Why do people ask relationship advice from people who are in failed relationships or who have had a number of failed relationships?

Because, for the most part, it’s really hard to find someone that’s actually successful at relationships. And those who are “successful” often have their own issues – for example, your grandparents may have been together for 50 years, but if divorce wasn’t an option for them like it is for you and they can’t stand each other and have a really toxic relationship, it makes no sense to take their advice.

People who can’t maintain a relationship tend to have more, and are perceived as experienced. That would be my guess . . . people in “long working relationships” are rare, too.

You may find that there are people who have had many relationships. They are successful at attracting others. They are successful at finding companions. They are successful at building romances. And they are equally successful at letting them go when they run their course and moving on. Longevity is NOT necessarily a measure of success. It could just as easily be a measure of cowardness, laziness or a measure of quiet desperation.

You can also learn a lot about relationships from the mistakes you make in them.

Of course, there are simply people you shouldn’t take relationship advice from. If you’re asking why people keep going back to these people for advice…I would say they’re just very…very stupid.

I was thinking of a friend of mine who kept taking relationship advice from an aunt of hers who was divorced twice and dumped at least 3 times after living with a guy for a year or two. She was a very nice person with everyone else but she was always too pushy in her relationships and always expecting them to go sour so she would hurry it along.
Anyhow, I remember my friend always taking her crappy advice. I recently found her face book account and found out she has been divorced twice as well and her contempt for men is very evident.
She sounded so unhappy and sour.
@Joybird True, longevity is not a measure of success but neither is being in a hundred relationships that end poorly.
I’m just saying. If I wanted to learn to bake a cake the right way, I wouldn’t ask the one person who has all their cakes lopsided, burned or concaved.
But I guess if you want advice on attracting than such a person may be helpful, but to ask such a person how to maintain a relationship just doesn’t make sense.

If it’s someone who’s learned as they’ve made mistakes and they’re able to pass along some pointers to avoiding their pitfalls then to me that’s valuable. I also agree with @Joybird that longevity doesn’t tell the whole story all the time.

@Neizvestnaya I remember my friends aunt always laying out all the pit falls. She and I didn’t get along because I thought her pointers where more excessive negativity towards all males. Never did see how expecting someone to fail you would benefit your relationship. She called it being realistic, I called it setting yourself up for failure. My friend started to be paronoid about every relationship.
Funny enough her parents were the perfect picture of a long and loving relationship.
But she thought her parents were not hip and her aunt was. So the aunt won out for advice to follow.

@Pandora Of course we can find a dozen examples of people who support our position. But what if I was to say I had dated at least 100 men before I married and had a number of relationships of some duration that ended because of external circumstances that really had little or nothing to do with the relationship itself (such as family moves, death, going into the service or job transfers during a time to early to make a life long commitment)? These kinds of ending do happen in life. Some people cling. Other people date and let go of what doesn’t work for them. Some people use their interpersonal knowledge and accept the risks of dating whomever they please. There are no guarentees in relationships. And some people don’t adhere to the social norms and dating paradigms of this culture. They live with potential and possiblity…not limitation. I would not consider any of my “cakes” to be lopsided….but people do get sick of eating carrot cake all the time….and that means you switch over to vanilla for a time….and then maybe chocolate….and after that….maybe a fruitcake. There is nothing that says living with vanilla your whole life is success even if your cake looks perfect for all basic purposes.

@Joybird wow, you really make longevity sound terrible. It can be a beautiful thing. just sayin

@Pandora: For years I dismissed anything my mother had to say since she never attempted to even date after her 2nd divorce but 20 years later she has opened up to me and given me some wonderful insight she could only have come to from reflection, maturity and experience. I see her with new eyes, you can say.

Many time I’ve heard people say if your haven’t experienced it, you can’t possibly know what it’s like. I don’t happen to believe that. I believe we can learn from the experience of others as well as our own, and give some relevant insight.

@Joybird I was using this as an example because I was looking to bake a cake not build a bridge.
What I mean is the the question I am asking is in reference to someone looking for a long and good relationship. I wasn’t asking about a person who was not looking for a long relationship.
Then my question would’ve been answered. They asked the people in the bad relationship because they never had any intention in entering a long relationship.
If I wanted to be a player, I would ask a player. Not Grandma who has been happilied married for 60 years.

@Joybird I’m sorry, carrot cake and fruitcake? Are you out of your freaking mind? Why would you date someone who you compared to carrot cake or fruitcake? I mean, maybe a flourless double chocolate, and then a devil’s food, and then maybe a traditional butter cream, but fruit cake? Isn’t that like… recently paroled sex offenders?

@YARNLADY Not saying their advices wouldn’t be valuable but I’ve seen people time in and time again sometimes ask others who seem to have a poor understanding of relationships. So I wonder, are they just trying to set themselves up unconsiously or do they feel embarrassed about asking people who seem to be happy?
@Neizvestnaya True enough. Time can make people open up their eyes and see things differently.

