Friendship Etiquette: Girlfriend, Keep Your Mouth Shut!

Read Giulia’s column from last week about dating etiquette here.

Once (with the emphasis on “once,” as in “not anymore”) I had a friend who was about to get married. Claire and her fiancé were fighting constantly before the wedding over religious differences. I was of the opinion that she was bending over in way too many directions for him. One evening over dinner, as she was complaining for the umpteenth time about some maneuver of his involving clergy she said: “Maybe I shouldn’t marry him.” I jumped right in with: “Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t.” I wasn’t invited to the wedding – which I heard from friends with the ability to keep their mouths shut – was a lot of fun.

To be a good friend means keeping your opinions to yourself, especially when it comes to matters of the heart (though probably when it comes to matters of their new gladiator sandals too, but that’s another post altogether). I serve up a lot of opinions in this space, which probably makes me a bad friend to you, or worse yet, your mother. In fact, I’m much more romantic than the pragmatist I play here. I don’t really believe there are rules when it comes to love – I just can’t help being your mother. I want save you from a little pain based on the wisdom I’ve accrued over years of dating and multiple heartbreaks. I’m hoping that because we don’t really know each other, you will forgive me, or at least take what I say with a grain of salt. I really do mean well, and there is truth in what I write, but there are loopholes, too. But not when it comes to this friend stuff.

In friendship there are rules and this one above all: When she complains about her boyfriend, partner, or husband – zip it. Our role, as friends, is to sit with our counterparts as they struggle with the difficult feelings and questions that relationships always arouse, and to provide companionship and humor if you’ve got them in you. When we attempt to wrap things up by offering our prescription, we’re taking the easy way out. To dole out advice is to lie down on the job. When you give yours, you’re not helping them, but merely reassuring yourself – you’re using your friend’s problem to reconfirm what you think you know. My thoughts about Claire’s situation were colored by the fact that I had recently broken up with a man for whom I had considered converting religions. He ended the relationship (for other reasons), but I was left feeling bitter about how far I had been willing to go for that guy (among other things). I saw my own stretching in Claire and I wanted to stop her. But my experience wasn’t one-size-fits-all. What did I really know about the dynamic between Claire and her intended? Maybe the drama she was having with her fiancé was exactly what she needed. Maybe the struggle over religion gave her power in some other area of the relationship that I knew nothing about. We don’t know what will make us happy, until it finds us. How can we possibly know what will make someone else happy?

Another tenet I hold dear, formed by my own disappointment, is that if you date someone for a couple of years and he still doesn’t know if he wants to marry you, it means he never will. And yet, I’ve seen friends struggle with their boyfriends for near decades only to end up wearing the white dress they picked out in 2004 on the eve of 2010. (Fortunately, that friend forgave me. I’m sorry I couldn’t resist. I’m getting better.) I still think that fighting with your beloved before you even get to the altar because he, unlike you, is squared away with the one true God, spells trouble down the line. But from what I hear,  my ex-friend, her husband, and two children are doing just fine.

Love is beyond reason, miles away from our best judgment and brilliant advice. The best we can do is try to figure out what direction our friend is going in and get on board (which, in itself, may take some divining). If she’s saying yes to love (albeit, while grumbling) then you say yes, too. If she wants to break up you have to be on her side – even if you don’t think her husband is as bad as she’s making him out to be, and you worry about their baby daughter. (Not that I know anyone going through that right now. No, not at all.)

It’s hard to watch our friends suffer, and yet we have no choice if we want to do them a real service, and if we want to remain friends. We don’t have the answers they need. As much as we might think we can make things better for them right away, that’s the easy way out – for us – and it’s of no use to them.

Giulia Melucci is the author of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti.