Why I No Longer Give Relationship Advice To Friends
We Analyze the Difficulties of Giving Advice to Someone Close.
What if I tell them to do the wrong thing? Will they blame me forever for this bad advice? I wonder if Oprah ever had this feeling. Advising a stranger is not very difficult. You hope the advice you give works out for them but even if it doesn’t, you don’t feel responsible. There are no emotional ties to the stranger so you can give clear, unbiased advice without thinking too deeply. The same cannot be said when advising a friend. You know them too well. Your suggestions could affect them for the rest of their lives.
With this knowledge, it may seem like the best choice is not to give them any advice at all. My friend really needed me, and I knew that I couldn’t get away with pleading the 5th. So, let me tell you about the situation regarding my friend and the advice I gave about his relationship issues.
Ok, so, here’s the situation. My friend, (and for the sake of this article we’ll call him Brian) called me last week to tell me about a problem he was having. Brian is one of my best friends, whom I’ve known for the past 11 years. He and his girlfriend of 7 years just had a baby last month. Their relationship has been rocky over the past few years like most couples. About a year ago he told me how things were improving with the relationship and that he and his girlfriend were doing things they did at the beginning. Fast forward to last week, and he was telling me that he wanted out of the relationship.
Before I address my response, here was his reasoning. He had met a young woman at the gym, and they had hit it off. She was easy to talk to and he felt as if they had a lot in common. Brian swore to me he had not cheated with her and at this point, he only would see her at the gym and occasionally text on the phone.
Now, Brian is a very athletic, good-looking 31-year-old who has been working out religiously for the past year and a half. Recently, he started participating in physique competitions locally. In some ways, I believe that he has gained confidence and enjoys the attention he now gets from women. Brian has stated in the past that he never really experienced a single life and often wonders what it would feel like to be able to date whomever he wanted.
As far as his current relationship, Brian is feeling like the love is gone. He told me that he and his girlfriend are not talking very much and that she gets jealous every time he leaves home for work or the gym. I can relate to this because I was in this exact position a few years ago. However, my daughter was older, and I had been having these feelings for a couple of years.
“A successful relationship requires falling in love multiple times, but always with the same person.” — Unknown
His girlfriend is also a friend of mine, whom I’ve known for several years as well. I would never want to see her hurt or put in a position where she is raising a newborn by herself. This heavily influenced my response to his question of what I thought he should do.
On the one hand, it would have been easy for me to tell Brian to listen to his feelings and make the decision that would make him happiest. The thing about that is, what would make him happy in the short term might make him miserable in the future. I could see him single, and sowing his wild oats, so to speak, for a year or so, and then telling me how he missed his girlfriend and baby girl. One thing I did know was that any decision he made could affect him for the rest of his life.
Looking at it from a different perspective, telling him to stay with his family and forget about his happiness did not seem logical. How could I tell my close friend to forget about what he was feeling and stay in a relationship where he was not happy? The timing of this was terrible and I didn’t want to give him advice that turned out to be the wrong decision. I didn’t want him blaming me for years for his unhappiness as a result of something I told him. Ultimately, my answer to him was what I thought was in the best interest of both parties.
I told him that now was not the time to leave his girlfriend. Under no circumstances could he leave her right now after having a baby a month ago. The other thing I told Brian was that he needed to spend the next couple of weeks and months making a real effort to be the best boyfriend he could be. He needed to help out with the baby, give his girlfriend time alone as needed, and have an open line of communication with her to improve the relationship. Then, after a few months, if things were not better and he was still unhappy, he should decide to leave.
If he decided to leave at this point, at least there would be no regrets, as he gave the relationship 100%. The question I told him to ask himself was, can you see yourself without your girlfriend and your child? His answer to me was no. Brian was not ready to potentially lose his family and that let me know his best course of action was to focus on building back up his relationship.
Relationships are extremely difficult, and they take a great deal of effort from both parties to make them successful. The best relationship advice I was ever given was to communicate your feelings with your partner. Many of us men are not good at expressing our feelings or communicating the things we are dealing with. My advice to Brian was to tell his girlfriend exactly what he has been dealing with for the past few months. I told him to ask her to do the same and come up with an action plan to make progress in those areas. Of course, I told him I would be there for him and help to the best of my abilities. After he had hung up the phone, I sat there reflecting on our conversation and I had one thought going through my head. It’s much easier giving relationship advice to strangers than to your friends.
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