Being "Right" vs. Being "Alive" - An Excerpt from "How to Have A Match Made in Heaven: A Transformational Approach to Dating, Relating and Marriage"

In most relationships, an ongoing fight simmers just below the surface. Sometimes the conflict appears subtle but at other times it is outright war. People have grown up in a sea of discord and have been socialized to expect it and accept it. In other words, fighting is "normal."

Transformation is both instantaneous and cumulative. In reading this chapter, you may see an old mechanical way of relating to your mate. If you don't judge this behavior, it can have a profound impact on your ability to live in harmony. With practice, you get better at letting go of the need to have your perspective be the right one.

You're Wrong! I'm Right!

When it comes to creating a Match Made in Heaven,
giving up being right is one of the essential ingredients.

Let's take a moment to define what we mean by "being right." It's when you take on an adversarial relationship to someone, making them wrong and yourself right. When you take this position, nothing they say or do will convince you to give up your point of view. After all, holding
onto your point of view is the prime directive. You will rehearse and rehash your position in your thoughts, because proving the other person wrong becomes your life's mission. When locked in a right/wrong battle, there can be no surrender, no relaxation. It's a battle that you have to win and they have to lose.

Very few of us have had role models who were skilled enough at letting go of the point they wanted to make to truly listen to their partner. We have been trained to think that if you set down the fight, you're losing something. Living in a win/lose dynamic is one of the hallmarks of a change modality. Remember that most people are trying to change their relationship and are picking on themselves and each other. When you take a transformational approach to dating, relating and marriage, you'll find that the dynamic becomes win/win.

Most of us have been trained to expect that there is a right one and a wrong one. When this is the case, the relationship is a constant struggle. The participants have daily skirmishes in the ongoing war, constantly trying to be the one who scores the most points, the one who comes out on top. When this is the case, we conscript troops—our friends—to take our side in the ongoing
conflict as we complain and gather agreement that we are right and that our partner is wrong.

When you're locked in this type of battle, there can be no true partnership. If you're holding onto your own point of view, refusing to see your partner's point of view, there will always be tension between the two of you, limiting the level of intimacy and love that you're able to experience together. It's as if you're in a continuous not-so-friendly game of tug-of-war, pulling on the relationship rope with your partner pulling on the opposing side. When you're habituated to being right, there is no harmony between you and your mate. A conflict of wills is always brewing just below the surface, waiting to burst into flame much like a glowing ember which is covered with a deceptive coating of soft grey ash.

Being Alive

Our definition of aliveness is to have love, health, happiness, full self-expression, relationship and partnership. To feel close with your partner, to feel loving and in relationship, you need to set down your overwhelming need to be right because you can't have both intimacy and being right at the same time. If you let go of being right, then you can have a Match Made in Heaven.

However, when you are tenaciously holding onto your perspective that your point of view is correct and your partner's is wrong, in that moment you destroy the heavenly nature of your union. You can think of this like a light switch, a toggle switch. It's either on or it's off. There is no rheostat. Nowadays there are rheostats on many lights so you can turn them on just a little bit. Not so with being right. You can't be just a little right.

We understand that letting go of the idea that you're right and the other is wrong can be very challenging at first. It's hard to let go of generations of conditioning. Many people are afraid that if they let go of the war, they'll lose themselves and become a doormat. In the basic enculturation process, we're taught to either fight or give in, but rarely how to partner. Both fighting and giving in are about being right.  Giving up being right takes courage and practice, but the result is aliveness.

When you choose aliveness over being right, your life and your relationship are heavenly indeed.