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Wellness Wednesday for September 13, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I'd consider laying out the consequences of getting it wrong. Paint a picture of a bad marriage and downstream consequences (like the opportunity cost of wasting 10 years in a bad relationship, stress/financial impact of divorce, dating as a single mum, dating in your 40's). Balance this out with talk about pre-wedding jitters, what it would feel like to break things off with a 'good guy', could she deal live with her decision. Painting a picture of the consequences of her choice and then avoiding advising her on which choice to make could be a path here while avoiding saying anything about her partner directly (which you can never take back and will cloud your future friendship if this guy stays in the picture). Telling her 'I can't make this choice for you' with a concerned look on your face would be advised. Heck, you could even go mask off and say 'I can't tell you which choice you should make because I've seen friendships ruined over things like this'.

Regarding the last part I have seen friendships ruined over things like this. I knew two guys when I was younger (still do). They were best friends. One guy had a long term (8+ years) partner who was an overweight, lazy, emotionally manipulative woman who others in our friendship circle disliked. Upon hearing that the boyfriend was going to propose, his friend decided to intervene and had a heart to heart discussion over alcohol (which is the culturally appropriate way of having these sorts of talks between men where I come from). The friend said he was making a mistake and that this girl was not right him. This went about as well as you'd expect. Their friendship was fractured and they didn't speak for several years. The boyfriend ended up breaking up with the girl and eventually settling down with a different girl (who was also overweight, an 'actress' in her local drama troupe, with no career to speak of). The friends eventually mended their friendship after several years, but it was never as close or as strong as it was. In this case the friend's advice was unsolicited and we have no idea if it impacted on the boyfriend's decision to break up with his partner.

I think if your friend has any maturity she will understand why you frame your advice so as not to cast judgment on this guy.