Reply to A theory about "tough love" friends

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I had a friend who married a guy against all advice. I didn't come right out and say "don't marry him" but asked a lot of questions to see if she really thought he was "the one". They were clearly a bad match. Then the marriage was doomed from the start when they had a miserable honeymoon and dragged on for about a year and a half before ending in divorce. It's hard to listen to someone moan and complain about a situation entirely of her own making that was completely avoidable. It's too taxing to be with friends with someone like that, so, we're not friends anymore.[/quote]

This is the OP and this is a great example of why I don't think tough love friends make sense.

You obviously don't like this woman, do not respect her, and do not think she is capable of making her own decisions. The correct choice is to say to yourself "Wow, I do not like this person, I choose not to be friends with her." Not to pursue a friendship with her that largely involves you doling out "tough love." She wouldn't want to hear it and you would just get mad when she didn't do precisely what you wanted.

Now I can envision a friend for this woman who doesn't sit around judging her relationship and referring to her as moaning and complaining. I can imagine a friend who might not think this is the right guy for her, might even express this out loud, once, but who also respects her friend to make her own choices and is supportive when her friend seems excited about her marriage. After all, this friend might acknowledge to herself that you can't know everything that goes on in someone else's relationship and that this is her friend's decision to make.

This friend might take some time to understand why the woman is drawn to this guy who doesn't seem right for her (what's her past like? what's her upbringing like? does she have self-esteem problems? etc.) and, in trying to understand, have some empathy for the friend. This friend might also have some humility and not that she, too, is imperfect and that mistakes are a part of life and that no one gets everything right all the time. This friend could be there for this woman when she went through her divorce and could turn around and be a good friend in return because she felt loved and supported and respected.

No one needs tough love friends.[/quote]

OP, you've now lost me here. The PP's friend's marriage ended in divorce. Clearly the friend made a bad choice and the PP tried to be nicer with her tough love on the front end, and then on the back end, when the friend just whined and complained about a situation that it sounds like folks tried to warn her about, the PP tired of it. There is a difference between respecting someone's choices and wasting your own time listening to them bemoan their poor choices. I wonder if OP just makes a lot of silly choices so she often finds herself on the receiving end of tough love conversations?[/quote]

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