I Was Right When I Said I was Wrong

Consider the lilies of the field, or at least the mums and cabbages...

You can be right or you can be happy. Choose.      Anonymous

Once upon a time, my husband and I overheard this conversation: nine year old son, "hey that's not true." Eleven year old son, "well, I was right when I said I was wrong." Since that fateful day Mr. G and I have used that expression to soften the blow of being completely in error. Try it, it works and it's funny to boot---two of my favorite actions.

Maturity, for most of us, is a process of aging if you pay attention to the lessons in life and do it well. For some of us, the process is hampered by rigidity, addiction and/or fear. These people, you know who they are, always have to be right. This is a drag to be around and worse to live with someone who's like this. At best it's an irritant and annoying, at worst it's incredibly disrespectful and frustrating. One remarkable similarity that most abusive people have is their rigidity and insistance on being right all of the time.

When someone is always right, it tends to wear the people around them down. Now, if this is a friend, it's considerably easier to outmaneuver them:

1. You can merely pretent to agree, decide that they are wrong and not get into it,
2. you can divert the conversation to something else,
3. you could choose to ignore them or
4. you could decide to politely state, "that's what you think, but I disagree" and let the matter drop.

If this is a good friend, one of these tactics usually works. If one of these suggestions doesn't work and the person doggedly pursues the topic ad nauseum, well, I'd look for another friend. Life is too short, as they say, but life can be deeper and wider and you won't find it with annoying people in your life. Simple solution...

Things get a bit more complicated when the person who is rigid/right is a relative and someone you have to deal with on a regular basis. Ugh, the dread of these interactions can weigh heavily on the heart. I recall one of the best interventions I ever witnessed. We were at a wedding and a relative [Scott] was being harrassed to debate politics with this other fellow [let's say his name was Tim]. Scott said, "sure Tim, I'll talk politics with you if you'll dance with me while we talk." This put the brakes on conversation because Tim, being a homophobe, jumped back, end of discussion! Scott so nicely handled what could have ruined his entire evening with aplomb and humor.  I strive for this kind of intervention in my own life.

So, wonder if you're married to one of these folks. That is one difficult situation and one of the tougher clients I deal with in couples' counseling. However, if someone has decided to come to counseling, they have already loosened the tight bolt on their issue of having to be right all the time. So, that in itself is helpful and hopeful. As therapy progresses, I try to find out why admission to error, being mistaken, being wrong is such a disgraceful or terrible thing for that person. Sad to say, usually the roots are in childhood and connected to a storehouse of shame the client is dragging around. Now here comes the shocker: so what. All of us have things that we are toting in our emotional back packs. The difference is that the rigid/right person has little to no incentive to change, because you can see their logic: they're right! Sometimes if divorce is threatened it can bring about change in that person if the damage hasn't been too severe in the relationship. One of the unfortunate truisms in couples counseling is by the time the partner can convince the rigid/right person that things are crucial, there's lots of accumulated damage. It takes a Herculean effort to turn this around and, most crucially, the right/rigid person has to realize this and be willing to change.

We have just emerged, thank God, from the season of frenzied politics. Did you notice that a bunch of the always right people came out of the woodwork screaming and yelling? This goes for the folks on the left as well as the right. Obviously what is needed here is flexibility, an honest ability to listen, reexamine their respective postions and a willingness to be open to the goodness that can flow from learning a new thing or two.

I give you the example of the NRA as the ultimate always right about guns. In 1996 Australia had a horrific slaughter of 15 people by a man who had an assault rifle. They banned assault weapons in that country and haven't had an incidence since then. Isn't it only logical that if assault weapons were banned we would have less carnage in this country? Notice I did not say anything about hand guns or hunting rifles because that would be an all or nothing approach. But some legislation makes sense.

Many years ago I had a client who said, "it took me years to say 'I was wrr-wrr-wrong!' but now I say it with humor and relish that I can admit my faults." As a selling point, it does feel better to acknowledge our errors. I suggest that we all put a little joy into other's live and admit when we're wrong. That's when the great line from AA comes into play, "when wrong promptly admit it" and I would add, put on your grown up pants and apologize for being wrong. It's respectful and refreshing.  
Soooo sing along:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me.
A-P-O-L-O-G-Y find out what it means to me!

susansmagicfeather copyright 2013 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved