Is anyone envious of other families/parents/relationships?

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I always end up in this situation, regardless of whether it's in fiction or real-life relationships I happen to notice (e.g. this child who supposedly climbed some high thing... as if they'd be able to do that without parental support, and if instead they hurt them...) - but it's so bizarre when it happens while watching movies... like, even when it comes to violent movies sometimes... not like I'm envious of the whole package, but how the hell did I end up with less loving parents than even some who, clearly, prefer to inflict violence not on their own families... I'm just so broken, and the result is permanently alone, it seems...

As a child, I would feel envy toward TV sit-com families.

Why couldn't my parents be as warm and thoughtful as Mr. and Mrs. Brady?  Why couldn't they be as funny as Rob and Laura Petrie?  Why couldn't we all be like The Waltons -- poor in material things but rich in love and respect for each other?  I mean, these characters were based on real people, weren't they?

Sometimes, I would go to sleep hoping to wake up as a member of one of those sitcom families -- even the Adams Family or the Munsters would have been cool.

When I was 11, I used to watch this commercial for a doll named "Baby All-Gone." In the commercial, there was a father and a little girl. He not only appeared to be engaged in her but he also seemed like a loving father.

As I was growing up, my dad was abusive to me and also chose the middle daughter over me. So every day when I would see that commercial, I would say, "I wish that I had a dad like that."

I was also envious of the Tanner girls in Full House and the relationship that they had with Danny. He was never abusive to any of those girls. In fact, neither was Uncle Jesse.

So far, never.

I have a loving family, though it has issues with their own as do most families.

.. I'm very aware of my own source of unhappiness is mostly coming from me; the rest is just grieving, unprocessed emotions or grudges, or the usual frustrations that any autistics generally feel towards NTs.


I only envy individuals who received certain outcomes -- the relationship, connection or the bond itself, though, that's just one of the means to attain whatever desirable outcome.



I envy people who never had to fix themselves; they generally have balanced childhood, having to be raised by people who are competent enough in parenting.
I don't envy their relationship with their caretakers, I envy that they never had to or deal way less time and energy with internalized shite, didn't had to figure stuff out; ranging from bad habits to trauma induced distortions.

I envy people who can simply choose to learn the lessons regardless of their "tragic stories" (abuse, etc.) and "choose to rise above it".
Suffering or not, they have control and they have choices. That's simply it.
There is an element of having the ability to emotionally shift into whenever they would've -- or better yet, filter or bypass it and do what it had to be done.

Both have similar outcomes; passing a specific yet vague selection that is what I deem as an ideal outcome.

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Yes very often. I grew up without expressing my problems to my parents. I was also scared of my mom and never shared my feelings with her

I feel envious of large, communicative families on TV.
The show Parenthood did my head in.
I thought it was exaggerated so I asked a lot of people.
Most of them said that was normal.
I felt really sad because my family never spoke like that.
We didn't even eat meals together.
Everyone was their own silent island.

Now I feel envious of women with spouses.
They'll be complaining about how hard life / parenting is.
All I can do is try not to roll my eyes.
They have no idea how lucky they are.
Of course I'm referring to stable or functional marriages.

TBH, I hadn't really ever thought of it. The only family I might have been jealous of was kind enough to include me from time to time in things. They always felt kind of like the Cleavers, but I think that's probably because neither of my parents knew what they were doing in terms of family life. Sure, they got the important stuff done like food, shelter and the like, but there wasn't that much family stuff going on. Knowing what I know now, I think they were doing a pretty good job of it with what they had available socially.

I've had two good long-term relationships but I am alone now and I can't stand it. I feel envious of even fictional relationships, even when they are not good relationships! Or when I see a fictional relationship in which one partner did a terrible thing and they are begging their partner to take them back, and the partner is actually considering it. I did nothing wrong, and I am less valued than someone who did something horrible!

I feel a little envious of the relationship between my friend, Dean and his dad. They don't have the clash of cultures that my mum and I have.

I grew up in a broken and dysfunctional family, so I actually find happy families in fiction to be quite comforting. I don't know if I'm jealous of them, maybe a little. But mostly I am happy that such warmth exists, even if it's just me obsessing over fiction.

Not really.

I used to envy successful motivated people, because my work ethic has always been horrific in part due to my upbringing.

I used to envy naturally beautiful women because I wanted to look like them.

