The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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Ethical Quandaries: What do we owe to a friend who comes to us for advice? Should we privilege a person's presumably-rational-and-considered long term statements regarding an action, or should we privilege their reactions and realizations immediately before taking an action? Is it legitimate, as an advice-giver, to consider the utilitarian impact to oneself of having given the advice, or should one be completely selfless?
My priors: Marriage is good, ceteris paribus being married is better than not being married. One should choose one's spouse carefully, and choice can make a huge difference in outcomes. Honesty is best as a first choice. Friends owe another their best efforts to improve each others' lives.
Background: My wife and I have a friend of over a decade, T. My wife is much closer with her, but I would say that T and I have enough of a relationship that I have subordinate but independent duties of care towards her. We all met in undergrad at the same university, where we took classes together. T was single throughout undergrad, with a fun series of romantic misadventures, but we were young and we figured everyone had a lot of time to figure it all out. My wife and I have been together since undergrad, and around the time we got married T started dating a new guy, D. My wife and I both disliked D from the start, he's the obese embodiment of generic New England beer commercial masculinity. Our dislike sharpened over time, as we saw more of him and heard more about him from T: T was trying to lose weight and D constantly undermined her efforts to diet and exercise, he wanted T to move in with him in the house he owned but insisted that she pay rent, he makes more money than T but insists on very strict 50/50 splits on all bills (from early things like vacations to after cohabiting things like groceries), he didn't want to propose even after T made clear she wanted it soon, and he just generally doesn't seem to be that nice to her. But hey, D has a good job (engineer), and T seemed to like him, so how much is it our place to criticize? And besides, he does some things better than I do (he T buys a LOT of gaudy jewelry). Ultimately, he did propose (just a week before a planned ultimatum!), and they have a radically enormous wedding planned for a month from now.
Current Situation: T calls my wife in tears two days ago. She thinks she no longer wants to marry D. She's not sure she ever wanted to marry D, really. She thinks they are totally incompatible, she's come to certain sudden realizations on some issues that she thinks make things irreconcilable with D. She's thinking of calling off the wedding, which would mean informing 300 odd people, losing out on mid-five figures in deposits, returning gifts from two separate bridal showers, etc. She keeps asking us for advice.
On the one hand, we both wanted to tell her to leave him, like, two years ago before they got engaged. I can't, hand on the Bible, say that he's a good guy and she should marry him. Once, she was visiting my house, and I came home and as I was taking things out of my pockets I mentioned to my wife "Thanks for doing the laundry." T looked at me and asked if I was being ironic. The idea of her bf actually thanking her for doing something around the house. I just don't think they have a good relationship.
On the other hand, she's understandably nervous about her upcoming marriage, but up to this point she seemed to really want to do this. So it feels like I shouldn't give in to her attack of nervousness. Like, if you go up a ski-slope with your friend, and then your friend gets scared when they look down the slope, you should encourage them to ski their way down and get over their nerves. I should probably encourage her to follow her rational impulses rather than her emotional fears.
On the third hand, I wonder whether she can really do better? She's put on a LOT of weight, it's tragic. She's in her 30s. Do I give her optimistic advice ("You'll get on Ozempic*, lose the weight, and find yourself a much better man!") or do I give her realistic advice ("He's not great but it's time to settle down...")?
On the fourth hand (I am an advice-giving Hindu god-ling), she's probably going to do whatever she wants to do regardless of what I say, so should I give my advice with an eye to protecting myself? If I tell her not to marry him and she marries him, that will create a rift. If I tell her she'd be better off single and she doesn't marry him, she might hold me responsible for whatever happens to her later. Don't make waves and ruin a long friendship.
What's your take, Mottizens? How should I handle this?
*D is very anti Ozempic, which I consider another strike against him.
Opposite to my last advice (but coming from a dirtbag comedian): https://youtube.com/watch?v=gFeZswzWvnI&t=5636
his advice: there is nothing you can do to change their mind. Support them through whatever.
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Meta: I think it's interesting how many responses assume you will damage the relationship if you are honest and wrong. That's not obvious to me. There's a short list of people in my life who could absolutely tell me "you can do better" or "nah man time to settle" and, right or wrong, I'd be thankful for the opinion.
