How Do You Tell Your Friend She’s Screwing Up Her Love Life Without Ruining the Friendship?
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“It’s not that you’re single for every reason we’re going to suggest. You’re not picking fights and being jealous and being sexually timid and hanging on to past hurts and hung up on your looks. At least we hope you’re not. But everything you’re going to read about is something we’ve seen — in ourselves, in our friends, in relative strangers, and in all the stories that those people have told us over and over (and over) again. These are observations that hatched over beers, in emails to grieving friends, in pained conversations with people we want to date or are dating or have dated, or, occasionally, in the shower. We’ve done this stuff. We are this stuff.”
So what do you do with a friend, a sister, or a colleague who is running her love life off a cliff? I don’t know. What do you do with a smoker who is headed towards lung cancer? A partier who is due for a D.U.I.? A slacker who will get fired if he keeps showing up late to work?
Really, not much. You can point out the resources available to him/her under the guise of love and concern. But ultimately, people do what they want to do when they want to do it. Sometimes it takes a scary doctor’s appointment. Sometimes it takes a rough breakup. Sometimes it takes a New Year’s resolution. Invariably, it takes a major change of heart – one that embraces, rather than shuns, responsibility for one’s problems.
From what I can ascertain, help can’t be given as a gift. A person has to hit bottom in order to facilitate her own change.
If your friend is open to the possibility that she is the common denominator in not just her successes, but her failures as well, then we can probably have a productive conversation. Please have her call me.
Thanks so much for asking.
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4 Comments »Filed Under Communication
mrs. vee 1
Elise
I read your letter and two admonishments immediately sprung to mind: 1) A girl has to kiss a few frogs before she finds her prince. and 2) You have to let your friends make their own mistakes.
Youre obviously frustrated on behalf of your friend, and that shows you care for her. However, the examples you cite to establish that shes in dire need of intervention somehow failed to convince me she was a train wreck. You say shes not brilliant, could use some hobbies, isnt always the life of the party, and has suffered through a string of poor dating choices that left her scarred. Well, you just described a large percentage
of the adult single female population. In fact, Id say nearly every female I know, myself and my 90-year old grandma included, would describe her own early dating history as a string of bad choices. What better tool for learning to recognize Mr. Right (when he does appear) than plain old trial-and-error?
To be honest, it seemed condescending and vaguely mother hennish of you to even consider saying switch up your personality. Theres no one right way to be when out with a man. She could perhaps be a little more relaxed, more positive on dates, but the onus isnt on her to become somebody completely different in the hopes of attracting a mate. Her job is to be the absolute best of herself so that she will attract the most compatible partner.
Since I seem to be trafficking in old adages today, theres also this one that springs to mind: For every pot, theres a lid. Perhaps your dearest friend has simply yet to find hers. Compatibility is elusive,
requiring more luck than skill. It cant be manufactured by anything we DO. A girl can be doing everything right and still all she can do is wait to meet the guy who will respond to her particular charms…who will be equally good for her as well.
In the meantime, if you really want to be supportive, be patient with her. Help her recognize the lessons to be learned from her past dating blunders. Then, focus most of your energies on creating fun times and letting her know shes important to you. Because in doing so, you will indirectly be giving her the confidence to say no to the next bad-news boy who comes along.
BeenThruTheWars 2
Hi, Elise. I like Mrs. Vee’s advice about encouraging your friend to be her best self so that she will attract a compatible partner. True love is when two flawed people get together and consistently bring out the best in each other; or putting it another way, we all have baggage, so the trick is finding someone whose baggage is compatible with yours.
My question, reading your letter, was why are you pushing your friend so hard toward JDate? What about speed dating, or singles parties, or dining out groups, or a mixed bowling league, or a dating or matchmaking service, or synagogue-related groups, or a political group, or woodworking classes, or volunteer organizations, or… etc. etc. etc. What has her luck been like meeting men in the wild?
Any given website should only be “one line in the water.” The fishies are all around us! I know a dating message board where the gals refer to guys they meet via online dating sites as “lobsters”… as having their picture and profile up is like leaving a lobster trap in the water. Every morning, you log on and check for lobsters. Meanwhile, your friend should be getting out there, doing all manner of things both to expand her interests (which in turn will make her a more interesting person), make other friends of both sexes, and incidentally while she’s at it, maybe meet “The One” (although that shouldn’t be her sole focus).
You may SUGGEST all these things to her… once. Twice, tops. But the pushing and nagging in the name of “loving her like a sister” has got to stop, Elise. Why? Because it doesn’t work, as you’ve obviously found. And also because you will risk alienating her.
Evan was partly right when he said the first step of 12-step programs is admitting there’s a problem. Here is the language AA uses:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Substitute “our best friend’s love life” for “alcohol,” and you’ve got the crux of it. YOU ARE POWERLESS OVER YOUR BEST FRIEND’S LOVE LIFE. You can’t control it, Elise; well, you can BE controlling and pushy and an imperious know-it-all if you like, but that’s your personality flaw, not hers. And if you don’t knock it off or at least find a gentler and more loving and empathetic approach, your lovely friendship is going to become unmanageable. No one likes people telling them what to do all the time when they haven’t asked. After a while, “loving advice” turns into nagging, which can turn into codependency, which will then take you (if you’re lucky) into a 12-step meeting for real to find some serenity again. (The tone of your letter is anything but serene!)
That said, I, too, have single friends who seem to be beating their heads against the wall over the lack of quality men/relationships they’re experiencing. When they are through kvetching, I ask them, “Would you like me to just keep listening or do you want some constructive advice?” When they have felt heard… when THEY open that door… then I can offer my comments and encouragement. Try this sometime and see if you get a better reception. Otherwise, your well-intentioned words will only be so many muffled cries through the solid core, 4-panel oak.
Flower White 3
I have just cut off a female friend who, for the last five-FIVE years has used us, her friends, as a springboard to complain about her dysfunctional relationship how she had a bad boyfriend and was screwing up her love life
Every phone call and convo- no matter how much we asked her not to- she’d start in about Mr.Wrong- hewho told her to take it or leave it. Yup it appears as Mr.Wrong has the most sense about relationships. Finally I unfriended her on FB and deleted her number.
A 50 year old woman whining about a bf for five years? Very tired.
I did my best to fix her advised her to visit this site buy Evan’s books, etc.
She chose to stay stuck. I made my choice.
Please save the comments saying that I’m a fair weather friend.
I believe she was a toxic friend.
AS 4
It’s hard when you care about someone and you can see their errors, and all you want to do is give them a good shake and talking too! In the past I have had a few situations where I wanted to tell a friend something so she could make improvements and get a better result. The way I did it was by saying that I used to have x problem and I did x to resolve it, have you ever been in that situation? And of course it all depends on how the conversation evolves from that point. Fortunately the penny dropped for my friend – good luck! But the key point that Evan makes – if the person is not willing to acknowledge that she may be the one with the problem, then all the help in the world is going to full on deaf ears.