A good friend has been asking me for relationship advice as of late. I'm not sure that I'm the best person to ask, but ironically, a lot of my friends ask me for relationship advice. I'm thinking it's because they figure I've made every mistake known to man when it comes to relationships, and therefore, I can definately steer them away from the mistakes. I mean seriously if you've always been in a marriage that the two people have worked it out and nothing has ever been truly heinous how would you give advice to someone who has been divorced, re-navigating the single life, and trying to mesh all of the ups and downs of kids, dating, and exes in the same mix? Watching from outside a bubble isn't the same as experiencing it and living through it. Like a college course, we can read the textbook, but the real life application is often way, way different. I'm a big advocate for counseling and lots of great counselors don't have the life experiences that the people they counsel have. However, great counselors are usually great listeners and facilitators. They don't really give advice or tell you what to do so much as listen and ask you what you think you should do. But that's not what friends ask friends for. (Not usually anyway.) They want advice on how to approach a certain situation, and they want the best advice from the person with the most understanding of the possible outcomes.
Two problems with outcomes prediction when dealing with relationships: One, no, and I mean NO, two people are exactly alike. What might work in one relationship might not work in another even if both relationships had one of the same parties. My ex-husband and his wife have been together for about 17 years, but she's very, very different from me. She puts up with stuff I simply would not and she does things that I definately wouldn't. I'm not a cheater and I won't put up with cheating. Their relationship seems to work though, and no one can fault that. Two, no one is ever 100% predicatable. I've had to deal with my ex for years for our boys. He most of the time isn't that shocking. I can predict his behavior most of the time just from the years that we were together. Not much has changed, but every so often, he'll throw me for a loop and generally in a positive way. He's matured over the years and that is always refreshing.
Of course, the other thing that I seem to have a lot more experience with is men in general. My best friends growing up were guys. My oldest and dearest friend is a guy. I'm on the short list if anything happens to him that his wife is supposed to be able to depend on to help her anyway we can. That makes me unique compared to most women. I've often had an insight into the guys that other women never get. But since most of my closest friends are women, I often get tagged for advice because I can see their points of view and the guys' points of view. Let's clarify for a second...that doesn't mean I have a clue when it comes to myself. It's super easy to give good advice when you have nothing invested yourself. I can chase my tail around like it's going out of style when it comes to my own relationship problems.
So a friend asked me for help--mainly to listen--to what is going on with a guy she's been sort of dating. Sort of is the whole this is what I want, supposedly what he wants, and yet it's not progressing the way it should or that she wants or both. Well, for one, men are not near as ridiculous as we (women) are. They're pretty simple. They are either thinking on something (which is another way of saying that they aren't actually thinking on it) or they have made up their minds. Women like to talk stuff out, make sure that they have made the right decision, are making the right decision, and have an idea where it's all going. Men, nope. They are generally not talking about it. They often prefer not to think about it. And, and this is big, if they are talking about it, it is only with one, maybe two, of their most trusted friends or family members. That's it. They make up their minds and that might be a done deal. Or not. But they don't usually care about a lot of reassurances that they are making the right decision--unless you're one of the trusted confidants. So has he made a decision on whether or not they should be dating. Hard to tell. He seems to be moving slower than a snail sliding uphill in a rainstorm.
Next, she has another guy that has started showing interest. Well, ok. That's a good thing. No need to sit around waiting for weeks on end for this guy to "poop or get off the pot" as my Grams would say. Of course, from a woman's perspective, she should wait. That's often what we women do. Wait. Wait. Wait for it. Wait. Nothing screams that a man has you on a leash more than you sitting home waiting on him to make a decision. Women, lots of my friends over the years anyway, have asked me whether to go out with some new guy while they've been "working" on dating with this guy, but he just doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind. Here's the thing. I often have friends wonder why some sleezy woman seems to have more options, guys dump them or choose the sleezy, sleeping around women over good women. It's because she's not waiting on his butt to come back to her and he knows it. Guys don't wait generally. When a woman tells them she's thinking on it, he's out with his friends and if an opportunity affords itself, he will probably be going out on that date. Yes, even if he has his heart completely set on you. He's not going to wait forever on you. So if it's clear what you want and he knows it, then time to get off the pot and see what other options are out there. Not because you don't have your heart set on this or that, but because: one that option may never come to fruition and two you don't need to seem like you're waiting on him. If you're waiting, he might just leave you there waiting forever.
Now, I'm not really the one with a lot of experience in the marriage or long term commitment department. But truth is most of my happily married friends all have one thing in common--even the ones that don't "seem" to share everything. Their spouse (this counts whether male or female) is their best friend. This takes a couple of ingredients and how important each of those ingredients is depends highly on the two individuals involved. Here goes: 1. Attraction. Sorry but if someone isn't attracted to you ever or anymore, they wander. That doesn't mean that you gained weight and will lose the person--it means that when they look at you, you are still as amazing to them today as you were yesterday or 20 years ago. They see the person they fell for in the first place. 2. Friendship. The relationships that are the happiest have the best communication. Guys that can listen seem to do the best, because women like to talk. But that's twofold. Couples that can talk about anything do the best. Couples with a lot of secrets usually don't do well. Sometimes there are things that you just don't need to tell a man and vice versa, but that really depends on the couple. 3. Trust. Trust is the breaker. You'll never make someone trust you or vice versa. It's something that two people have to give each other. Some people reach a point, especially after bad break ups, that they just can't seem to give trust to anyone else. They're a lost cause until they can trust again. Plus trust is relative. Some people need more than others--not sure how it works for people that might be swappers or stuff like that since I distance myself if I know people are like that. However, I've seen them make it through times that would've broken others. Just the swapping thing would be a deal breaker for me, so as previously stated, trust is very relative to the two people involved also.
My friend has communication and trust and attraction (definately on her part and most likely on his), but with this hanging over her head, the communication is breaking down. With communication breakdown, trust may or may not be a problem, but they are friends. Trust is already established. The longer he makes her wait, the less trust she'll have. There'll just be a point where they'll have enough trust to be friends but never anything more. That's one of those things that men don't seem to understand. I'm always amazed at my guy friends that don't "trust" another guy friend not to try and date their girlfriend or wouldn't trust the guy to pay him back $100 he borrowed or wouldn't trust him with a key to his house, but hey, he's a great friend otherwise. (OK, I'll admit it, I do this with my friends too, because I've spent way too much time with guys.) But most women, we don't do that. Trust broken is trust over. That doesn't mean the friendship is over, but a best friend, well, for a woman that takes a lot more trust than a casual friend. This is how guys that could've been more than friends or were more than friends end up in what they call the dreaded "friend zone". Some men just shoot themselves in the perverbial foot without even realizing it.
What do I think of her situation? I think he's being a putz. He's decided that he has all the time in the world or he'd already have told her. It might be that he wants someone else, isn't ready, or doesn't care. It might be he's scared or he's indifferent. It might be that he thinks she can do better than him and thinks that if he leaves well enough alone she'll find someone better or someone else or give up on him. He's still acting like a putz. I'm not friends with the guy, or if he asked, I'd tell him so. Yes, I have guy friends that ask my advice. They ask me what I think and I have to draw enough information out of them to formulate an opinion usually. If he told me that it had been two weeks since they talked about dating and it was a pretty in depth conversation, I'd tell him "poop or get off the pot", stop acting like a chicken, or let her go, depending on what he volunteered or I could drag out of him. Either way, I'd tell him that he's being a putz, and apparently after she reads this, I've told her too.
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