I can't say I've envied people simply for their families or relationship success. My parents didn't really teach me strong work ethic, but I think I was also just very antagonistic to being responsible. However I largely have no issues making friends compared to many people and I don't want a partner. I'm pretty weird.

I was raised well and disciplined well by my family though I had developmental issues such as not doing my potty training until 6 and being hyperactive in my childhood. Later on in puberty I had sensory meltdowns caused by my hormone changes and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I was faced with online schooling from 2020 to 2021. In my former high school, I had issues with trying to have good grades as they often disapproved of my effort and creativity which resulted in two suicide attempts. I dropped out of it in 2022 after I couldn't keep up mentally.

I found myself in a private high school in February 2023 and they were generally more welcoming of my mindset but I was never the same. I have a sheltered mindset even at the age of 18 and have been dealing with a new issue which is interacting with this female friend of mine who is trans and identifies as a "man". I was never taught about those people which is why I couldn't comprehend them and it made me regret labeling them as a "girl" as a result of years of thinking that I knew the types of girls in school and out of all the girls' types I labeled them was the "soft tomboy girl" and they rejected it and said that they identified as a "man" which broke the barrier of my mindset and opened it to a new reality that I've never faced in 18 years.

Eventually, I tried to reconcile without much success and have eventually begun considering to just simply not talking about it at all to be less suspicious in the conservative environment I was raised. At first, I was hoping to get a relationship like dating but then when I realized my own true colors of Autism, I felt defeated because I feel like there are very few girls with like-minded interests and that are neurodivergent in my hometown.

And now to answer the question. I sometimes feel envy but then I realize that my personality and social immobility caused by my Autism is what caused me to end up like this. I wish I could have a family one day but I'm afraid that the chances are slim due to my Autism and what others might say about it.

I went through a phase where I strongly envied other kids because their parents would let them do more than I was allowed to do. I visited a school friend who just went into the pantry and helped himself to food, and when his mother came home she just accepted it. Mine would have gone berserk. I also envied the fact that other kids' parents didn't have blazing rows, or if they did, they'd make repairs afterwards.

But once I grew a bit older and got some independence from my parents, those things ceased to be issues. I started doing what I liked and they ceased to be able to stop me, and if they wanted to fight each other, as far as I was concerned they could stew in their own juice. I no longer had to witness it because I wasn't there.

Apart from those things I've never really envied anybody much.

Fnord's answer, as is often the case, took the words right outta my mouth, as it were.

I did not grow up in a loving family. Since my father was a U.S. military doctor and my mother believed that "respectable families" didn't send their child to see a psychologist, my parents knew that I was different but chose not to seek a diagnosis or treatment. It would not be until I was 59 that I received a clinical diagnosis of level I autism.

Since my parents didn't like me "weirding them out" if I self-stimmed, they would give me one warning to stop after which they would beat me.

Although I learned how to mask as a way of hiding who I was so as to avoid being punished, by the time I graduated high school (age 16), I hated both of my parents. I haven't had anything to do with my mother since I left home to go to college. I kept in touch with my father until about two years ago when I finally realized that he was never going to tell me that he loved me or was proud of me. He died last March. I chose not to see him while he was in hospice care and the family in turn, did not invite me to the funeral which I suppose is just as well.

I used to watch Hallmark movies during Christmas in an effort to understand what a loving family looks like. I stopped after a neurotypical told me that the Hallmark movies featured idealized families that bore no resemblance to reality.

One advantage to being on the spectrum is that I have always had problems with understanding other points of view. Amazingly enough, this has helped me avoid being depressed about being alone because it's hard to be envious of what others may have in the way of family relationships if don't actually understand the dynamics of these relationships. It also helps that by nature, I'm a reclusive introvert and actually LIKE being alone.

My best (and I am told by NTs my saddest) recollections are of being put in time out for whatever it was that I had done to irk my parents. I loved being in time out. My parents thought this was a terrible punishment for me to be banished to my room but I always thought that being banished was a nice break. Clarification - the sadness I referred to was from the NT's perspective. They thought this experience was sad. I did not find it sad at all. Go figure.

I was talking to a cow-orker the other day and it became more and more obvious that he was quite envious of what others have, especially the very wealthy. And he holds his envy against them.

That got me to thinking about envy. As near as I can tell, I don't envy anyone at all for what they may have in the way of their relationships or their possessions.

What I do envy, though, is abilities. In the process, though, I don't hold it against them in any way -- I just wish I had the same abilities.