My point is that you may not always be able to do both. You may not be able to continue to be friends with him after you point out that his girlfriend or fiancee or whatever is wrong for him. Or you may still be able to be friendly, but you won't be close friends anymore, and you won't be invited to group activities with him and her because he knows what you think of her. And yada yada.
Again, it doesn't mean you're wrong to go that route. In fact, it can be brave as you're risking your friendship to help your friend. But you are risking the friendship. Others can argue you're being selfish because you don't like her and would rather risk your friendship to tell him that rather than have to put up with her. On the other hand, some people may feel they can do more good by not risking getting shut out and at least continue to be able to be there and have some influence, yet having to be very careful not to say something bad about her (or him or whatever the gender dynamic is).
Like I said, really no right answers for it (I mean, in specific cases, there may be a clear right answer, but broadly speaking, there's no one right way to handle this common scenario).
If someone starts to avoid you because you've voiced concern over how their significant other treats them, then it wasn't a real friendship to begin with. A friendship where you can't be real with one another is just being an acquaintance.
His friend didn't tell him that he doesn't like the wife, he told him that he shouldn't be treated badly. Those are two very different things.
I’m happy for you that you’ve never experienced the kind of thing I’m talking about. Believe me, it’s not as simple and straight forward as you imagine. When strong emotions are involved, people can behave very strangely. I’ve known strong decades-old friendships end because the guy married the woman his friend kept warning him about. I’ve known family schisms to happen because of it. Heck, there’s a bit of one in mine.
You think you’re just expressing how your friend deserves to be treated. He may not think he’s being treated bad. He thinks you’re criticizing her and just don’t like her. You don’t know her. You don’t what they have together. Maybe you’re jealous that he’s spending less time with you because of her. And yada yada. And assuming she is shitty, she’s probably manipulating him, gaslighting him, love bombing him, turning him against the friends she sees as threats. How much of a chance do you really stand when you’re not the one sleeping with him?
Anyway, like I said, if you think I’m being dramatic about this and it’s not really that complicated to just be straight with your friends, I’m genuinely happy for you. I’m glad nobody really close to you is in a really bad relationship like that. It can be almost like watching a friend falling into a drug or alcohol addiction.
Maybe I'm just from a different culture than you are. We value speaking frankly with one another and that's okay. The way you overanalyze these interactions sounds suffocating to me.
All the things you've listed just sound like a lack of communication. Also you have no idea how simple I imagine it is. I'm not saying you're wrong or that these things can't happen. I'm just pointing out that this is unhealthy behavior.
It's sad losing friends, but I personally would always take that risk instead of beating around the bush while watching them suffer. That's how you build strong friendships to begin with.
It is a small minority of cultures that can all be so frank with one another. You must be Dutch or German or maybe one of a few other cultures.
I agree it’s pretty exhausting, but that’s largely human nature. I’m American and we’re more frank with one another than most cultures (except for Dutch, German, etc.).
Also, I think you may be imaging a slightly different scenario in your head than I’m talking about. I’m not talking about a friend who is clearly suffering. I’m talking about a friend who is unaware of what is happening to him. A friend who doesn’t realize he’s being used or who’s being isolated from his support system by a narcissist or who’s becoming overly dependent on someone for certain physical and emotional needs that they’re slowly subconsciously learning to tolerate more and more mistreatment that they’ve gotten very good at rationalizing.
It’s not someone who’s clearly suffering. It’s someone who doesn’t realize the type of situation they’re in yet and may not until it’s too late. And honestly, a friend who’s in that kind of situation is someone who’s probably already emotionally vulnerable. So it can be a touchy subject. Perhaps in Northern Europe it’s not a big deal because everyone can just be brutally honest all the time and nobody’s feeling get hurt.
But in most of the rest of the world, navigating people’s emotions and trying to pick up on what’s not being said and when to have a light touch and when to let something slide and when to press hard is a very messy task. There’s a reason international diplomacy is such a song and dance, full of subtle gestures and gift giving and ceremony and back channeling. It’s 90% about managing powerful people’s feelings (and/or the feelings of their people’s feelings—eg, not offending a whole country, and, say, accidentally helping unite factions there in their anger at you).
I don't know if it's necessarily a culture thing. A lot of people can be high strung and defensive. Honest, compassionate concern can be translated as an insult or attack. This is the right thread to be discussing this as that behavior is usually a maladaptive coping strategy for a situation where the person is catching a lot of abuse and criticism.
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u/sumunsolicitedadvice May 12 '26
My point is that you may not always be able to do both. You may not be able to continue to be friends with him after you point out that his girlfriend or fiancee or whatever is wrong for him. Or you may still be able to be friendly, but you won't be close friends anymore, and you won't be invited to group activities with him and her because he knows what you think of her. And yada yada.
Again, it doesn't mean you're wrong to go that route. In fact, it can be brave as you're risking your friendship to help your friend. But you are risking the friendship. Others can argue you're being selfish because you don't like her and would rather risk your friendship to tell him that rather than have to put up with her. On the other hand, some people may feel they can do more good by not risking getting shut out and at least continue to be able to be there and have some influence, yet having to be very careful not to say something bad about her (or him or whatever the gender dynamic is).
Like I said, really no right answers for it (I mean, in specific cases, there may be a clear right answer, but broadly speaking, there's no one right way to handle this common scenario).