What to do when their friends suggest leaving?

[Bummedout]

Bummedout,

If we have serious enough problem to mention it to our "friends", a good friend will give good advice.

Hey DSL,
Yea, that's what people would tend to think, but the problem is, that for the most part, it isn't true. That was actually the crux of the article I gave her from this website.

Yea, it's true and I agree with you that friends who "don't want to hear it" need to be re-evaluated and might not be all that great a friend as we thought.

The REAL problem though IS the "good friends" They mean well. They will listen. The problem is, and again this is one of, if not THEE most important point the article about friends advice here on this website points out.

"Good" Friends who listen want to make you happy. They will try to key on what you think will make you happy. They tend to want to help you remove things that make you 'unhappy" from your life.

If my wife decides I am the source of all the problems, and relays that to her friends, well meaning or not, they'll tend to support her "getting rid of" whatever is making her unhappy.

These threads are FILLED with stories of people who thought they were unhappy with their spouses. Many, maybe even most times, it turns out their spouses weren't the problem at all.

But at the time that is who they blamed . . . to their friends . . .who advised them that "maybe divorce is best" or "maybe you should try a trial separation" or "maybe you should get out and date."

That's human nature, as it turns out. Read the article, it makes sense. And that DID factor into my divorce a decade ago. My ex DID listen to her friends. She DID leave me. She DID start dating. She DID Divorce me. And yes, later, she DID realize she had made a mistake, and she DID want to come back, but by then it was too late.

So . . .anyone who isn't at least interested in discussing and exploring possible ways of mitigating this damage is sticking their heads in the sand. Sometimes there will be truly nothing we can do about it. But not every time. I refuse to believe that. Sometimes there may well be something we could do to help a little.

That's all I wanted here for now, and it's cost me getting called all sorts of rather despicable things. Oh well, I have a pretty thick skin, and in the face of blatant disrespect, a fairly acerbic sense of wit . . . that I don't often get to use. There is always a bright side!