A lot of people, when wondering what to do in their love life, turn to relationship advice columns. There are many columns out there and they often give contradictory advice. So which ones should you believe?
The first thing to understand about relationship advice columns is that their writers all subscribe to different schools of thought. There are as many schools of thought about relationships as there are about other controversial topics such as politics or religion. And this can make it confusing to figure out whose words of wisdom really are wise for you to follow.
One thing that can help is realizing that these many schools of thought can basically be grouped, as we have discussed before, into two main categories:
- Symptom-Focused Breakup Advice
- Origin-Focused Breakup Advice
When you just need a quick fix to a superficial problem and are truly alright with knowing you will probably have to face it again in some form later, symptom-focused breakup advice – and relationship advice columns that take that perspective – can be useful.
However, in most cases, we at Breakup-Advice.org favor an Origin-Focused approach for reasons laid out in the blog post linked above.
When you are considering a relationship advice column, you need to think critically. Start by reading a few of the author’s pieces and deciding if they tend to write from a symptom-focused or origin-focused mindset. Some authors may combine the two and, if done well, this can be very helpful.
In the end you will have to make up your own mind about which school of thought on relationships appeals to you – or, more importantly, which one you think is actually accurate. Just know that there are various perspectives and don’t simply believe the first one you read offers the golden ticket to happiness.
Now what relationship advice column do we recommend?
Since we strongly favor the Imago Relationship approach, it is no surprise that we recommend columns by people involved in that community. And there is one in particular that stands out.
Al Turtle is a therapist who works in the Imago tradition and he runs a website where he addresses countless questions about relationships and offers his wisdom. It is appropriately titled Al Turtle’s Relationship Wisdom. We have no doubt you will find it extremely enlightening.
Al’s is the column with which we are most familiar. But if you do some searching, you can find others written by people schooled in Imago therapy. For example, with a quick search we discovered that Stacy Notaras Murphy, a certified Imago Couples Therapist, writes a relationship advice column for The Georgetowner.
Ultimately, the best advice of all is to read a variety of relationship advice columns by people from different schools of thought and, over time, compare and contrast them to find the ones that really have the most to offer.
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