Beech Tree News Network

People who think they’re going to keep others from making the same mistakes they themselves made just by telling others about their own situation and warning them not to go down the same path they took are delusional.  Nobody is going to listen to your warnings, not when it comes to personal relationships, anyway.  Nobody is going to listen for one reason and one reason only: everybody thinks their situation is different. 
    If you see one of your friends or family headed for a train wreck, I understand the instinct that wants to stop them.  The reason you won’t be able to is because your friend or family member believes he or she is privy to information or insight that you, looking from the outside in, can’t see.  While you are telling them about all of the pitfalls that lie ahead if they proceed in the relationship with the alcoholic cross-dressing white supremacist ex-convict, they might appear to be listening, but what they are really doing is mounting arguments in defense of the relationship: he’s really going to try this time, he’s different than everybody thinks he is, just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it will happen to me. 
    The bottom line about giving relationship advice is that you should never give relationship advice.  You can give financial advice: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  You can give gardening advice: plant the Crowder peas twelve inches apart so they’ll have room to vine out.  You can give shopping advice: Hot Topic has a huge sale on Star Wars boxer shorts this week.  But save your breath when it comes to advising people on relationships.
    I read once that when your friends or family members come to you complaining about their significant others, they don’t want you to fix it, they just want you to feel it.  Well, I’m going to tell you that I have felt just about all I want to feel about other people’s relationships for one life time.  I have reached the point where I pretty much tell everybody the same thing: only you know how much you are willing to put up with.  If it’s a really close friend, I might throw in the Vulcan blessing, “Live long and prosper,” but that’s about the extent of my advice these days.
    I have a friend, on the other hand, who thinks we can all benefit from her advice (she is not from this area or this state even).  It usually starts with, “I know, because I’ve been there.”  You know what?  She has been there.  She started with countless trial and error boyfriends before she married her first husband, who was mostly error.  She divorced him sometime around the time her youngest child was six.  She went through eight more years of yet another bunch of trial and error boyfriends before she married her second husband.  She lived with him for twelve years before divorcing him.  She has finally decided to get two dogs and forget about men completely.
    I fail to see why anybody would want to take her advice on relationships, except for the dog part.  If she tells you to get a dog, you should probably listen.  So, I guess what I’m saying is we all need to let our friends and family make their own mistakes and learn the lessons they need to learn, even though it’s hard to watch.  You can always get them a dog.  It’s hard to go wrong with a dog.