When trying to give advice goes wrong. My name is Paul Friedman, I founded The
Marriage Foundation and this is a hot topic because there are so many people
who don't run their own lives very well but when it comes to running someone
else's life they or you are right there. And you know what, it is a tremendous
responsibility to give somebody advice in their marriage and we never do that.
We don't really give marital advice at The Marriage Foundation. What we do and
we don't and we try not to analyze people's situations. What we try to do is
help people step back so that they could see for themselves what's going on from
their point of view and then we let them know that they are equipped to do the
best they can because they have the same tools we have, which is volition free
will, but they have an added advantage over us and this is why giving advice
always goes wrong. We're not there. When people share with you what's going on
they're not giving you the full story. They can't, they don't even know the full
story themselves. Think about how we perceive things. We see things through
these eyes. The mind takes into consideration everything that it's ever
experienced in the past and for efficiency's sake tries to overlay past
experiences onto the current experience so it thinks it knows what to do.
Well, we get into trouble with this and so we run into a situation it doesn't
feel right so we asked somebody or someone asks us.
"Hey, what would you do?" You're crazy if you give an answer.
We at The Marriage Foundation know how to answer those questions. We could tell
people what's happened in the past. We could tell people for instance one of
the big questions that comes up, "I found out my husband is texting another woman.
What should I do?" Almost everybody in the world today says
"Well, confront him. Get it all out on a table maybe you can heal things." And I go
"No, that's crazy." From experience and from vicarious and
personal knowledge I know confrontation is the worst thing to do.
Why? Number one -- confrontation is an attack. If you see it as anything else
then you're missing the point. It's an attack and so a person who is attacked
I'm just giving you how we see things, is going to fall into the category of fight
or fly. They're going to be defensive. Their defensive mechanisms will always
respond to an attack the same way so you're not going to be able to work out
things through confrontation. It'll cost trouble but we know that from
experience and the research that I've done for marriages so that I could help
marriages. But other people don't have that luxury of time or inclination so
they're giving advice from how they see things and from how they perceive things
and based on their own triggers, their own buttons. So giving advice is
asking for trouble. For one thing, the chances of your being right are slim to
none. Now, they might be right for you in the
situation as you heard it but that doesn't mean it's going to be right for
them. And so, when you put yourself in the position of an authority and you give
people advice based on your subjective inclinations you're going to get bad
karma for that because you're setting them down a path that they don't have
handrails for because what you do next after someone does what you just told
them to do is important too. Marriages aren't solved like test,
questions or a quiz. A marriage is supposed to be happy. It's supposed to be
fulfilling. It's supposed to get better every single day. It's supposed to be
filled with love so in your own marriage you should be constantly feeding into
your space of marriage, love, good vibes, things that produce happiness. Well, you
could give that advice because it's very general. You could say, "Well,
marriages are you got married to be happy so you just have to do things that
will make you and your spouse happy." That's fine. Giving that kind of general
advice, no problem. Don't get into the specifics or my God, you're setting up
all kinds of trouble. I got a call a couple years ago from my best friend. He
says, "Paul, my sister gave her son advice his wife blah blah blah and so-and-so
needs to see you." I said, "No problem." "I'll pay you," he says. I said
"No, no. You won't but you could donate to The Marriage Foundation if you want. It's
a non-profit foundation and that's what happened. He came to see me and the
advice that his mom had given him was horrible. So within an hour may have
spent more time with him than that I never was a clock-watcher. For me I'm
goal-oriented I want him make sure that the person is
on the right track so that they can solve their own
problems. He was all smiles when we parted. He
checked in with me a couple months later to say thank you
it really helped him. I never gave him advice. I just showed him how to look at
it. I asked him what he thought. I said, "You don't even have to tell me what
you're thinking is but these are the things that you may consider." It's very
dangerous to give advice. You taking on the responsibility for an outcome -- it's
not your business to do that even if you were perfect.
Look, if advice was a good thing God would be giving us advice all the time
because He loves us. He'd come down and we said, "God, I have this little
problem here." And God, "No problem, just do this," but that's not how we're
meant to evolve. That's not what it's all about so leave the advice giving to
those who are stupid enough to give advice or send them to The Marriage
Foundation because we're stupid enough but we know when to not cross the lines
and we know where the lines are and our advice is free. Writing into the
counselors there's no charge because we are a non-profit
foundation. I hope this helped you and you too can write into The Marriage
Foundation. We have people who write to us all the time say, "I want to be a
counselor," and we want you to be a counselor if you have the right aptitude
too but don't be an armchair, what do they call those people, an armchair detective.
You're better off making your own marriage phenomenal, work on that. Alright,
blessings to you, blessings to your family. Please don't hesitate to write in
to us if you have a question. We're here for you.
God bless!