This past week, one of my friends asked for my opinion on taking advice for her marriage from her single friends. And it didn’t take a second for me to give her my two cents on that one. A while ago, I came across an article here at BMWK that caught my attention called Why Singles Should Give Married Friends Relationship Advice. It caught my attention because I truly and honestly believe that this is one of the worst mistakes you can make in your marriage.
So, after I checked out that article, I came across another article on the same site called How To Have A Strong Marriage When You Didn’t See One Growing Up which basically said the exact opposite of the first one! The first piece of advice that this author gave (both articles were written by two different people) was to NOT ask your single friends for advice, which I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with 100%. Why? Because I honestly think asking someone who is single and who has NEVER BEEN MARRIED (I do believe you can get advice from someone who is divorced…basically on what NOT to do) for marital advice is like somebody asking who has only knows how to ride a bike for advice on how to drive a car. Yeah, we both know how to navigate something to get us around, but there is a HUGE difference between riding a bike and driving a car. Just like it is a HUGE difference between someone who has dated to someone who is married.
Now I don’t want all the single folk out their getting in their feelings on some ole “I give GREAT advice!” And guess what? I don’t doubt that you do…just do me this justice and keep giving it to your single friends.
See, a lot of single folk think that marriage is just like being in a relationship, and yeah, technically it is a relationship but ain’t NOTHING realer then marriage. I always tell folk, it’s like the difference between NCAA basketball vs. NBA basketball. Yeah, you’re playing the same game but in college, you may play 35-50 games a year tops. In the NBA you play 82-110 games a year. Guys are stronger, faster and all around better in the NBA. This is why you have a lot of players who were GREAT in college and then they get to the NBA and they’re just aiight and in a couple of years, find themselves outta the league. And it’s the same with marriage. Ever met a couple who were together for years and then they get married and in 8 months they’re divorced? Leaves you scratching your head right? Well, that’s just another example of how dating someone and being married to someone is totally different.
Now, I do think single folk can give their married friends advice like “well, what does the bible or God say about marriage?” or “you need to humble yourself and tell your husband/wife that you were wrong and apologize.” But, I learned a long time ago that you have to be careful who you get advice from period. Whether they’re married or not.
One time when I was in undergrad at Morgan State and I was going through some problems with my girl who was back in Philly, I asked one of my friends who wasn’t in a relationship and basically was just dating different women, for advice. And this dude told me, “forgot about my girlfriend and have fun with all of these women on campus!” Now, if I didn’t have any common sense (which I’ve come to realize that a lot of people don’t have) I would’ve listened to my dude, cheated on my girl and we probably would’ve ended up breaking up. But since I did have common sense, I also chopped it up with another one of my friends who was in the same exact situation I was in (a long distance relationship) and he was able to give me some tips of what him and his girl did to work out their problems with the distance which ended up helping me and my girl.
The moral? Watch who you get advice from. So again, this isn’t a dis to single folk cause there’s a rack of married folk who give HORRIBLE advice too. So don’t read this and walk away with ALL married folk give great advice cause that’s not the name of this article. I’m simply saying that you need to watch who you let in your marriage and who you choose to get advice from. But no matter what, I’m always gonna stand on the fact that married folk shouldn’t go to their single friends for advice because no matter how much great advice they THINK they can give you, they’ve never walked a day in your shoes.
BMWK – what do you think? Can single friends provide good advice to married folks?