I COMPLAIN a lot, and it runs in the family. My close friend made a comment to that effect while at my home Christmas Day for dinner. She also seemed annoyed that I got a better job shortly after being laid off.

I am a successful professional, while she is a stay-at-home mom. There has always been a little competitiveness because I am more educated, and have an outgoing personality. Yet, she is the nicest person I know: She is strong and resilient; has raised her children well; and helped me in parenting my kids.
She luckily married her high school sweetheart, and they seem happy, whereas I am divorced and unlucky in love. Two of her kids are autistic, and she never complains. She is fierce! I love her as a person, and hate to think sharing my highs and lows is burdensome to her.
My question is: How much is too much sharing? How can one share success without appearing to be gloating, or share difficulties without being a burden?
I find that as I get older, I am grateful for so many things: I am lucky career-wise, but life still throws curveballs; and I would like to share them.

Kara
We look at good conversation as a noncompetitive game of tug-of-war. You get to pull some, as the other person gives. Then they get to pull some as you give. The goal is to maintain the flag in the middle, between the pullers, rather than to pull the other person over the line.
That way, when the game ends, everyone feels good. If you don’t play that way, there are winners and losers. That’s what makes you feel bad; that’s what makes them feel bad.
Let the other person have a turn, so they can vent and see you are really listening. Perhaps it’s a complaint about a job, and you know for a fact they aren’t going to quit, and aren’t going to take classes to get a different job.
What do they want to hear when they say, ‘My boss is a real stinker?’
‘Oh, Mary! What did he do?’
Let Mary vent the pressure cooker, and listen while she does it; say appropriate stuff like, ‘Oh, no! That wasn’t a nice thing to do! He had other options!’ And, ‘He should know better!’
And you tell Mary stuff like, ‘You handled that the best you could. I don’t know if I could have done as well as you did in the situation,’ and those kind of things. You aren’t trying to solve her problems; you are just trying to let her get it out so she can move on.
Whether we are in a high position or a low position, we all have things we could complain about. We don’t work out in the world with only good people, or diligent people, or kind people. There is some turmoil in life, no matter where we find ourselves.
But when we realise we have conversed poorly or selfishly, a simple apology (‘I’m sorry I talked your ear off,’ or ‘You are so kind to listen to me as I go on and on’) will make the listener know you appreciate them, and are concerned about them, too.
Your friend is a stay-at-home mom, and doesn’t participate in the world the same way you do. She could be harbouring some envy or resentment. Her choices, like all our choices, involve pluses and minuses. You can’t secretly know her mind.
We once heard a person call an idea crazy, only to have another person (someone with a mentally ill family member) unload the full fury of their wrath and hurt. And we’ve heard others speak of children as the greatest joy in life to childless couples.
So we suggest, think of good talk as a noncompetitive game of tug-of-war which leaves everyone feeling good.
Wayne & Tamara