I’ve nodded sagely over the years as I’ve heard a friend share that one of the ways she survives in relationships is by “not blaming, or shaming or making other people (especially her life partner) wrong.”
“Me too,” I thought, “me too” as I inwardly congratulated myself for being as wise and as diligent as I am.
Unfortunately, I recently realized that I have stubbornly maintained a huge blindspot here:
While I semi-consistently take the time to see how I have created or caused full-blown resentments against people and while I increasingly notice my persistent judgments of others, I often ignore my routine moment-by-moment attempts to establish that I’m right and someone else is wrong. And, even worse, I do it while believing and telling you that I love you and that you are important to me.
Every relationship is filled with miscommunication (“Miss Communication,” that’s my name, don’t wear it out) and mistakes. That’s not the problem, that’s just reality. The problem is that when anyone around me, and the more I love them, the more important this becomes, makes a “mistake,” I automatically work to prove them wrong and me right.
Example: my husband puts something on the grocery list and I don’t buy it
- Here, I might engage in rhetorical gymnastics to establish that the item in question
- was crossed off the list
- or that I thought he said something different that cancels out the request
- or that I decided he didn’t need it that soon
- do you get the idea?
The point is that my ego finds it important to determine that even though the item was indeed on the list and I indeed was the shopper (don’t worry, we take turns) and I did indeed fail to buy it, somehow it’s his fault that I didn’t buy it.
Now I could relate chapter and verse about how my childhood trauma created the necessity for this pattern, but that’s a conversation better for me and my therapist, it really doesn’t excuse this character trait.
How about it’s not about right or wrong or establishing fault? It’s just the facts, mam:
So that’s my reminder for myself today:
I did what I did and you did what you did.
I am safe.
All is well.
Maybe it’s not important to establish who is right or who is wrong.
(except that I’m definitely right…)
