We can still be friends

[liono]

Yesterday W came back from overnight business trip. A bunch of patio furniture she ordered had arrived (split the cost, no gifts right now and she doesn't want gifts, but nor do I want her just paying for all the new stuff for "her" house). I took all the boxes to the backyard, but stopped there. Normally I would have dug right into it, getting it all set up, disposing of the boxes. But I just left it stacked up. Later on, she said maybe we could set it up together, and I said I would be happy to help. Trying to be her friend and of course I'm happy to help, but also balancing with my 180 of not just automatically taking care of every tiny thing around the house to win her approval. Obviously didn't win me any points in the past.

Other thing that was frustrating was her career is going SUPER well. I know, first world problems, but we both do very well in our careers. And she has always been great but is really finding her stride recently. Got promoted and her company got acquired so she is telling me about the ridiculous amount of money she's getting, and how she's getting a retention bonus, how proud she is and how she's really achieving her dream of international business. And she's rightly proud of herself, she earned it. But I'm sitting there thinking "what the hell, I don't get ANY credit for being there the last 10 years, being your biggest chearleader, always encouraging you to take that risk, telling you you're going to do amazing on the big presentation...".

But I kept my mouth shut, and my response was basically, "Wow that's incredible. You've worked really hard for a long time for this, it's well-deserved." Am I doing validation right?