Blowing The Whistle On Bad Advice

There are a few quips of relationship advice that we've been hearing for YEARS, but they make me cringe because they are so wrong. I am here to set the record straight on these three oft spoken, but toxic pieces of advice:

1. "Never Go To Bed Angry"

Though it sounds so sweet, this is probably the worst marriage advice ever given. The truth is, usually a good night’s sleep alone can solve a lot of problems, or at least make them seem not so bad.

For good reason – people are tired, problems have arisen during the day - a lot of fights between couples happen at night. There is a fear that if they don’t get resolved before going to sleep, the issues will be completely forgotten about in the morning. However, when you decide to try to fight it out, in addition to losing sleep, things start snowballing and it always becomes an even bigger mess that still doesn’t find a resolution. You know what I’m talking about – this has happened at least once to EVERY married person.

The funny thing is, when our kids get crabby and emotional, we can usually identify that most of the problem is just being tired. But, even though the same thing is true for us adults, we can never seem to realize that in the moment when we’re tired and grumpy. Also, problems can never be resolved well when you’re trying to do it quickly to get to sleep, so even if you make-up enough to go to sleep peacefully, you probably won't feel "done" with the issue.

When nighttime fights happen, the best thing to do is just go to sleep. Sleep in separate rooms if you have to, watch TV or read to settle your mind down, or do whatever it takes to get some rest, and then reconsider things in the morning. To prevent your issue from being forgotten about, say “I’m tired and upset right now, but I want to talk about this in the morning.” Or, if you are so upset that you can’t say anything in the moment, then make sure that the next day, rather than walking around making your unhappiness unknown through the silent treatment, you bring the issue back up in a more constructive way.

2. "Always Chase A Criticism With A Compliment", or
    "Sandwich Criticisms In Compliments"

When we have to say something bad to someone, most of us go into the conversation thinking that we will soften the blow by saying something nice along with it. However, we have all been on the receiving end of one of these “You are a good person, BUT…” conversations, and from that perspective we know that the token compliment doesn’t help one bit. Why? Because when someone is criticizing you, your ego defenses go up and you either don’t believe the compliment part or you can see that the person is making a strained effort to make you feel good.

Instead, Precede A Criticism With Compassion.

Compassion is what people really want when hearing bad news – not compliments – because compassion is believable and genuine. Also, it makes them feel like you don’t think badly of them because their shortcomings are, in some way, understandable. When you show some compassion or understanding of the person’s struggle, then those ego defenses go down and people will be more receptive to your criticisms, in addition to not feeling so hurt. Which one of these would you rather hear?:

“You’ve been working hard and I appreciate your effort, but you’re still making mistakes that we need to address. You’re a fast learner though, so it shouldn't continue to be a problem.”

Or

“It's always frustrating for everyone to learn a new job! We all remember how we struggled when we first started here, no matter how hard we tried, and we don’t expect you to know everything right off the bat. So let me help you through this by going over these mistakes.”

3. "Choose To Be Right, Or Be Married"
This one has some truth to it – you do need to choose your battles to have a successful relationship. However, most people don’t realize that two people can both be right without fighting about it. It’s a fallacy to believe that people need to agree on things to be compatible. Rather than either trying to win others over to our way of thinking or hiding our true feelings, we need to learn to just respect differences as nothing more than that – different, but both right.

For example, if you think that extra money should be spent on nice dinners out, but your spouse likes to spend the extra money on clothes, that’s ok! Those are just different priorities stemming from different personalities and different histories, but neither one is necessarily better or worse than the other. Rather than fighting about who’s going to get their preferences met, respect each other and take turns – one month you can eat out and the next month you can go shopping.

Remember what your mom said: Just because something is popular doesn’t make it right!
Even though a lot of people might say something that sounds nice, it’s important to question romantic notions and think about what actually works.