"I wish I could have that." Brittany Hockley and Laura Byrne on the reality of 'friendship envy'.

Four years ago, Life Uncut podcast duo Brittney Hockley and Laura Byrne had only one thing in common: they were both finalists on different seasons of The Bachelor.

After Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins chose neither Brittany nor fellow finalist Sophie in the infamous 2018 season, Laura reached out to set up a coffee date. 

From that very first meeting, the women became friends, but as they tell Mia Freedman on this week's episode of No Filter, their friendship and close working relationship has its challenges. 

Listen to Mia Freedman's full interview with Laura Byne and Brittany Hockley on the No Filter podcast. Post continues below.

"I don't love the word jealousy," Brittany tells Mia.

"But there are parts of each other's life that we wish we could have. There are parts of [Laura's life] where I get really sad because I look at her family and we [talked about] Matt and Laura's relationship and getting married on the radio last week and I cried. I cried with happiness, but I cried because I'm like, I wish I could have that feeling. And I see her with the kids and I wish I could have that."

Brittany says that while she has never looked at Laura and been jealous, it reflects being at different stages of life - and the mild envy is apparently mutual.

"Laura looks at me being like, 'F*ck, you can wake up, and you can go for a run if you want!' You can do whatever you want, and she envies that. But I think because we're both such... very honest communicators with each other, there's never any maliciousness in our envy at all. 

"We're always very supportive of each other."

Laura says that as a mum to two girls with very little me-time, this has made aspects of their working relationship challenging. 

"I think the thing I get jealous of is the fact that when I work, I then go home to two babies - and as they're not always good sleepers and they're up during the night, I never get time off," Laura says.

"I feel like a lot of working mums feel like this, especially in the first years of having small children. There is no break. And I'm so lucky and I'm very grateful that Matt is incredibly hands on and he does a good 50 per cent of the parenting load. 

"But I'm either at work, or I have the kids. And then when the kids go to bed, I work again. So that's my trying to fit everything in around the life that I've chosen, which is to be a mum, and I love every part of that. It just means that when your priorities reshuffle, you become the bottom of the priority list. And that's how I feel about myself."

Watch: Laura Byrne on being 'a good mum'. Post continues below.

After bonding over their experiences on The Bachelor, it was clear Brittany and Laura's connection was strong right from the start. Former emergency radiographer Brittany says that Laura's message to meet up came at precisely the right time - when the online harassment was at its peak.

"Laura said she could see some people writing things to me and that she'd been through it. She said, 'This is my number, if you want to call me', and I don't think she'd even pressed 'send' when I called her! 

"I was like, 'Tell me it ends, because this is horrible!' And then that was literally it. We saw each other in Bondi a couple of times and had breakfast. It was only probably our second meeting where I said to Laura, 'Hey, I've got this crazy idea. I've always wanted to do a podcast, and I didn't know who with and I think you're as crazy as me. Should we do it together?'"

The women have recorded Life Uncut through some major personal and global changes; the pandemic, devastating breakups, Laura's two miscarriages, the birth of Laura's two girls Marlie and Lola, and most recently, Laura's wedding to Matty J, who she met on The Bachelor. 

Sometimes their methods have had to be slightly flexible and unconventional.

"It was harder when I was at the hospital because I had 12-hour shifts so we would record at 5am or 1am and I'd be in scrubs," Brittany recalls. 

"Laura would bring the babies to work and Marlie would be under the recording desk or strapped to her, and we'd just get through it and get on with it!

"I know some people would love to hear different, I know they'd love to hear that we argue and we fight with each other. But if one of us says I can't do this time, we're like, 'It's cool, we'll make it work'. We'll just have to do it on Tuesday at 8pm or whatever!"

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Their relationship has changed as the success of their podcast has grown, but the pair still try to make time for each other.

"Laura and I are such good friends, we see each other every single day but our friendship is very strange, because it's full-time work," Brittany says.

"We actually don't get to go to dinner anymore. We meet and we're 100 miles an hour, we're at work, we're in work mode. And then we leave because we have all these other things to do. 

"We went out recently for dinner and it was so nice. We were laughing and having a great time. We miss that as we actually are friends and not just business partners." 

For more No Filter episodes, go to mamamia.com.au/podcasts/no-filter.

Feature Image: Instagram @ladyandacat.