The Perils of Giving Advice
Even When Well Intentioned, It Hurts Marital Satisfaction for the Giver and Receiver
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Save ↓ More I know what you should do and here's my advice.
How many times have you heard that (and groaned)?
A tension point for many couples: the giving and receiving of advice. Experts say men hear advice from women as scolding while women often hear advice from men as condescending. Elizabeth Bernstein and Dr. Anna Ranieri discuss. Photo: Getty Images.
Advice giving, especially unsolicited, is tricky. Being on the receiving end can be annoying and make us defensive. But giving advice can be frustrating, as well, particularly when the intended beneficiary of our wisdom makes it clear it isn't welcome—or takes the same recommendations we've been giving for months from someone else. The whole advice issue is typically hardest to navigate with the person we know the best: our spouse or partner.
In a series of six studies that followed 100 couples for the first seven years of marriage, researchers at the University of Iowa found that both husbands and wives feel lower marital satisfaction when they are given too much advice from a spouse, as opposed to too little. And—surprise!—unsolicited advice is the most damaging kind. The most recent study was published in 2009 in the Journal of Family Psychology.
In one study, the researchers videotaped spouses discussing a problem that one of them had—say a struggle to lose weight or quit smoking—while the other partner offered advice. They then examined the positive and negative behaviors that each person engaged in while asking for support, receiving it or providing it.
One result of the study was unexpected: How the person asking for or receiving the support behaves is more important to the health of the relationship than how the person giving the advice behaves. "It's a vulnerable position to need support," says Erika Lawrence, one of the lead researchers on the studies and associate professor at the University of Iowa.
Another finding: When too little advice was offered in a marriage, it was the men who suffered more. Researchers believe this is because husbands often look to their wives as their primary source of encouragement, while wives lean on friends and other loved ones, in addition to their husbands.
Cathy Jordan
Claude and Kate Colp of Wayland, Mass., found a way to give each other advice without sparking bad feelings.
Men and women tend to experience different emotions when they receive advice from a partner, says Anna Ranieri, a psychologist in Palo Alto, Calif., and co-author of "How Can I Help? What you Can (and Can't) Do to Counsel a Friend, Colleague or Family Member with a Problem." When wives offer guidance, husbands often feel reprimanded or nagged. Yet when the advice comes from the husbands—who are more likely to give tangible, fix-it type suggestions to a problem—it is common for wives to feel that they are being condescended to or seen as incapable.
Just ask Claude and Kate Colp about the "onion incident." The couple, who have been married three years and live in Wayland, Mass., used to enjoy cooking dinner together after work. One day, Ms. Colp was cutting an onion for salsa, happily chatting away, when her husband grabbed the knife and told her she was doing it wrong—making slices instead of dices. He finished the chopping, explaining his technique. "It was very harsh," says Ms. Colp, 31, an account manager for a corporate wellness program. "He took the knife as if I was an idiot." Mr. Colp, 32, who recently finished his M.B.A., explains: "I know a superior way to cut an onion. I was taught by a chef."
Ms. Colp has annoyed her husband with advice, too. At a Mexican restaurant with three other couples Mr. Colp announced that he would never eat chicken tacos (the dish the person next to him had ordered), and then launched into a sermon about genetically modified food. After the dinner, Ms. Colp pointed out that he had bored their friends and told him he needed to remember to ask people questions, not just talk about himself. Mr. Colp fumed—not speaking for the rest of the 45-minute ride home. "I felt like I just got scolded by my mother," he says.
"The things said to you by your wife have history behind them," says Mr. Colp. "I know she knows my faults and weaknesses."
There's the rub: Spouses often assume we are touching on their faults deliberately—so even well-meaning advice strikes them as criticism. And they get sick of us offering up the same advice over and over.
Since spouses know each other so well, they think they know exactly what the other needs to do. "It's a mind-reading problem," says Dr. Ranieri. "We tend to quickstep into giving advice, leaving out the important intermediate step of finding out more about what is going on."
One way to give better advice is to first make sure your spouse actually wants your help. You can do this by asking—a novel idea!—"Would you like some ideas on that?"
Consider what Dr. Lawrence, of the University of Iowa, calls the Platinum Rule: "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them." In other words, stop and listen. Sometimes listening can be even more effective than giving advice. "If you allow someone the time to talk something through, that can help them determine what advice to give themselves," says Dr. Ranieri.
Or try telling them a story. "This might not be appropriate for you, but what I did when I had a similar problem was…" This approach allows an exchange of information. "The person with the problem can say, 'Thank you for the story but here is the difference for me with my situation,' " says Dr. Ranieri. "Then you can target your next remarks to that."
What if you're the recipient of unwanted advice? Respond with a "thank you," to acknowledge the gesture. Then explain that you aren't looking for advice at this time. This allows for the possibility that down the road you may want advice.
Be sure to explain what would be helpful to you. Do you need someone to simply listen? Brainstorm? Bring chicken soup? Someone who loves you will be relieved to know how to be useful.
"We often don't know what we want, just that what they did didn't help," says Dr. Lawrence. "I encourage spouses to really try to think about what kinds of support they need—do they want their spouse to give advice, tangible support, just listen?"
The Colps's hard-won advice on giving advice: Outsource it. Ms. Colp now sometimes discusses what advice to give her husband with her mother, then asks her to deliver it. (This works because her mother and husband are close, she says.) And Mr. Colp recently had a friend teach his wife to wakeboard. The couple also notes that tone and timing are important. (A rule: No giving advice before dinner, when everyone's hungry.)
They try to offer advice only when asked. "I stay out of the kitchen when she is cooking, and now she actually comes to me and asks if she is cutting something right," says Mr. Colp. "Because I am not offering unsolicited advice anymore, she is willing to accept my superior onion-slicing skills."
—Write to Elizabeth Bernstein at Bonds@wsj.com or follow her column at www.Facebook.com/EBernsteinWSJ. __._,_.___
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