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I'd consider laying out the consequences of getting it wrong. Paint a picture of a bad marriage and downstream consequences (like the opportunity cost of wasting 10 years in a bad relationship, stress/financial impact of divorce, dating as a single mum, dating in your 40's). Balance this out with talk about pre-wedding jitters, what it would feel like to break things off with a 'good guy', could she deal live with her decision. Painting a picture of the consequences of her choice and then avoiding advising her on which choice to make could be a path here while avoiding saying anything about her partner directly (which you can never take back and will cloud your future friendship if this guy stays in the picture). Telling her 'I can't make this choice for you' with a concerned look on your face would be advised. Heck, you could even go mask off and say 'I can't tell you which choice you should make because I've seen friendships ruined over things like this'.
Regarding the last part I have seen friendships ruined over things like this. I knew two guys when I was younger (still do). They were best friends. One guy had a long term (8+ years) partner who was an overweight, lazy, emotionally manipulative woman who others in our friendship circle disliked. Upon hearing that the boyfriend was going to propose, his friend decided to intervene and had a heart to heart discussion over alcohol (which is the culturally appropriate way of having these sorts of talks between men where I come from). The friend said he was making a mistake and that this girl was not right him. This went about as well as you'd expect. Their friendship was fractured and they didn't speak for several years. The boyfriend ended up breaking up with the girl and eventually settling down with a different girl (who was also overweight, an 'actress' in her local drama troupe, with no career to speak of). The friends eventually mended their friendship after several years, but it was never as close or as strong as it was. In this case the friend's advice was unsolicited and we have no idea if it impacted on the boyfriend's decision to break up with his partner.
I think if your friend has any maturity she will understand why you frame your advice so as not to cast judgment on this guy.
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I watched as my brother married a woman that I thought was a bad idea. I tried to have a talk with him "are you really sure about this?"
They have three kids together. She spends them into financial problems constantly. She has driven drunk to pick up her kids.
Their marriage seems to be barely holding together. I think if divorce wasn't a complete financial non-starter she would have already tried to initiate it. She might do so anyways since she is financially illiterate.
In general I regret not being more forceful that "this is a bad idea". Plenty of marriages that look like good ideas don't even work out. I've never heard of a marriage that looked like a terrible idea turn out to be great. Marriage is hard and failure is more likely than success.
Do you think her prospects for finding a partner will improve if she becomes a single mother of 40 with a decade of stress spent trying to save a struggling marriage? If you believe that is likely to happen and you said nothing, can you count yourself as a friend of this woman?
My younger sister was engaged to a man while she was in medical school. She was doing her residency when he suddenly broke things off with her. Refused to even talk with her. Wedding was cancelled, people had to be told, some things returned. Some non-refundable deposits lost. Thank goodness it was called off though. The social embarrassment seems so minor compared to the suffering that might have taken place had she married that d-bag. He and his new girlfriend had a child about 8 months after he called off the wedding with my sister.
Here are some potential outcomes:
I think you are likely to lose her as a friend as soon as this whole situation started. But I feel the best chances of retaining her as a friend and her not being miserable are the ones where you say something.
Obviously not directly related to OP, but I'm familiar with one instance where this happened. A close family member, single at the time, dropped "you could do better". Still together a fairly happy decade later, notwithstanding the usual ups and downs inherent in any marriage. Said family member is still close, and still single.
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Your extra Hindu appendages are serving you well.
Your place here isn't really to advise, only to support. Both choices (stay, go) seem awful. If you involve yourself too much, you might find yourself getting blamed for the inevitable fallout. I'd say only offer advice if there is a clear path to victory. And leaving this schlub isn't that. The marriage market for 30-something fat women is truly dismal, even if they are able to get laid consistently.
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Because I am given to writing out sprawling anecdotes, let me tell you the story of my friend W.
