Be careful. We have to figure out, actually, whether it's beneficial to get involved in this situation or not. Because if the person is not asking for our help, then we may cause a big problem. We have to know the quality of our friend's mind and whether we're a close friend or a not-so-close friend, whether that friend is open to our suggestions or not. Because otherwise, getting involved in relationship problems may be a lot of pain for ourselves. If that friend is open, we may be able to give advice, but in these situations it's sometimes very difficult to give advice because we may not know the dynamic of the relationship at all. It may be helpful to investigate to see whether his wife has other means of support from the family, rather than seeing it just on the surface. And if we're from a distance, it's very difficult to help in these situations. We have to bring in the fifth reflection, "To care and not to care," to see whether we can give advice and whether that person is open to hear our advice. Sometimes our assistants come into interviews with relationship difficulties, and we step back a big step, and just ask them to work on themselves and perhaps the relationship will get a bit better then. Because if we start to take sides, we get ourselves into big problems. So, it's very helpful to be careful about taking sides.
We once had some friends that were going through a lot of difficulties. Each of them wanted us to take sides in the particular difficulties, and we were very careful. We kept on saying, "Oh, we just feel so sad to see you having these problems!" And we tried to give advice on how this person could approach the other person and try to develop more Compassion and Lovingkindness, and we did the same with the other, trying not to take sides. In that way, neither of them got too upset with us about it, because they knew they could approach us; but if we took sides, then one of them would get bitter at us.
Be careful in relationships to not interfere, because we may not have enough information about what's going on to approach them both with a compassionate intention. Try to understand perhaps why your friend is doing that and try to help them if they're concerned about money, maybe talk to them about that. But try not to judge the situation and tell them what to do, because usually people don't want to be told what to do, they get defensive. So, be very careful and approach the situation with sensitivity and carefulness and see what type of person your friend is. And sometimes we can't heal relationship problems.