spectacular views of the Richmond Bridge. She also complained that her house wasn’t as nice as the one of the friend who married a movie star. When she shared this info with me, I had $7.30 in my bank account. Despite her naivete about how the rest of the world lives, she is a really nice person.</p>
<p>Did you see the woman on Oprah who won 226 million in the California Lottery? I used to work with her. (I think I even participated in one or two lottery pools with her!) I’m happy for her.
A few weeks later another friend of mine was struck by lightning (well, her car was) and she is fine. I’m happy for her too!</p>
<p>The daughter of my next door neighbor was approached while shopping about becoming a model. It turned out to be legit and she was off to a modeling career while in high school. She now lives in Paris after marrying a very wealthy man.</p>
<p>Many rich and famous in this NYC suburb. It could make one jealous and bitter if viewed in certain ways. </p>
<p>Marriage is one of those things that can be described as successful, miserable, happy…etc in hindsight rather than foresight. Looking forward, we can only go by probability, looking back by actuality.</p>
<p>I know a number of marriages that looked so perfect and wonderful that broke up terribly. Then again some of the most unlikely couples have been doing just fine.</p>
<p>well from what people have told me, wealth doesn’t make or break a marriage. If twenty years later the husband is still pursuing his wife like he did before the married and if the wife respects her husband, that marriage is probably likely to survive. Harder said than done I’m sure of course.</p>
<p>First of all, congratulations to the couple. Second of all, watch out for the prenup. There will be one…guaranteed. </p>
<p>I have a relative who was EXTREMELY wealthy. He lost it all…and the relatives that were nice to him hoping to inherit. A few remained. Money and fame come and go. People who marry for money really earn it. Love is, as trite as it sounds, what ultimately matters.</p>
<p>When I was in college, a classmate showed up one day with a diamond the size of Manhattan on her finger. She had become engaged to a member of the Moroccan royal family. All our eyes fell out at the time. Her wedding was a major extravaganza. The marriage did not last 3 years and she was very lucky to be able to get out of it. Luckily there were no children yet.
All is not what it seems.
I also knew Ivana Trump before she married Donald, when we skiied the same hill in Vermont years ago. She was a lovely person. I’m not sure she has been all that happy and "lucky"after all.
I agree with others here, if the couple is happy after 20/30 years, she is lucky…the same way any couple is lucky whether great wealth or not is involved.
Congratulations to your friend on her engagement.</p>
<p>I went to high school with a very famous pop star. My good friend spent some time with this star (she is friends with someone close to the star) and said she is VERY self-centered and not so nice to others … so while the star may be wildly rich and famous, she isn’t someone I can envy because I think it might actually take a personality I wouldn’t want to have in order to GET that rich & famous. Maybe that’s not true, but it helps me to keep from being jealous, anyway. ;)</p>
<p>My friend’s husband worked for a start-up. They bought stock at $0.60. It split 10 times, and topped out at $90. I don’t know how rich they are, but they spend most of their time on exotic trips. It is a very exciting life, but they fret because their children have very little work ethic or drive.</p>
<p>My own amazing luck: I had a terrible crush on the cute brainy nerd in our high school class. I asked him out while getting off the bus on grad night, and he called me. </p>
<p>We married at 19 (him) and 20 (me). We were dirt poor our first few years of marriage while we were finishing college and working in retail to support ourselves. Now, nearly 40 years later, we own a lovely home in a beautiful California coastal community where we both went to high school, have a peaceful, normal life, many wonderful friends and have two great adult children we’re proud of. That’s luck, with a little bit of sweat and tears thrown in.</p>
<p>I consider myself lucky, and my husband, too! We met when we were 19, married at 22 as we were starting grad and law school. We had very little for the first several years of marriage, worked hard, and have had more financial success than we could have ever imagined. It is thanks to a lot of hard work, and mostly due to how smart my H is and how proficient he is at his job, and the fact that he chose a profession that allows for opportunities for this kind of success. We are both thankful that it has allowed us to provide for our children and our extended family. All of our children have been able to graduate from college, grad school, law school, debt-free. They have all travelled extensively and have had opportunities that my H and I didn’t have in our childhoods. Best of all is that they’ve become happy and successful in their own lives and careers and are appreciative of how fortunate they’ve been. </p>
<p>We’ve been able to assist family members who have been in financial difficulties and to make life easier for our elderly parents. We’ve also been able to support the social causes and charitable organizations that we are passionate about, as have our children. We consider ourselves very fortunate and I think our success is largely built upon a shared view of what we wanted for our family and for how our community involvement was a large part of that. </p>
<p>To have a successful marriage takes a lot of work, regardless of how much money you have, and there is no guarantee that any marriage will be a happy one, rich or poor. To paraphrase that old adage, though, I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and rich is better. :)</p>
<p>Any man that rich will be pursued by many beautiful women and men. People will be throwing themselves at him. They better have an incredibly strong relationship to sustain this marriage. Look at the examples of the rich and famous, and you know the odds are against. </p>
<p>She should get a decent re-nup so she at least walks away pretty well off. </p>
<p>Sorry to be cynical, but look at the facts. Her amazing luck is that she will probably end up very wealthy for the rest of her life (money does not buy happiness but does relieve stress). Her even more amazing luck is if this marriage works.</p>
<p>One of our best friend’s sister went on a blind date with a guy who showed up drunk, but she gave him a chance. He had some family $$ which he inherited from his Dad who was murdered in a robbery at the supermarket the family owned. This guy lent his best childhood friend $5,000 (back in the 60’s) to manufacture his first clothing line out of design school. The guy turned out to be Calvin Klein, the friend went on
to be his business partner.Calvin and he got filthy rich…mostly through licensing (jeans,perfume,underwear,etc).Sister of our friend and once drunk blind date married.Our friends brother in law branched out to real estate,horses (breeding,racing ) over the years.Owns the 2nd largest piece of private property in NY State ( spectacular horse farm).When our friend graduated from college in 1974, his now brother in law set him up in the stamp business(philately) b/c he liked to collect stamps and saw a business opportunity.This friend of ours is now really comfortable, moneywise. Luck of the inlaws, I guess!!</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for your kind responses and sharing your stories. I’m very happy for her and hope they have a great life together. There’s just something about that kind of wealth that makes the things you to do try to acquire wealth or even career fulfillment feel a bit pointless. But I suppose there are many people around the world who could say the same thing for the level of wealth I (or any of us in the developed world) have.</p>
<p>That is what I try to tell myself whenever I stop to ponder how much I <em>wish</em> I could have what some of my friends have … several college friends have become extremely successful (and best friend has H who is extremely successful). If I start to feel a bit … oh, maybe jealous, I guess … I remind myself how ridiculously fortunate I truly am compared to most human beings.</p>
<p>My parents have always stressed the fact that while we aren’t “rich”, we are happy and healthy and have so much more than others, so people should be jealous of us! And that “luck” certainly comes in ups and downs, too. My dad’s cousin (so, my second cousin?) was ecstatic to tell the family she was marrying a Rockefeller. Well into their marriage, she hadn’t really seen any of the money you’d associate with that, but he always had an excuse for why, as well as why she never met any of his family members. Well, long story short, he most definitely was not a Rockefeller and is an impeccable con-man, who screwed her over big time. </p>
<p>“Luckily” for her, she was always a hard worker and is an extremely successful lawyer and had enough to continue living a happy, healthy, still privileged life post-divorce.</p>