Being right does not make us superior

In some arguments, one sentence comes back like definitive proof:

"Last time, you already thought that. You saw for yourself that I was right."

At first, we may be recalling an accurate fact. We had anticipated a consequence better. Events had proven us right.

But the memory can change function.

It no longer serves to shed light on the present decision. It becomes a title deed: from now on, we are supposedly the one who understands, while the other is the one who gets it wrong.

A one-time truth becomes a permanent identity.

Our partner no longer merely has to defend his idea. He has to defend it against the story we have written about him.

An old victory does not make us right in advance

Having been right before gives us experience, not a verdict on every future discussion.

Yet we can enter a conversation listening only to spot the mistake. If the other person hesitates, we see it as a lack of mastery. If they speak with emotion, we declare their reasoning weak. If they get angry after feeling belittled, their reaction confirms our image.

The mechanism feeds itself.

Perhaps their idea was bad. Perhaps, too, our way of listening to it prevented them from laying it out clearly. Both can be true.

A person can be wrong on the substance and still accurately perceive the contempt with which we answer them.

Seeing no flaw at all is already information

One day, I ask a friend to name two or three of her flaws. She answers that she sees none.

I tell her: "That means you are perfect, then."

She protests: "Nobody is perfect."

We know how to recite that nobody is perfect. Identifying our own imperfection demands more. It requires accepting that a specific difficulty bears our name and that the other person may see something that escapes us.

A person incapable of naming one area to work on does not prove that she is exceptional. She may be showing that she observes herself little or reserves all her attention for her partner's mistakes.

I have experienced this position myself. I could explain what was wrong with the other person with far more precision than what needed to change in me.

Imaginary superiority sometimes begins with this sincere inability to see ourselves as part of the problem.

We compare our strength to their flaw

To believe ourselves superior, all we need to do is choose the elements being compared.

We place our patience against their anger, our money against their difficulties, our ease in speaking against their hesitations, or our faithfulness against their fault.

We do not compare our harshness to their capacity to forgive, our need for control to their flexibility, or our coldness to their warmth.

We compare the best of ourselves to the worst of the other, then call the result an objective assessment.

The partner stops being a complete person. He becomes the support on which our value appears greater.

Staying with someone while reminding them that our presence is a favor does not produce gratitude. It produces a debt that can never be repaid.

A quality is also worth what it produces

We may be more educated, wealthier or better organized in certain areas. The question is not to deny these differences.

It is to know what we do with them.

If our intelligence serves only to win, it becomes a weapon of prestige. If our money reminds the other who depends on whom, it becomes a means of domination. If our emotional control serves to calmly provoke and then condemn the reaction, it is not maturity.

A personal quality does not automatically become a relational quality.

Its value for the couple depends on what it produces: understanding, security, repair, or a better ability to decide together.

Being right has no relational value in itself. Let us rather ask: what have we made possible thanks to this rightness?

If our truth leaves the other humiliated, the problem intact and the relationship more fragile, we have won the argument without moving the couple forward.

Being more capable increases our responsibility

Greater competence in an area increases our responsibility to make things understandable. It does not give the other person an obligation to surrender to our will.

The person who knows finances better can help decide without using the numbers to silence. The one who understands relationships better can shed light without diagnosing the other in every conflict.

Passing on knowledge is not crushing. Advising is not governing.

We can even draw an advantage from the flaw we condemn. The other's lack of confidence guarantees us the last word. His financial mistakes give us control. His poor way of expressing himself lets us avoid answering the substance.

We demand that he become autonomous, then challenge his decisions. We want him to speak more, then correct every sentence.

The message becomes: "Improve yourself, but not to the point of calling into question the place your flaw has given me."

What does the other person do with our good idea?

An idea can be right and presented in a way that leaves its recipient no place at all. We then have a technically defensible solution and a cooperation that is growing more fragile. The quality of the proposal and the way it is discussed must be looked at together.

Let us imagine we have a better grasp of the budget. We can explain the numbers, the risks and the options without treating every objection as proof of ignorance. The partner may bring information our spreadsheet does not contain: fatigue, a need for intimacy, the cost of a postponement, or the value of a shared moment.

Listening to that information does not oblige us to accept the first expense proposed. It obliges us to include it in the comparison. A decision we still prefer after hearing the other must be able to show how that exchange enriched it, rather than being content to repeat our initial conclusion.

Our competence becomes a contribution when it enlarges the shared capacity to decide. It becomes a privilege of domination when it requires the other to disappear from the reasoning. Being right gives us support; it does not exempt us from building an agreement.

Our gaze must know how to update itself

Even when the other person changes, we can keep living with his old version.

The past gives us reasons to be cautious. It must not become a prison with no conditions for release.

Updating our gaze means neither forgetting nor immediately restoring all access. Having been right yesterday does not authorize us to deny what the other is doing right today.

If we ask for a change, we must be able to see it.

Otherwise, the person discovers that no effort will change his identity in our eyes.

Our share is not always half

Acknowledging our share does not divide every problem in two.

The one who insults is answerable for the insult. The one who cheats is answerable for the cheating. The one who hits is answerable for the violence. The fact that the other stayed, was afraid or did not know how to leave does not make him co-responsible for the act he suffered.

Under threat or coercion, the possibilities of choosing can be greatly reduced.

Self-examination seeks only what can make us freer: the signals to recognize, the help to seek, the resources to prepare, and the decisions that become possible again when safety increases.

Personal responsibility must restore power. If it absolves the perpetrator of violence or blames the person who suffers it, it has lost its meaning.

Rightness must pass the test of usefulness

We will not always be right. Neither will our partner.

The couple does not need a permanent winner. It needs two people capable of correcting their reading without losing their dignity.

Instead of asking "Who is the smarter one?", let us ask: "What allows us to understand what each person sees?"

Instead of asking "Who won?", let us ask: "What will be different after this discussion?"

Truth loses nothing when it is conveyed with respect.

It becomes able to be received.

What does my rightness produce?

Which old victory is still closing off our present discussions?

Which personal flaw do I have trouble naming?

Which quality of the other does my comparison leave out?

What advantage does his weakness allow me to keep?

Does my rightness really help our relationship move forward?