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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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]

OP here. I actually have a lovely life with a wonderful partner and child and a career that is structure exactly the way I want, thank you.

But to get here, I had to make tough choices. Mostly good, though some stinkers. My point is that everyone lives with their own choices. You say it's a waste of time to listen to your friend "bemoan their poor choices." Why? I have never viewed giving a struggling friend a listening ear a waste of time. Sometimes people are struggling a lot, or struggling with something I just can't find a way to understand, and that's a sign to me that I should step back. No one is forcing me into a chair to listen to them complain. But if a friend who is struggling with her relationship or just got a divorce asks if I want to get drinks or a meal, I go in knowing full well that probably some part of that conversation will involve her talking about, even complaining about, what's going on in her life. If I'm not up for that, I can always decline the invite. Or if it becomes one sided, as people have mentioned, where I don't get to talk about my own life, I can just say "Hey, it feels like we talk about your life a lot and I never really get a chance to discuss what's going on with me, and that doesn't feel great." And then we can talk about it.

But at no point to I tell my friend "You need to stop making stupid choices and I'm tired of listening to you complain about them." Because that would be incredibly insensitive. And as I've said, I know what it is to make a mistake and I've appreciated the love and support of friends through those times. I do not view my opinion of my friend's choices, or what I imagine I would do in the same situation (which may or may not be what I'd actually do -- we all overestimate how well we'd live someone else's life) as some final judgment on her life that I need to issue. That's not my job. Love and support. That's friendship.[/quote]

In summary, you just want to be told whatever you do is awesome.  HArdly groundbreaking or worthy of a thread.[/quote]

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