This is definitely true, however it’s not a one size fits all type thing, it’s always going to be relative to the situation. Also how you give the advice… is it descriptive or prescriptive?

Recently my friend was dating a girl who was extremely manipulative toward him. She had a habit of intentionally breaking down his confidence (consciously or subconsciously I’m not sure… but it was definitely in someway intended to break down his self esteem). Things like telling him he’s dumb, weak, ‘not man enough’ etc. she had a clear habit of manipulating his behaviour so she could have more control over him - for instance coming up with ridiculous reasons to keep him from leaving the house when she was away. She’d frequently ask him to give her a lift and pick her up from things (using her car, which just made zero sense). Once she was away for a weekend seeing her family and she told him he had to stay home the whole weekend to look after their cat (even though they had two other housemates who were perfectly capable of feeding it)… she would chastise him for every tiny little thing (like arriving home to an un-vacuumed floor or an un wiped bench). She also frequently threatened to leave him over tiny arguments she started out of thin air over complete non issues and would disappear to random people’s houses for the weekend without telling him (many occasions it was another guys house), then she’d just roll back home and act like nothing ever happened… typical manipulative behaviour. I saw his confidence slowly deteriorating over time, I also saw him constantly stressed over the perpetual arguments she started and refused to resolve.

I was torn between letting it play out or intervening. I spent a long time deliberating on whether I should leave him to make his decisions or just tell him straight out to end it and move on (also by the time I knew what was happening, he’d already dug himself in quite deep and separating would’ve been very hard for him so I really just didn’t know was was the best way to provide support as a friend honestly, she also convinced him that it was bad faith to tell other people about relationship issues so he was often scared and reluctant to confide in anyone from fear that she would find out he was telling other people about their relationship issues). In the end I decided I wasn’t going to intervene until I saw really serious and obvious life changing problems occurring.

It even went so far that she convinced him to buy a home in her home town and have the sale managed by her father who was a real estate agent. It was a terrible investment, and due to her propensity for manipulative/controlling behaviour I was pretty certain she did it so he would be more attached to her, given her dad who was the real estate agent managing the sale and rental tenants too. The house wasn’t even in the same state as him. Neither of them had plans to live there, the plan was to rent it out and pay the mortgage from the rent income, but they were sinking money renting in the state they were actually living in, so I don’t see how any costs were being offset with this plan… anyway it was just dumb.

All of her behaviour from the outside looking in it was quite obvious she was putting him in scenarios which made it very hard for him to leave her if things turned sour… she had a bad fear of abandonment, every one of her friends believed she had bpd (apparently she was diagnosed as a kid and it seemed she refused to acknowledge it, to me it looked like text book bpd… fear of abandonment, manipulating loved ones into situations where they can’t leave etc… so I was pretty certain this was the case).

The first time he confided in me about their arguments I could see exactly where their relationship was likely headed. My instinct was to tell him he should get the hell out of it before things turned worse, however I chose not to because I felt it was a situation which he needed to learn from himself, and it’s just not my place to tell him how he should be managing his personal relationships and investments. I decided to let it play out so he could see for himself where it would lead because he needed that learning experience for himself. If I just took the liberty of making decisions for him, I’d be robbing him of the chance to learn from experience which would not result in any personal growth for him… and also there’s an infantilising element too, because I’m not his dad, he’s not a child either, there’s just so many reasons why I shouldn’t have got involved in his decision making. I’ve come to realise there’s a good reason why society believes it’s rude to ask questions about another’s financial and relationship situations.

Anyway, the relationship inevitably blew up and as it crumbled I only gave him my opinions only in a descriptive way to help him make sense of it and come to his own conclusions so he could make his own decision instead of giving him advice in a prescriptive way. I felt it was better to just be there for support and perspective because it’s his life and he needs to learn these lessons on his own.

There was also the worry that he could think I was trying to sabotage his relationship if he didn’t believe my opinion. It was obvious he couldn’t see what was going on, so there was a high chance he wouldn’t believe me. There was also the chance that my judgement was incorrect too, because I don’t know the entire story first hand… so who am I to just jump in and tell him what’s what?

Giving friends advice is very tricky and we can’t take the same approach in every situation. If a friend has a habit of highly reckless driving for instance, it would be much better to tell them straight away to stop because their lesson could result in death or serious injury, it could also result in injuries for other people. There’s no one size fits all rulebook for giving advice to friends, and I think it takes a lot of deliberation when it comes to our decisions in these scenarios.

I think in a most situations (especially financial or relationship related), it’s best to stay out of it unless the friend specifically comes to you asking for direct advice. It’s also important to be wary of giving descriptive vs prescriptive advice too when they seek advice. I think overall, unless the decision can result in serious life/death ramifications I think it’s best to leave it up to the other person. People can only grow if they go out and learn directly from experience… when we intervene we rob them of that opportunity to learn and gain wisdom.

Edit: grammar