Has anyone ever given you really terrible advice?

[NellysCheekPlaster]

I'm loving the other thread about excellent life-changing advice.

But I'm wondering about the flip side - the terrible advice we've all received.

Here's mine:
"Always be in a relationship with someone who loves you more than you love them".
I took the advice - what a shitshow. He was insecure, he was needy, he basically stalked me for the whole three years of our relationship and then for a year afterwards too.

Also:
"Just get it [tiny tattoo of a horny devil on my tragus]. It'll look great on you"
It did. In 2001.

My dad gave barmy advice all the time. When I had a new job and I was in temp lodgings I should apparently email the whole company and ask if anyone had a room.

Pushing me to go and stay with a school friend who lived in France.

Drove me nuts.

MD's PA at a bank where I worked in the 90s could touch type at unbelievable speed while looking at you and talking and I'm VERY confident that she was earning a damned sight more than I was in the financial control dept.

Not me but a colleague who had a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in her 20s - told by her GP 'have a baby, that'll sort it out.'

From a stranger, when baby DS was crying his head off in my arms.
"When my son was like that I would give them a piece of toast. I think you should do that. "
I was in Matalan at the time and nowhere near a café.

Would it have? Did you have a clear plan on how you would put a roof over your head, develop a career, pay for everything and raise a child by yourself? Or would others have had to step in? If the former, that is awful. If the latter, they were probably being sensible, hard as it must have been.

Fix your mortgage at 1.9% for two years not 5. 😭😭

I have worked in more places than one that emails have gone out about people looking for a room (admittedly to not very senior staff) and people nearly got sorted either with someone working there or via their friends.

Nooo 😭

I find touch typing invaluable and I don't take notes of other people. I admittedly self thought myself via Mavis Beacon as a young teen while on rest after an accident.

I think the one that stood out was when dd2 was having a temper tantrum aged about 2yo in a supermarket trolley. The tantrum was because I insisted on going into the toilet with her, not the cubicle, just the room and didn't let her go off on her own and find me in the supermarket when she'd finished. Like, no chance.
The advice was "Give her a bar of chocolate or two and she'll be quiet".
She probably would have been. But she would also have remembered and used that every time we were in a shop. This was the child who learnt the sign for chocolate aged about a year and asked for chocolate every meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner and any other time for over a year after. And the child who when I gave a chocolate drop for doing a wee in the potty when potty training, then did them two drops at a time to maximise chocolate attainment. No way was it a good idea to give that idea to her.

The health visitor told me when ds cried so hard (when we were trying controlled crying) that he was sick all over himself and in his cot, she told me to throw a towel over it and leave him.

How i didn't tell her to fuck off I'll never know.

It really wasn’t that type of place

A careers advisor told me not to consider Psychology for my future because it was very, very competitive. I was a bit shy so that terrified me and stopped me pursuing it - but i was a very high achiever academically and most definitely could have been a contender Charlie. Plus I found it really wasn't that competitive at uni level (when I was there doing something else and envying the psych students)- do careers advisors become careers advisors to shit on other peoples' dreams?

Still absolutely fascinated by Psychology.

People saying should have an abortion because it meant had to drop out of uni etc, was a single etc, well yes well choosing not to did set me back a few years but did eventually finish uni, now have house, wonderful hubby, family and the most wonderful, caring, kind grown up daughter could wish for

Agree, the relatively short time I spent learning to touch type at college turned is skill have used most work days for most of career

A health visitor told me my child would stop eating solids when they were full.

My child would eat and eat and seemed to have no full point. They were later diagnosed with autism and I really regret not using my common sense about this advice as they have long term food issues.

Yes that’s the kind of guilt tripping people tried to play on me and guess what have a wonderful grown up daughter who is genuinely adored and appreciated so much by those I was told it would put such a burden on and who is already contributing so much to others and society. I knew someone who had a termination in similar circumstances and then had to drop out of uni later anyway. My sympathies go with the 18 year old who was coerced into that course of action

I recently told my Mum that I was unhappy in my marriage and was thinking of asking my H to separate. She told me to stay for the kids (not the worst advice, but not exactly supportive of my feelings) and then advocated me having an affair - "if you did meet someone else you liked, then go for it". She's had many relationships with attached men in her lifetime and seems to think it's OK. To me, it's really not!

OP - what is the other thread ? Life changing advise? I have searched and cannnot find it.

My worst experience with bad advice was friend A told by friend B to "sleep with his best friend" when A had been dumped by her boyfriend. A was in love with boyfried and did not want to break up.

Bs "strategy" was to make him envious.

Lucky for A - a few of us stepped in. She did not "sleep with his best friend", got back with him with six months and is now happily married for 10 years!

Pretty much any parenting advice about my complex autistic child by anyone who isn’t the parent of an autistic child. When I started ignoring everyone and going against the grain, our lives improved immeasurably and he is a kind and happy kid.

My father advised me not to buy a house when I was 24, because I was too young and should save for a deposit.
I ignored him and got a 100% mortgage (remember those?) and sold the house a few years later at a 100k profit.
This enabled me to buy a modest house with only a very small mortgage, which took so much stress and worry out of my life.
My father now likes to tell anyone who will listen that he was the one that advised me to buy and that he also gave me a deposit. He didn't.

My careers officer at school when I was 15. Told me that there were already too many women doing what I wanted to do (marine biology) and that what I should do was learn to type so that I could get myself a "nice little office job" which would keep me busy until I got married mid 20s and popped out a couple of kids.

22 year old me literally told my friend to buy a sports car with his house deposit because “ you can live in your car but you can’t drive your house”. Like wtf??

Fortunately despite having no house, it worked out as he met and married a corporate lawyer ( possibly the sports car helped in that- I guess I’ll never know).

Said to me frequently by a friend when I can't do something because I've been working a bazillion hours all week and now have to attack the home stuff...

"Best advice I ever got was from my great aunt whats-her-face who said, don't worry about doing the housework/laundry/life admin/etc, cos it aint going nowhere, it'll all still be there tomorrow!"

Yes, yes it is all still there the day after. And the day after that. And the day after that. And it got worse, because you kept putting it off and now its piling up. How many days is it reasonable to keep using "it'll still be there tomorrow" as an excuse to let your home life turn into complete chaos and still think it's great advice?

Did you mean to channel your inner Hyacinth there?