How being right can cost you your relationship
(While actual people are referred to below, identifying details have been changed. Words in bold refer to terms used in specific ways by Dr. John Gottman in summary of his research on marriage and relationships.)
I recall hearing a female lawyer describe herself as a “scrapper”—a person who loved to file objections and challenge opposing counsel. But then she said, “That’s who I am as a lawyer; that’s not who I am as a person.” I love that. She recognized that if she was a “scrapper” in court, she could win, but that if she “scrapped” with family and friends, she would lose those relationships.
Similarly, I recall a teacher who was having difficulty in his relationship and difficulty in couples therapy leading with empathy and understanding—the first key relational skill that I teach. Rather than reflect his girlfriend’s feelings and affirm her perspective, though different from his, he would counter and debate and challenge and debate some more. Unfortunately, he would make some good points along the way that would shut down his girlfriend and leave her feeling defeated. I eventually learned that he was also the school’s debate coach. Great for the school; not so great for his relationship. For, if his girlfriend walked away feeling like the loser, then the relationship lost.
Winning in marriage is different from winning a debate or a court case. The win in marriage is more like the win we share with a team—whether of two or more teammates. Team players play different positions, have different vantage points, probably employ different skills, and as a result have a different experience of the same game. But teammates expect these differences and accept them on their way to defeat a mutual opponent or meet a shared challenge.
The same is true of friendship. I have sometimes heard spouses complain that their marriage has become more like a friendship than a marriage. They say this as if it’s a bad thing; I hear it as a good thing. Sure, I understand that they are describing a marriage that lacks something, or many things, which need to be bolstered. But, the good part is that when Dr. Gottman has been asked to reduce to one word what makes a marriage strong and mutually satisfying, he answers, “friendship.”
Friendship has many dimensions; when we articulate them it becomes clear why Dr. Gottman’s research on successful marriages would find it as the bedrock. A friend is someone who is there for you—despite your differences (of which there will be some, if not many). A friend is supportive of you; your defender, not your opponent. A friend is someone who “gets you” and uses that information for you, not against you. They let you be you; they don’t try to turn you into themselves.
It helps—and at some level is a necessity—that friends have some things in common; some sort of shared meaning. As they walk together through life, they share a path of one form or another, or a direction, or a shared value, or something that combines their strides. But whether they agree or not, they know they can trust their friend to be “there for them.”
In addition to friendship, trust is one of two pillars that uphold a marriage (the other being commitment). The Gottman Institute’s definition of trust is not the belief that one’s partner won’t cheat, but trust is the confidence that “my partner is ‘there for me.’” Think about those three simple words individually and combined. A friend—or a spouse that is your best friend—is “there;” someone who is available, wo is accepting of you, has time for you, is supportive, defends you, is willing to lend you help, an ear, muscle, expertise, maybe even money. Secondly, they are there “for” you, not against you. They are out to help, not defeat. Even if that for which we are seeking support is unimportant to them, they make it important to them because it’s important to you. Finally, they are there for “you.” They know you; they understand you—in the ways you are alike and in ways you’re different. They know and accept the whole package that is “you.” They embrace your idiosyncrasies, temperament, gender, background, etc. as parts of the whole. And they use what they knowledge “for you” not against you. They are your ally, not your opponent.
An obvious, though not often stated characteristic of a friendship, is that friends are people around whom we feel good; therefore we want to be around them. Simply put, we are friends with people around whom we feel good; we are not friends with people around whom we don’t feel good. We get married because of how we feel in each other’s presence… like we’ve found our best friend. And we combine our lives in hopes of making permanent this friendship that feels supportive, accepting, nurturing, comforting, loving, respectful and secure.
This is where Dr. Gottman’s ratios are applicable. Research by The Gottman Institute has revealed that spouses who report being the most satisfied in their marriages are those who are observed to interact positively twenty times more than negatively. Another way to state this finding is that the micro-interactions between partners (looks, verbal exchanges, body language, tone, actions, etc.) feel good 95% of the time. Who couldn’t wait to be around such a spouse? In such couples, such a strong ratio was conditional upon both partners being intent on being that kind of spouse, not just the recipient.
This telling ratio and its association with the bedrock of strong marriages—friendship—is why we can “right ourselves right out of a relationship.” I believe it was Terry Real, LCSW, who said something like, “You can be right, or you can be married.” We can be right and convince our partner that they are wrong. But being wrong feels bad. We can out-debate our spouse, making them lose the intellectual contest. But losing feels bad. We can get our way instead of yielding to win, but being disregarded doesn’t feel good. If a married person can’t wait to be around their spouse whose interactions feel positive 95% of the time, who wouldn’t grow weary of being around someone who makes them feel bad most of the time, even if they’re “right” …perhaps especially if they’re right?
Dale Carnegie, in his timeless classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, even goes so far as to commend letting a friend hold a belief that is untrue, for the sake of the relationship. That may seem like a bridge to far, but his opinion was that the feel of the friendship was more important than being right.
Speaking of being right, even the notion f what is right varies—sometimes by temperament, sometimes by gender. I have written elsewhere:
Often, one spouse will consider the feelings and the relational impact of the issue to be the most important thing, while the other spouse will consider the logic and soundness of the final outcome to be the most important thing. From the start, they are measuring different wins. This makes it challenging for partners to receive from each other what people always want in a discussion, which is empathy and understanding. Without empathy, the feelings-oriented person does not want to acknowledge the logical conclusion of their partner. And without some acknowledgment of the reasonableness of their argument, the “thinking-oriented" person doesn’t want to spend time on the “less important” matter of how the other feels. Not only is the starting point at odds, but so is the end-goal; the emotion-leading person values connection; the cognition-leading person values an effective conclusion.
An analogy to this phenomena is that we all go through life with both our left and right foot. If the feet are “feelings” and “thoughts,” we use both. But if you’ve ever been fitted for athletic shoes, you might have experienced the salesperson pushing you from behind in order to determine your dominant foot (the one you instinctively stick out to steady yourself). Likewise, a person will instinctively, innately lead with either their feelings or their thoughts (the T and F factors in the Myers-Briggs temperament system). This doesn’t mean that thinkers don’t feel or that feelers don’t think; it means that either thinking or feeling is dominant as we walk through life using both thoughts and feelings, feelings and thoughts, just as we walk through life using both feet—one is dominant; with it we lead.
So, as difficult as it is to lead with empathy and understanding, it’s even harder to lead with one’s non-dominant foot—to lead with reflection of understanding if you’re a feeler, or to lead with emotional empathy if you’re a thinker. This is especially true if you don’t think or feel the same way. We’re prone to interpret different as wrong. It is then a challenge to empathize with a feeling we don’t have, or to reflect a thought that is foreign to us.
Keep in mind that to voice empathy and understanding does not mean agreement, it means we listened; it means we heard. And that’s what everyone wants—empathy and understanding—to be heard emotionally and cognitively. Some want the former more than the latter; some the latter more than the former. The challenge is to learn to protect the other—whether their feelings in order to connect or the practicality of their ideas in order to support a workable conclusion. Yielding to one another means that both parties wind up receiving empathy and understanding by giving the other what the other needs, which may be in the opposite order of what you need, yourself.
Scrapping and debating have their place. But when it comes to research-verified practices and principles behind strong marriages, better that our spouse feel we’re “there for them”—like a friend rather than an opponent—far more often than not. We can monitor whether our words, actions, tone, look, etc would feel good or bad, such that if we’re about to do or say something that would make our spouse feel bad, we can ask ourself, “Why would I do that?”
by Doug Burford, DMin, LCPC
Level 3 Gottman Trained