Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it

[ImprovedRomeo]

Divinyls! sang "I touch myself" I forgot about that song. Thank God it was a girl who sings it! LOL

So I need to pick your guys (and girls) brains again on something. It's well understood that most guys want to solve problems. Like if a girl told me she was thinking about something or she was having a hardtime with something I would typically jump in with both feet and say "why don't you try xyz or have you looked into such and such?". While I think I'm being helpful all she wanted me to do was say "i'm sorry, that sucks". What's even more surprising is that she would take that as an insult as if I were saying she wasn't capable of handling the situation. I understand that. I used to do this to STBXW like she'd tell me a problem and the next thing that came out of my mouth was a solution as opposed to empathy. Overtime I have tried getting better about it but it feels 'wrong' to not be able to help and just say 'it sucks' well no kidding it sucks, it does, everyone knows it does but what value am I adding by saying 'it sucks'? Can't she just go to her female friends and get the same response?

So how do you 'wiser' guys resist the urge to not make a suggestion? and more importantly what's my clue to chime in with a suggestion? Is it when she specifically says 'can you help me with this problem?'