How Relationship Advice From Social Media Gets It SO Wrong: Boundaries, Values, and Needs

Relationship advice from Reddit gets a lot of things wrong. As a coach who works with couples and individuals on communication, boundaries, and emotional patterns, I break down three of the most common relationship posts and unpack what people are asking versus what they actually need to resolve.

In this episode, I cover:

• A girlfriend wondering if she's being manipulative for demanding her boyfriend go to therapy, and why the real issue isn't about manipulation at all
• How to tell the difference between a relationship that needs work and one that's just incompatible
• Why a boyfriend asking "what words should I use?" is focused on technique when the actual problem is a misalignment on emotional privacy and loyalty
• The most popular Reddit advice on compatibility, ranked, including "trust your gut," "if they cared, they would," and "if it feels like work, it's the wrong relationship"
• Why some of the most upvoted advice is actually the most damaging, and the questions I'd invite each of these people to sit with instead

If you keep having the same arguments and nothing changes, it's probably because you're solving for the wrong problem. This episode will help you figure out what the real issue is so you can finally stop going in circles.

This is part one of a three-part series on how to handle the people in your life, starting with partners. Friendship and workplace dynamics are coming next.

Transcript

Unless you’re a hermit living in the middle of nowhere, you have to deal with people and for most of us, that’s our partners, our friends, and the people we work with, which is why I’m going to do a 3 part series.

Today I’m starting with how to handle our partners, and I’m going through the most common relationship questions on Reddit because these are issues I’ve seen in my own life, as well as in my work with clients.

Now what’s interesting is when people ask questions about their relationships, they’re often focused on the wrong thing. Like they think it’s about communication, when it’s actually about boundaries or unmet needs.

And to be honest, I see this all the time, which might be why you’re having the same conversations or the same arguments over and over, and somehow nothing changes. 

From my experience with my clients, the relationship doesn’t move forward until you both understand what the real issue is. That's when you finally stop going in circles because now you're solving for the root cause instead of the symptom. 

So today, I want to look at what’s under the questions people keep asking, because that’s where the answers usually start.

You're listening to This Is How You Think, the show that remodels your mindset. I'm your host, Jule Kim. Let's dive in.

Okay, here's the first post. 

Is it manipulative for me to tell my partner I'm not staying if he doesn't get therapy? 

We have a girlfriend and boyfriend who are both 19 years old. They're living together, and now she’s doing most of the cleaning around the house. 

She’s asked him to help several times. He agrees, does it for about a week, and then he reverts. And when she raises the issue again, he talks about his past relationship, his trauma, his depression, so she backs off and comforts him. His behavior never actually changes, and now she’s telling him that he needs to get therapy or she’s out. She also tells her dad about this, and he tells her that demanding therapy is weaponizing his emotions and manipulating him.

So she thinks the question is whether she's being manipulative.

And when I read through the comments, a lot of people are saying stuff like:

• It’s not manipulation, you're setting a boundary, GOOD FOR YOU
• He’s a child, you should leave him

So my two cents is that it's kind of a boundary… but not exactly. 

See, boundaries are when one person says they can’t continue living under certain conditions or behavior, like if she were to say “I can’t live with a person who doesn’t clean up after themselves. If nothing changes, I will leave.” 

And I think what a lot of people don’t get is that boundaries are about self-protection. It’s not about controlling the other person. When you set a boundary, you are saying, I’m not ok with this, so I’m going to remove myself from the situation.

Where this post gets a little iffy is that she didn’t just state a boundary, she said he needs to get therapy, which is where it starts to edge into control, instead of her just having standards. 

And I get why she's saying this, it's something I've seen so many times with some of the couples I've worked with, because she's desperate for things to change. 

But as we all know, therapy and coaching don't really work unless the person wants to be there. 

Now the other thing is that therapy might help, but it's not actually the issue here, and it’s not guaranteed to fix anything.

What really stands out to me about this couple is that he’s shown that he’s capable of changing his behavior. He’s done it - He changes for about a week but he doesn’t sustain it. And whenever she brings it up again he sidetracks her by making it about himself - and the issue never gets resolved.

So for me, the real question isn’t whether she was being manipulative. If anything, I think he’s the one doing that, but the real questions that she may want to answer is whether she’s clear on what she needs in a relationship, and whether she’s willing to hold those standards. 

Now in this kind of situation, there’s one thing I nudge my clients to say to the people who are like this boyfriend. Hey, since we've been around the block a few times, let's plan ahead. If this comes up again, how would you like me to support you for staying accountable?

And then you see what they say.

On to the next post:

We know that every relationship takes work. But how do you know the difference between a relationship that needs work vs one that’s incompatible?

For this one, it was super interesting because it got so many comments. So I dove into the comments and pulled out the most common themes, and here they are in descending order of popularity.

1. Reciprocity over time matters
2. If it feels like work, it’s the wrong relationship
3. Shared values matter more than chemistry
4. Trust your gut, you’ll know
5. Effort only matters if it leads to change
6. If they cared, they would

1 reciprocity over time does matter. It's a real thing. When you have only one person putting in effort, it creates an imbalance and resentment over time. If this isn't addressed, then yeah, the relationship usually doesn’t last.

