The Problem with “I’m Right, You’re Wrong”
If you are having difficulty accepting something about your spouse or how your marriage is going, you may start to be aware that there is a way that you are being that is contributing to your unhappiness. Just below the surface of your judgments, attitudes and assessments, there is a framework through which you may be viewing your circumstances. That framework is called “I’m right.”
Of course, your point of view is valid and always has a particular “rightness” to it, given that it is the only point of view you can have at any particular moment in time. The difficulty in your relationship begins when you become attached to your viewpoint as the right point of view. “I’m right that I am right.” Or “I am right and you are wrong!”
“I’m right, you’re wrong” is a perspective that creates problems in your relationship. When one of you makes your partner wrong, the cost to your experience of being in relationship is significant. The costs include a loss of affinity, a breakdown in communication, a closing down of self-expression and a loss of connection.
At the moment that “I’m right, you’re wrong” occurs, the experience of being related or your sense of “us” disappears. In other words, you can’t be right about being right and have an experience of being lovingly related to your spouse at the same time. At that moment, there is no compassion or appreciation for your spouse’s point of view. They are just wrong.
The world of “right-wrong” creates a world of “me or you.” There is little commitment to understanding each other. There is only interest in being right, being justified or dominating your partner with your point of view. The problem is that to have a happy and healthy relationship and marriage, this way of being doesn’t work. Having to be right drives a wedge in your relationship and fosters disconnection in your marriage.
When Martha and I quarrel, almost without exception, we are each being right and making the other person wrong. We like to recount the time when Martha came home from the grocery store, having bought hot dogs for a cookout and forgetting to buy hot dog buns. I said, indignantly, “You forgot to buy hot dog buns.” She said, “You go shopping next time.” She then marched out the door, got into the car and backed out the driveway. She didn’t notice that the backseat door was still open. The door caught the side of the house and, with a loud scraping noise, contorted backwards, twisting off its hinges. I rushed out of the house, Martha got out of the car and we were in a full-blown argument. We were in the world of “right-wrong” and “you or me.” I forced the door shut, she stormed off to get hot dog buns and our nice afternoon cookout was in serious jeopardy. When she returned from the store twenty minutes later, we each recognized quickly that we’d been making each other very wrong. We apologized and forgave each other and went about preparing the food for the grill.
So, what do you do when you see yourself being right and the quality of your relationship appears to be suffering (e.g., there’s a loss of connection, self-expression and happiness)? What works is to be more committed to understanding each other than being right or justified in your point of view. In other words, you give up being right. You don’t have to give up your point of view; you just need to give up being attached to your point of view. You give up being right about being right!
You may very well have a valid point of view, but holding tightly to it gives you no room to hear or understand your partner’s valid point of view. When you give up your attachment to your point of view, you create room for both points of view to be heard and considered. At that moment, being related to each other occurs powerfully because you each see that you are not your point of view, you simply have one.
If you can observe that you simply have a point of view rather than being attached to your point of view, you can then examine it, alter it or have a whole new way of seeing something that includes both your points of view. No one has to be wrong. The impact will be understanding, connection and affinity, love and respect and an enhancement of the quality of your relationship with each other.
Posted in Partnership Marriage
