Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / November 2007

In fact, part of what you said above is the exact point I've been
trying to make, and that is that simply offering an opinion, with no
support, is rather useless.  But when an opinion can be backed with a
logical argument, or with data, or both, then that argument has a lot
of value to me, even if I choose to hold a different opinion.  But
that doesn't have anything to do with how it's delivered, or who
delivers it.  I trust opinions to the degree they're supported.

I will concede that my 'doctor' analogy isn't a good one on all
levels, but it was only offered to make a single, narrow point, and
that is that I regard the degree to which someone sympathizes with me,
or is concerned about my feelings as not only irrelevant, but
potentially counter-productive.  I don't want to have to guess what
they're trying to say, and I don't want to be patronized.  Where the
doctor analogy doesn't fit is the case of expert opinions.  In that
case, the relative competence of the expert is most assuredly
relevant.

As to your questions, you still seem to be trying to zero in on how
advice is delivered, and not by whom it's delivered.  I'll repeat that
this was not my point to Cait.  My point then, and still remains, is
that when we're in a situation where we don not know, in advance,
which advice is the better advice for us, then any advice that is more
in keeping with that which we are predisposed to want to hear is bound
to seem more understanding than advice which is contrary to what we
want the hear.  Let's go back to your hypothetical case of
cheating......

OP: "My DH doesn't understand me, and no longer pays any attention to
me, and I feel very lonely, and I need the affection that I think my
coworker is willing to give me, and I'm think of having an affair with
him.  Do I go for it?"

R1:  "Well, you deserve every happiness, and your DH sounds like a
real a.s, and if he wanted to keep you he should've paid more
attention to you.  I've been where you are, and I know how long and
painful a lonely life can be, and as long as you can live with
yourself for doing whatever you choose to do, only you can know what's
right for you.  I had a fling years ago, and while I'm not proud of
it, my DH drove me to it, and it was the escape I needed at the time"

R2:  "If you want to have a relationship with another man, then have
that relationship, but then you should have the balls to tell you DH.
You made a promise to him to be faithful to him, and to unilaterally
withdraw that promise which still letting him believe that you're
being faithful to it is lying, and cheating, and unethical.  And
what's more, none of any of that solves any problems in the long term
anyway.  While you have a reason to leave the relationship, there is
no reason to lie about it."

There's no question that R1 'seems' to understand OP's situation
(BTDT) much better than R2, and there's no question that R1's advice
is more palatable to receive, given the fact that OP is considering
cheating, than R2's.  But should either of those really be taken into
consideration?   My point is that there is nothing R2 can say that
will ever seem more 'sympathetic' or 'understanding' than what R1 has
to say because R1 if giving OP a green light.  Even if R2 were to be
much more tactful, if R2 had never lead a lonely life, and had never
cheated, you could always make the case that R1 is more sympathetic,
and more understanding, and therefore, according to your position,
would be the advice you'd me more likely to 'trust'.

And that's what I mean about a self-fulfilling prophesy.  If I were
the OP, I would most definitely want advice from both sides, but in
this case, I think I'd 'trust' R2 more.  R2 is making a compelling
case by raising issues of ethics for which I have no good answer, and
R1 seems to believe that being supportive is all about supporting my
predispositions.  In fact, under the category of misery loves company,
I could even make a case that if R1 was in the same place, and did
cheat, then R1 would have a vested interest in the OP choosing to
cheat (i.e., the more people who do it, the less wrong it must be).

Or you might mistakenly think that objective advice is meant as a kick
in the pants just because it feels that way.  What if we thought that
bad tasting medicine was meant to taste bad as a punishment for being
sick?  And what if we thought that good tasting medicine was meant to
taste good so that we'd take it?  We'd always take the good medicine
and never take the bad medicine.  That's OK, except of course, if the
bad tasting medicine was actually much better for us.

I have no idea what that means.  What evidence?

You seem to looking at this as though there's a way to know, in
advance of evaluating them, which advice is the better advice, and
that a premeditated choice is being made to accept the inferior advice
simply because it's being delivered more kindly.  I think that misses
the mark.  My point is that given two differing opinions in which it's
not at all clear which is the better choice, then we've got to
evaluate each, and that this evaluation should not be based upon which
seems more kind, or seems more sympathetic, or seems more
understanding because it's just too easy to come to the conclusion
that advice which is more in keeping with our predispositions about
what we'd like to hear will always seem more kind, sympathetic, and
understanding than advice which is contrary to our predispositions.
It's human nature, and has nothing at all to do with motivations.