3 Shared values matter more than chemistry. Yep - chemistry is what often attracts you in the beginning, but values determine how you build a life together for the long term.

And just to clarify, okay, because values is one of those words that gets thrown around all the time, and I don't think people actually know what it means. 

In the context of relationships, values are your non negotiables, on what it means to be a person, on how you live your life, and how you live your life together in this relationship. 

I find a lot of people making the mistake where they compromise their values, and you can’t do that, because that’s how you lose respect for yourself.

5 Effort only matters when it leads to change - This one's pretty much the heart of coaching, and I have seen way too many of my friends and clients get tripped up on this one because they treat effort like a participation trophy instead of focusing on the follow-through. So if you’re talking and promising and trying but the results don't change, it doesn't count because you're still in the same place.

Now, the part that disturbed me about the other three is how highly ranked these are. In my opinion, I feel like these really miss the mark, and these beliefs are why so many relationships fail.

So if we look at number two, if it feels like work, it's the wrong relationship. 

This one really makes me cringe because all relationships require some work, at least some of the time. You can't make it like, "Oh, this is hard, so therefore something is wrong, ok. This isn’t about work versus no work, it's whether the effort and the work you are putting in is productive or not.

I can tell you from first hand experience that you can have a relationship that is growing and making progress, but it can still feel bloody hard. 

What you got to watch out for is the relationship that never progresses or people just don't learn; that's when it gets exhausting. 

So here's the real question to answer: Is the effort actually moving things forward, or are we just maintaining the same problems?

Number four, “trust your gut. You'll just know.”

Omg this one is giving gigantic red flags because your gut is shaped by your personal history and your experience.

If you're like me, where you grow up in a super chaotic or an abusive household, then your gut is probably going to tell you that something peaceful is wrong. I've coached who confuse anxiety with chemistry and any type of discomfort with danger, even though discomfort is often just a sign of growth.

So this is where I wouldn't ever say just trust your gut. I would say, Yeah, listen to your gut and also check it with the data. Look at the behavior over time instead of just your feelings. 

And lastly, we have number six: "If they cared, they would." 

This one immediately reminded me of my most viral Tiktok ever, where I talk about how some relationships are like one person has three markers and the other person has a full pack of markers.

It's really hard when these two people get together, because the person with all the markers eventually wants a color that the three marker person doesn't have, and then they fight. And in the video, I say that the fact that this person doesn't have that color doesn't mean that they don't love the other person, and this directly speaks to this point here.Co caring is not the same as having the capacity or the skill or the willingness to change.

There are lots of people who genuinely care about their person, but caring is not the same as having the capacity or the skill or the willingness to change. 

So, for everybody who says 'If they cared, they would,' they think it's a question of these people won't, when often it's actually that these people can't. 

For this one, instead of telling yourself they don't care, ask yourself:

If this is what this person has, does this meet my needs? And if it doesn't, then what choice do I need to make for my own well being?

Alright, our last post is from a guy who’s been with his girlfriend for a couple of years. She has a close male friend, and when there’s a problem in the relationship, she talks it over with him before she brings it to her partner.

He’s not worried about cheating, but it makes him uncomfortable that private relationship issues are being shared with other people. When he brings it up, she says he’s limiting her independence.

He’s asking what words to use to negotiate emotional boundaries without controlling her friendships or damaging intimacy.

What immediately struck me here is he thinks this is a wording problem because he's essentially saying, "What should I say? How do I phrase this correctly so she understands and doesn't get mad at me?"

He's really focused on technique, which is pretty common for men. But unfortunately this isn’t a communication problem. The real issue is that they’re not aligned on what emotional privacy and loyalty mean.

They have different assumptions about what stays inside the relationship, who gets to hear about their fights, and what independence means. And until they define all of this, finding the perfect words isn’t gonna do jack.

Now this is where asking for advice on a public forum like Reddit isn’t really helpful, because the commenters will get distracted by all of these other things. So for example, on this post, they're saying stuff like, 

• well, everybody needs outside support, and you shouldn't be jealous. 
• Or you don't get to control who she talks to. 
• Or you're just being insecure.

When that's really not what this is about. He's not even trying to say that she can never talk to her friends. He’s saying that he's uncomfortable that she’s talking to other people about their issues before she talks to him. 

So instead of asking "How should I say this perfectly?", it would be better if he sat her down to have a conversation to answer these questions:

• What should stay inside the relationship?
• What’s appropriate to share with other people?
• And if we don't agree, how can we meet in the middle?

Alrighty, that's it for this week. Did you enjoy this episode? Would you like me to cover more posts from the internet? Let me know. And by the way, if you know one person who would benefit from listening to this episode, share this with them, because that would really help me out. 

Lastly, I'm working on the next episode in this series about friendship, and I would love to hear about your challenges or your views on friendship. So text the link in the show notes, if you'd like to share.

Thank you so much for listening. As always, I believe in you. See you next time.