Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:You can stop offering advice without being rude about it or making a declaration. If they press you, just say "I really don't know -- I trust you to make good decisions for yourself."
IME, when are in situations like yours, there is often a symbiotic dynamic going on where the person who keeps messing up has come to rely on the other person for support and guidance, and the person providing that support and guidance almost *needs* the other person to be a screw up because it justifies their increasing condescension and superiority. You might bristle at this, but you should ask yourself why you maintain a relationship with someone you think so poorly of.
So I'd disrupt that dynamic. Stop giving advice. Tell them "I'm sure you'll figure it out." Change the subject to a movie you saw recently or the weather or politics or anything that isn't you giving them life advice and them saying "I know I know, you're right" and then not taking it.
Maybe they're married to them.
Kids makes it even more important to acknowledge the role you are playing in a dynamic like this and work on fixing it. NOT fixing your partner, who is who they are, but fixing this dysfunctional dynamic that will never yield anything positive, ever.
Or get divorced. I truly believe it's better for kids to come from a divorced home than one in which the marriage is toxic and dysfunctional, assuming the divorce can enable both partners to actually address their issues. But again, you STILL have to look at your own behavior and make better choices for yourself in this scenario.
This belief you have that it is 100% unilaterally your partner's fault, is in itself part of the problem.
And if you are in a marriage like this, there is even more likelihood that you are 50% to blame for the dysfunctional dynamic because unless you were forced or manipulated into marriage, it is a relationship who have as much control over as the other person. If you are at a point in your marriage where you look at the other person and think "this person is a screw up who makes the same bad choices over and over again and it's my job to tell them to stop even though they don't listen to me," then you need to be taking a looooooong look at yourself and your own choices that have enabled that dynamic to emerge.