W had lived in Japan a few years and speaks better Japanese than I do--I who have lived here more than 20 years. He moved, as one does, to Hawai'i, where he worked at UH and did some ocean-involved part-time jobs. He is a natural physical, outdoorsy-type. Smart, quick-on-his-feet, clever, but also competent. Not bookish. He is also blonde and blue-eyed and has a winning smile. This leads to the next point, namely that he got around with the ladies to some degree. He was mostly attracted to Japanese women, possibly because, as Hannibal Lector says, "We covet what we see every day, Clarisse." Anyway he would occasionally come visit us in Japan and tell me the goings on of his life. I met one or two of his girlfriends. One of them I liked a lot, though, like W himself suspected, I didn't think she would be a great wife. He broke up with her. The next girl he dated I did not meet, though I did see photos. In the photos they looked immensely happy hiking up Diamond Head or diving or on some trail somewhere--they always seemed to be outdoors in the pics. They got along famously, he said. She was several years younger than him, but I saw that as only a positive. She was Japanese, she spoke a little English. She met some of his family, and he hers. He proposed, she said yes, they scheduled a date, the date eventually became the day after I received an email from him.
What comes next is the relevant part to your own story. For W suddenly had had a change of heart. Unlike the situation you describe, his conformed more closely to what I have seen as the norm--he had his change of heart because someone else entered the picture. It is my view that in the realm of relationships many of us will tolerate even the most tedious of sameness and irritating behavior as long as we see this person as our lot in life (once married, at least in my mind, this becomes part of the gig--in other words once married part of the job is tolerating the bad.) However even in good relationships among singles, once someone else drifts into the picture--and I mean someone who tickles our fancy, not just a random brunette at Starbucks who smiles, but someone who hits the right buttons--this is when we start thinking of greener pastures, etc. This is true as much for women as men. And this is what happened to W, though he told me this part in confidence. He then asked me for advice as to what he should do, whether he should go through with the wedding, or just end it, as, frankly, everything in his heart was telling him to do. I told him the choice was clear, and that he should break it off. I told him if he didn't he was going to make the poor girl's life hell later on.
And break it off he did. The day before the wedding. He earned his previous fiancee's eternal hatred, and the eternal hatred of her entire family, no doubt. And probably the hatred of many others. And he did not end up marrying the other woman, either (though he did end up getting married a few years later to yet another woman.) I do not know if he regrets his decision, and maybe there's no way of knowing because of the natural tendency to stick to our guns in such cases (sunk-cost, bygones, etc., though I really dislike such neat terms when applied to human relationships). I personally think he did the right thing, though I have no doubt it was traumatic for the girl and her family, and that he deserved their hate and still does. But that's life.
As for your friend, I am not sure that she will listen as closely to you as a man as she might to your wife. Even then, at the end of the day it's going to be trusting her heart, because Woman. That probably sounds and is sexist, but I don't mean it in a hurtful way. I wouldn't think about it too much if I were you, but I'd lay out your views as a friend. That's just me, and how I am. I know many reasonable people who wouldn't do this, who would keep quiet and just be there for the person regardless of what plays out.
Train has arrived, gotta go. Good luck.
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Giving advice to people who should know better is so fraught with danger. From an advice standpoint, I'd encourage you to decide on what you think the truth is, then decide what to share with her based on a portion of the truth which is both shareable and directionally correct. So if there are three factors:
He's pretty terrible
Her current feelings may just be nerves
She maybe can't do better than him
#1 and #3 aren't very shareable, so I'd pick a few related points, weaken point #2 (since the other points have been weakened), and then present that as my perspective.
However, I don't think she needs or even wants advice at all. It sounds to me like she has made a decision that she should cancel the wedding and is now looking for reassurance. What she needs is not specific advice one way or another, but a good discussion with someone who will talk with her, discuss the potential outcomes of her decision, and then say they'll support her whatever her choice.
You could do more, throwing your weight one way or the other, but then whatever your counsel and whatever her decision, it could reflect very poorly on you.
You are right, he just needs to provide help. For the discussion he might ask questions like "why do you want to cancel" and let her give her reasons. He can also emphasize that while canceling has a financial cost it's nothing compared to a divorce.
She might find no one now, but she has more chances than when she will be 10 years older and divorced with children. And losing weight is not that difficult compared to being in a terrible marriage
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