@YARNLADY: I believe this is true and one reason I’m thankful for sites/experiences like wis.dm and fluther to help me as I hope to make my 2nd leg of life a whole lot less frustrating than the first :)

@papayalily Its late and I think we have the munchies. LOL
God, I am hungry. I do have apple pie and pumpkin pie. Guesss we could change to that.

@jonsblond I’m a die hard realist. Just how many people have you met in long term relationships who were just blissful. They are a very small group of people statistically. That’s not to say they don’t exist…but it’s pretty much a crap shoot with luck having more to do with it. The rest of us need to learn to stop sitting in the muck and just empty the bowl and start fresh with whatever we have learned from out past endeavors. Most all of my friends and family have been married far longer than the national average…some well over 50 years. I cannot name one couple amongst them that did anything more than just resign themself to a life sentence because it’s too hard to get out and start over…the predominant reason I’ve heard repeatedly. Blessed be the people who have the gumption to do it differently.

It’s also important to remember that your friend may have a different view on her parents’ marriage. Absolutely everyone but me thought my parents relationship was the perfect relationship. I, however, was in a position to see the parasitic stranglehold they had been in too long, and see that it had some really serious problems.

I love this question. I have not read the above responses.

I think it is because people ask their friends for advice, not necessarily the most experienced person. Also, I have found that single girls tend to ask single girls about dating questions, feeling their married friends don’t get the dating scene or something like that. Lastly, people in successful relationships will probably not give the feedback wanted by someone who is constantly in failed relationships. If the person who engages in bad relationships over and over again, is obviously picking the wrong people to date, repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and/or just not making much logical sense when it comes to relationships, the person who is in long term relationships is going to give advice to change the pattern, and the person in the bad pattern might not be psychologically ready to hear the advice.

@Joybird I think some people think it is just resigning one’s self to a non blissful relationship. Truth of the matter of every marriage is that none are blissful for eternity. Hell, I can’t even say I am blissful with myself. Doesn’t mean I don’t love myself, just the only surprises I have coming is old age, withering parts, and gas and constipation and body aches.
However, even thought my husband is whithering at the same rate as I am, (so sad), I still love him like crazy. He is still my best friend and I am still his best friend as well.
Anyone looking for 24/7 bliss is either going to be disappointed or needs to be high everyday.
@JLeslie GA, Awesome perspective. Thanks.

@Joybird That’s just it. Luck has nothing to do with longevity. Hard work and patience does. I can show you just as many single people that aren’t living the life of bliss. I think too many couples give up too easily, now that’s lazy in my opinion. They are looking for that first kiss feeling all the time, wanting to live a fairytale. When you are with someone through the good and bad, that feeling is better than that first kiss feeling. My husband and I are realists. We know life isn’t easy. You need to work for what you want. Maybe we are the lucky ones.

sorry to get off topic @Pandora

@jonsblond No sweat. I got off topic once or twice myself.

these people may be the only kind of people they feel comfortable asking. Or maybe the only kind they really know. Or maybe they just want to hear some truly FAIL stories that are train wrecks compared to theirs.

Only been in one relationship. a long marriage of 45 years. does this qualify me to give advice on failed marriages? what to do and not to do?

@john65pennington Interesting way to look at it. I think it qualifies you to have an opinion on what worked in maintaining a long relationship.

People don’t want to be advised by someone who’s been happy in their long relationship do they? It’s the same old drill: trust, respect, honesty,commitment- blah, blah ,blah.

@john65pennington But surely you have members of your family who have had experiences you can use for examples of advice for or against. I’ve been married 35 happy years also, but my sister has been divorced 5 times, my son had a failed marriage, and my brother has a lot of stories for me to fall back on.

@woodcutter Hahaha, good point. Are you saying the people in reocurrent bad relationships are seeking advice from other reoccurrent bad relationship people on how to maintain bad relationships? I am sort of serious. They are seeking advice on how to play the games, empathasize with the dishonesty, and so on.

Disclaimer: I want to add that I know that even good, honest, trustworthy people have relationships that do not work out. Some of it is a little bit of luck, especially when you are very young, and you don’t know how each other will grow.

I just want to put out there that I’ve had several successful relationships in the past. Just because they’re over doesn’t make them failed.

In a similar vein to @Joybird, not every relationship that doesn’t last until you die constitutes a failure. Plenty of bitter marriages last till death. Plenty of brief affairs are filled with love and passion.

If your measure of success is how long your relationship lasts, then I can see why you woudn’t want to consult someone who isn’t in a relationship. But there are other (and I would argue better) measures of success in love. When I seek advice about relationships, those are the things I’m seeking.

@lapilofu I think you gave a great answer. I was assuming the question was referring to bad relationships.

@JLeslie Yeah, I think that’s a fair interpretation of most of the question, but the sentence “I’ve seen people who consistantly ask relationship advice from people who don’t seem to be able to maintain a relationship” put me off a little, so I wanted to respond to that.

@lapilofu That’s a great answer. Every person and relationship is different. No one should put another down if they have been with the same person for 40 years, or if they have been in 10 relationships in 40 years. To each his own.

