What to do if your friends swipe left on your new romantic interest

For those of you #blessed enough to have skipped The Bachelor’s most recent “most dramatic” season, allow me to offer a quick recap. No less than five women warned Colton Underwood—this year’s contestant—that certain “girls in the house” weren’t “ready” to get engaged. So naturally, the former college football star proceeded to pledge his love for Cassie, the woman who raised the most red flags, according to the others.

All of this made for good—scratch that, amazing—television. But beneath all the cringe-worthy melodrama, there’s a very real problem at play. What the heck do you do when your friends, relatives, or—sure—other love interests think that your current bae might not have the best intentions? How do you know when you should listen and when you should make like Underwood and charge forward with blinders?

Before you can even begin to consider the validity of an accusation, relationship expert and life coach Jillian Turecki recommends evaluating your relationship with the person expressing their concerns. “The right question to ask is, ‘Who is the person telling you this?’ It depends on the relationship that you have with the friend,” she tells me. “So if you really trust this person, then you listen. But if you don’t exactly trust this person, then it’s a relationship question between the two friends.”

“If someone really close to you is warning you about someone you’re dating, chances are that your intuition is warning you, too.” —Jillian Turecki, relationship expert and life coach

If the person holding the intervention is someone you’ve known for years, their opinion about a person you just started dating is likely worth considering. “Some people will give you advice because they’re jealous or because they’re projecting. And some people who you’re really close with really only have your best interest at heart—and they share some stuff that you need to hear,” explains Turecki.

Anytime someone lodges a complaint about your S.O.—concerning infidelity or (*ahem*) lack of readiness for marriage—you should take it as a sign to check in with your own intuition, says Turecki. “First and foremost, you have to listen to yourself. You have to listen to your intuition. If someone really close to you is warning you about someone you’re dating, chances are that your intuition is warning you, too,” she says.

Only after you’ve weighed the criticism within yourself will you be able to make a decision about what to do (or not) with the newfound information. In a shocking twist of fate, Underwood may not have been so wrong to trust his gut after all.

Here’s the verdict on whether or not ultimatums are a healthy relationship tool, and what you should do if you have doubt about your new fling.