It’s clear that the person writing this letter has only the best intentions. The same is true of virtually all parents who are tempted to intervene in their married children’s shalom bayis if they see their children in distress. But parents or children are most often simply not the right people to be addressing problems so close to home.
In very rare cases, the help can be given so wisely and cautiously that it does help. Far more usual, however, is for the help, genuinely given, to actually make things worse. Not because the people involved lack intelligence or love or caring, but simply because they are too emotionally involved to see things clearly, or to remain detached and objective enough to be helpful.
This applies even if the parent voluntarily shares difficulties with his shalom bayis and the child does nothing beyond listening and nodding his head in “understanding.” In fact, anyone who finds himself in a situation where he’s being called upon to lend an empathetic listening ear needs to be careful not to just nod along to a sob story. Agreeing (or even just seeming to agree) with everything the other person says, even when it looks like you’re being helpful and making it easier for the person to “endure” the pain and suffering, can blind that person to their own part in the problem.
This is much more of a concern in the parent-child relationship, where sharing details of shalom bayis problems can be or become harmful both for the child and the parents. Furthermore, in almost all cases a child will end up taking sides, even if he doesn’t want or intend to, and that too will only make things worse.
Getting involved when you’re not the person who should intervene is almost always misguided, as the famous vort on Chad Gadya illustrates. If we look at the story and say, “Poor goat, bad cat, good dog, bad stick etc...” then what emerges is that Hashem (chas veshalom) was wrong to kill the Malach Hamaves. However, was the dog really right to come along and take the goat’s side? What business was it of his? If he hadn’t become involved, the whole story wouldn’t have escalated... and once we see it this way, the story “comes out right.”
