Relationship Advice

Getting relationship advice

Relationship advice is a term that covers both the informal guidance people give one another about their most intimate relationships as well as some professional services which are designed to help couples. In most cases, such advice is not laid down as a set of rules that people need to stick to in order to maintain a successful relationship but a 'road map' that allows people to navigate their own way from a bad situation to a better one. In some cases, relationship advice will take the form of marriage guidance counselling, but this is by no means the only form that couples – and other groups, for that matter – engage in it nowadays.

Offering relationship advice if you have no professional training in counselling can be tricky. That said, many people turn to a trusted friend for their thoughts on relationships, especially close ones. If you are asked for your advice, then it is best to listen to what your friend has to say. Just letting them offload their thoughts and feelings can be beneficial. When offering your thoughts, try to be dispassionate and avoid taking sides or apportioning blame. Be honest but not brutally so because it sometimes takes time to face up to the situation your friend may be in with regards to their relationship.

There are many outlets for professional relationship advice these days. Couples can go to marriage guidance counsellors or couples therapy professionals for assistance with rebuilding their partnership. This is available to all sorts of couples as well as people who are in unconventional relationships which may involve more than two people. There are a number of self-help books that you can read which will offer insights into your relationship and some a designed to be read as a couple so that what they reveal is learned by you both. If the problems in a relationship are of a sexual nature, then seeking the professional help of a sex therapist may be appropriate.

Although it is often seen as distinct from the sort of relationship advice given to couples, family therapy often focusses on the internal relationships between parents and children, siblings and even wider family members, such as grandparents and cousins. The number of individual relationships in a family setting is obviously greater than those of a couple. However, it all still comes down to the same sort of supportive approach as marriage guidance.

All sorts of psychological and other theories back up the work of professional relationship advisors. For example, active listening is an approach that is often used as is Gestalt practice, something that is commonly used in family therapy sessions, for example. In some cases, video interaction guidance is now used, too, which helps individuals to see how they interact with others.