When Helping Doesn’t Feel Helpful
Why advice, reassurance and problem-solving aren’t always what the other person needs
Someone you care about comes home after a difficult day.
They tell you about a problem at work, an argument with a friend or something that has been weighing on them. You listen and, wanting to help, start thinking about what they could do.
“Why don’t you talk to your manager?”
“Maybe you should just tell them how you feel.”
“Try not to worry about it.”
The suggestions are sensible and offered with good intentions. You may genuinely be trying to make things easier.
But instead of feeling supported, the other person becomes frustrated.
“You’re not listening to me.”
From your perspective, that can be confusing. You were listening. In fact, you listened closely enough to come up with a solution.
So what went wrong?
We can care about someone and still misjudge what they need from us at that moment.
We don’t always talk about problems because we want them solved
When someone tells us about something difficult, it’s easy to assume they are asking for help fixing it.
Sometimes they are. But people also talk things through because they are upset, confused, worried, or trying to make sense of what happened. They may want reassurance, another perspective or simply the chance to talk to someone they trust.
Research into counselling communication offers an interesting parallel. Active listening involves more than hearing the facts of someone’s story. Reflection, paraphrasing and attentive listening can help a person feel heard while giving them room to clarify their own thoughts.
We don’t need to talk to our partners, friends or family members as though we are their counsellor. But sometimes people need a chance to feel heard and understood before they are ready to think about what to do next.
Why do we rush to fix things?
Problem-solving often comes from a good place.
If someone we love is struggling, looking for a solution can feel like the obvious way to help. We might reassure them, offer another perspective or suggest what they could do. For some people, this is exactly the kind of support they would want themselves.
It can also be difficult to watch someone we care about struggle. Their distress may leave us feeling helpless, and finding a solution gives us something practical to do.
This is something I reflected on during my own counselling training. Wanting to relieve another person’s distress can draw our attention towards making things better before we have fully understood what they are experiencing.
In our rush to help, we can move past what they are actually trying to tell us.
Why good advice can still land badly
Imagine telling someone:
“My boss criticised me in front of everyone today.”
They respond:
“You need to stop letting her speak to you like that. You should say something tomorrow.”
It might be perfectly reasonable advice. You may even decide to do exactly that.
But maybe the part you are still trying to process is how embarrassed you felt. Maybe you froze and couldn’t think of what to say, or you're now wondering what your colleagues think of you.
The other person has understood the situation, but not what the situation was like for you.
We can hear the problem without necessarily understanding what has affected the person most.
Listening gives us a chance to find that out. We can know someone extremely well and still get it wrong.
When helping creates another problem
This mismatch can develop into a familiar pattern.
One person shares something difficult and the other offers advice. The first person doesn’t feel understood, so they try to explain again, perhaps with a little more emotion. The person offering solutions becomes frustrated because, from their perspective, they have already tried to help.
They offer another suggestion and the other person feels even less heard.
Before long, the original problem has almost disappeared:
“You never listen.”
“Nothing I say is ever good enough.”
“You always try to fix everything.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
The person offering solutions may genuinely believe they are being caring and helpful, while the person receiving them experiences the same response as dismissive. Both can walk away with a completely different understanding of what just happened.
Relationship research and therapeutic models describe how patterns like this can become self-reinforcing, with each person’s response influencing what the other person does next.
Rather than deciding which person communicated badly, it can be more useful to notice what happens between you. What usually happens when one of you is upset? What does the other person do next?
Recognising the pattern makes it easier to respond differently.
Listen for what matters
Listening doesn’t mean agreeing with everything another person says or never offering advice.
Listen for what seems to matter most in what they are telling you.
Are they hurt by what happened? Worried about what it means? Feeling rejected, embarrassed, overwhelmed or unsure what to do?
You don’t have to get it exactly right. You might say:
“It sounds like the part that really bothered you was feeling dismissed.”
“That seems to have left you wondering where you stand.”
“You sound exhausted by the whole thing.”
The other person can agree, correct you or explain it differently.
If they respond with, “Not really, it was more that…”, you haven’t failed at listening. You have found out something you didn’t know before.
Understanding another person often develops through this kind of back-and-forth.
Sometimes the easiest thing to do is ask
We don’t always have to work out what another person needs on our own.
A simple question can save a lot of confusion:
“Do you want me to listen, help you think it through, or help you work out what to do?”
Or it might be as casual as:
“Do you want advice or do you just need to vent?”
“Would you like my perspective?”
What someone needs can change during a conversation too. They might want to talk for a while and then be ready to think about solutions.
Listening and problem-solving can sit quite comfortably in the same conversation. Often, it is the timing that makes the difference.
Notice what happens in you, too
Communication isn’t only about what we say. Our own reactions affect how we respond.
Think about what you tend to do when someone you care about is upset. Do you immediately look for solutions? Reassure them? Play down the problem because you want them to feel better? Become frustrated when they don’t take your advice?
There may be understandable reasons for this. It could reflect how support was offered in your family, what you find helpful yourself, or how comfortable you are around difficult emotions.
We can also fall into familiar roles without really noticing. Some people become the fixer, the reassurer or the person who tries to keep everything calm.
You may even respond differently depending on the person. Perhaps you can listen patiently to a friend but find your partner’s distress much harder to sit with. The closer the relationship, the more their problem may affect you too.
Noticing these patterns can help explain why certain conversations seem to keep following the same path.
Helping someone feel understood is helping
We often associate helping with doing something useful: finding an answer, giving advice, making a plan or taking action. Sometimes practical help is exactly what someone wants.
At other times, having space to talk can help a person organise their thoughts, understand what they are feeling and decide what they want to do.
Someone who wanted your advice yesterday might simply want you to hear them today.
We won’t always know which is needed, and we won’t always get it right. Paying attention to how the conversation is unfolding, and being willing to ask, can make it easier to offer the kind of support they were actually looking for.
References
Braillon, A., & Taiebi, F. (2020). Practicing “reflective listening” is a mandatory prerequisite for empathy. Patient Education and Counseling, 103(9), 1866–1867. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.03.024
Brew, L., & Kottler, J. A. (2017). Applied helping skills: Transforming lives. SAGE Publications.
Feeney, J. A., & Karantzas, G. C. (2017). Couple conflict: Insights from an attachment perspective. Current Opinion in Psychology, 12, 60–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.017
Guerrero, L. K. (2019). Conflict style associations with cooperativeness, directness, and relational satisfaction: A case for a six-style typology. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/ncmr.12156
Papp, L. M., Kouros, C. D., & Cummings, E. M. (2009). Demand-withdraw patterns in marital conflict in the home. Personal Relationships, 16(2), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2009.01223.x
Rautalinko, E. (2013). Reflective listening and open-ended questions in counselling: Preferences moderated by social skills and cognitive ability. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 13(1), 24–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733145.2012.687387
Before You Respond
A simple one-page reminder for those moments when you’re not sure whether to listen, reassure or help solve the problem.