@JLeslie I guess I’m thinking these folks think the right angle to use is to learn everything you shouldn’t do rather than the things you should do because they think it might be easier to relate to. I really don’t know. It seems advise given by those with successfully long relationships will seem too involved or boring. Or maybe they are hedging with failure in mind. Or deep down inside they may think they don’t deserve a lasting relationship for fear they will screw it up and they sabotage themselves to prove themselves right? It’s really late here :o

@woodcutter I just think if we are talking bad relationships, the people in good ones don’t really relate. Or, they may relate, because most of us have been through a bad relationship, but we don’t have tolerance for it. We have figured out what feels good in a relationship, the committment, the trust, the friendship, and feel the person in constant bad ones doesn’t get it yet. Don’t get me wrong, anyone can find themselves in a bad relationship, and breaking up is hard to do for most people, and we just never know. People can be in very happy relationships for many many years, and then find themselves divorced. I never feel I have a lock on relationships, and again, I am not talking about good relationships that simply do not go on forever, I am talking about bad relationships.

For example: I have a girlfriend who is very smart, successful in her career, and has been engaged three times, never married. The guys she picks are what some might classify as beneath her, although I hate that terminology. Let’s just say they have very little in common. If you ask her what she looks for, she starts with how he needs to be in good shape, she is 50 years old. Most women do not have 42 inch chest, and 32 inch waist on the top of their list when looking for a long term relationship over the age of 30. Pretty much when I meet her new, new boyfriends, I feel it is a mismatch.

I dated a guy when I was in high school, and basically all of the men in his family have wives and girlfriends, if you now what I mean. So, of course they lie and cheat. When I was in the middle of the craziness, the people on the outside could not understand why I was with him. The people on the inside varied from telling me to get out while the gettings good, to feeling it was normal that men cheat and it was par for the course. The people who had a similar situation to my situation were more comforting in a way, because they seemingly understood, and had a plan on how to deal with it.

There was an extensive 50 year-long study on relationships done by The Gallup Organization around the effects of positivity vs. negativity. One of the people involved was Donald O. Clifton, who co-authored a book called, How Full Is Your Bucket? While most of the book’s content is geared towards the workplace, there is one chapter that speaks to relationship counseling. They found that studying successful relationships and learning from them was much more effective than studying what went wrong in failed relationships.

So why do people reach out for the advice of those that have failed? I think that part of it is human nature. If one were to experience a kink in their relationship, they are going to seek out someone who has been in a similar situation. For example, take financial management. I know two couples that struggled to come to an agreement on this because they have talked about it publicly. They have experienced it, thus they might have helpful advice. It’s pretty easy to assume that a couple who appears to have never had a problem with agreeing on how to manage money would not be able to offer advice on how to solve the problem.

In reality, many couples do (or did) have their own challenges in this area. The ones who have been able to come to an agreement just don’t air it in public, thus they are not called on for advice.

@woodcutter LMAO,You probably closer to the truth. They don’t want to hear it will envolve any real effort to sustain a relationship.
@Pied_Pfeffer Interesting answer. I can see that being a possibility. My husband and I don’t air our private lives in public. Except for on fluther.
LOL hmm, I may get that book. It sounds like an interesting read.

@Pied_Pfeffer I like your answer too. Someone once told me if someone has the life you want, you need to find out how they did it. It was in the context of people holding onto judgements and things taught in childhood, and ideas held in families that keep people back, keep them from acheiving their goals. Like if someone wants to pursue a certain career, but let’s say it requires moving away from family for a few years, and all their life their family has criticised American children for moving away, it causes a psychological conflict. Or they love their parents, and normal was knowing their dad always had a mistress, but also want to believe they had a good family with strong values, the cycle tends to repeat itself. Another is wanting to be financially secure, having parents who never told the children about financial struggles, and hearing “you can’t take it with you,” your whole life. Even if you know as an adult that your parents are very tight on money in their retirement, many times the parents might still not know what to advise their kids on how to save, all they say is, “don’t wind up like us,” and they may not realistically know the steps to acheive a different result.

So, I kind of took this advice to heart, and choose to believe the people who have accomplished what I seek, rather than the person who is giving advise but hasn’t done it. Your example about finances was of people who had struggled and figured it out, so that is different than still being in the same bad cycle. Also the person needs to be willing to be different, different than their family possibly, not just different than their own pattern in life, and that can be very hard for some people.

JLeslie, maybe you are correct.

If we were to eliminate people who’ve had failed relationships from the pool of eligible advice givers, there’d be virtually no one lef (except for monks, nuns, and people lucky enough to marry their first loves)! Even happily married people often have failed relationships in their past. A lot of times, I think people ask advice from those in failed relationships because they hope to avoid making the same mistakes, or they want to know how their advisor coped with the problem. Also, as @JLeslie said, people in conflicted relationships may have a hard time relating to people in happy relationships. For one thing, misery loves company. Second, some people in happy long term relationships may be unable to empathize with someone who’s struggling, because it’s been so long that they can’t vividly remember the early relationship problems they may have had.