There are times when you can learn as much from bad advice than good advice when it comes to marriage relationships and affairs. The problem is that the bad advice is often packaged as ‘good advice’.
Mis-packaging advice leads you in the wrong direction with good intentions. Although much of the bad advice is well-intentioned, poison is still poison.
The poison in this case doesn’t come with a warning label. There’s no “Mr. Yuk” for relationship poison. Recognizing the lack of warning labels, I thought it would be helpful to share my list of bad relationship advice.
- Getting marriage counsel from the unmarried. Although this seems obvious, there are still many of you who fall for this oldest mistake in the book. If someone is not married, or ever been, they don’t fully grasp many of the relationship issues involved with marriage.
- Anything is OK in the name of love. This is advice that sounds nice on the surface. That nice appearance hides the dangers it brings. I can’t tell you the number of wives who got sucked into swinging and other acts just because someone put the name of love on it.
Bad behavior is still bad behavior, even when you put good intentions behind it. The truth is not everything is OK, whether done out of love or hate.
- Putting yourself in the place of God. Many self-help gurus out there encourage you to be the master of your fate and do what is right for you. The problem is that this leads to selfishness and poor decision making. When you become the judge of what is right and wrong, it becomes based on what makes you feel good and not what is morally right or wrong. This approach elevates emotions over objectivity.
- Consistently use vulgar language. Although this is not often stated as advice, it is role modeled. Consider the modeling done by self-help gurus and Hollywood movies. How often is using vulgar language modeled as an ‘acceptable’ way of dealing with others?
My experience is that vulgar language disrupts relationships rather than heal them. Using such terms breaks patterns in an unhealthy manner.
- Considering Trust an analog process. When trust is viewed as an analog process, it’s either there or it isn’t. This gives little to no room for trust to grow. It amounts to your marriage being a living ultimatum you give your spouse.
It’s my hope that the list starts you thinking through some of the bad advice you’ve let creep in. It may come from those you trust.
Once the corruption of bad advice starts creeping in, it brings relationship rot.
If you need help in moving past the relationship rot and bad advice, consider joining the Restored Lifestyle site. There you’ll find proven techniques for healing you and your relationships.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
