When a friend or family member is having a difficult time should you listen or should you give advice? I think that our role is to be supportive and to listen to them as they talk out their problems.  I may share my personal values on what I have done in my own life, but only to encourage them to think about their own solutions. It is not our role, nor our responsibility, to give advice that we are not qualified to give and we may not be objective enough.  If we start giving advice, we will find ourselves where we don't belong - in the middle of someone else's troubles. What if we give poor advice and they follow it and get bad results?  The backlash will be to us, so do not take on this stress. My advice is to give support, but do not give advice and indirectly end up taking on their problems.  Believe me - everyone has enough stress of their own without getting involved in the lives of others.  You may mean well, but the best thing you can do is help them figure it out for themselves.