A principle should serve us, not imprison us

Everyone around her admires her firmness.

‘She, at least, never goes back on what she has decided.’

Everyone knows that she does not call first. After an offence, she can go for weeks without speaking to the person. Those close to her speak of her character with a mixture of respect and caution.

At home, however, the silence has lasted for three months.

She and her partner live in the same house. They deal with practical needs, but the pleasant side of life has almost disappeared. She suffers from the distance. So does he. Neither of them knows what this silence is still meant to achieve.

She could take a step, ask a question or suggest another way of addressing the problem. But one statement holds her back:

‘Once I have made a decision, I do not go back on it.’

Her principle is no longer correcting the wrongdoing. It is protecting the image of a person who never yields.

And every day, she pays to remain faithful to that image.

A principle is an answer prepared in advance

We speak of our principles as though they had fallen from the sky, complete and independent of our history.

Yet a principle is often a condensed answer.

We experienced a situation, observed its consequences, then created a rule so that we would not have to go through the entire reasoning process again the next time:

‘If someone lies to me, I distance myself.’

‘If a person humiliates me in front of others, I no longer give them the same access.’

‘If my partner does not contribute, I will no longer carry alone what was defined by both of us.’

The principle preserves the memory of pain, a lesson or a value. That function is useful.

But a prepared answer has not become intelligent in every situation. If we stop consulting reality, our principle may continue answering a question that is no longer being asked.

A protection can outlive what it was meant to protect

Some rules have helped us say no, stop begging or cease giving access that the other person misused.

The problem does not begin when we protect ourselves. It begins when we never question the protection again.

A rule created to get us through a period can become the permanent organisation of our life. Caution born of a lie can treat every statement as probable deception. Distance intended to make a wrong visible can become our only way of existing alongside the other person.

Every fence protects something and also separates us from something.

‘I no longer trust anyone’ reduces the risk of believing a lie. This rule also reduces the possibility of recognising a credible person.

‘I never ask for anything’ may spare us a refusal. It also deprives us of the joy of discovering who would have wanted to support us.

‘I no longer show my vulnerability’ limits certain malicious uses of our intimacy. It also makes the deep connection we seek more difficult.

We readily look at the danger stopped by the fence. We look less at the life it prevents from arriving.

Both belong in the assessment.

A useful rule knows its objective and when it will be reviewed

A man discovers his wife’s infidelity and leaves their shared bedroom. He wants to demonstrate the seriousness of the wrongdoing, protect his intimacy and prevent life from resuming as though nothing had happened.

This distance may make sense.

But six months pass. Then a year.

Have the behaviours changed? Are efforts visible? Does the injured person still want to test a rebuilding process? Is the separate bedroom producing new information, or repeating every evening a conclusion that is already known?

The point is not to set a universal date for returning. It is to ask the decision what work it is still doing.

Before applying a rule, two questions should receive a clear answer:

What am I seeking to protect or obtain?

On the basis of what facts will I agree to review my response?

Without an objective, the principle becomes a repeated reaction. Without a condition for review, it becomes a punishment with no way out.

Observing progress does not oblige us to declare the problem resolved. It allows us to check whether another step is becoming possible or whether the absence of change provides clearer information.

Immediate pride does not pay the entire bill

A rigid principle often offers a quick reward. We regain control, stop hesitating and sometimes receive the approval of those close to us.

But the people who admire our hardness do not live through our nights. They do not carry the emptiness of our home or the loss of a peace that our rule may have ceased to protect.

Being at peace, being proud and being happy do not mean the same thing.

Peace can come from a world that has become so closed that nothing enters it any more. Pride can come from perfectly carrying out a decision that impoverishes us. Relief can last an evening, while the loneliness created by our choice lasts several years.

Every decision has several time frames: what it brings today, what it repeats tomorrow, the habit it establishes, the response it provokes and the person we become after applying it for months.

A responsible assessment does not seek to demonstrate that the principle is bad. It merely refuses to count its advantage without counting its bill.

Consistency responds to the facts, not to a formula

Responding differently to different situations is not being inconsistent.

A clumsy joke made by a partner who did not know about our wound does not have the same meaning as repeated humiliation after several clear requests.

A one-off instance of lateness during a difficult period does not have the same significance as a habit the other person refuses to discuss.

A mistake acknowledged after twenty years of loyalty does not provide the same information as a tenth betrayal accompanied by the same words.

The person before us is part of the situation. Their history does not purchase impunity, but it completes the case: frequency, habits, ability to acknowledge, efforts already made and reasons to believe or not believe that the matter will be corrected.

The person must be neither reduced to their best past nor erased by their worst moment.

The new partner does not repay the former partner’s debt

After a painful relationship, we make resolutions:

‘I no longer believe men.’

‘I will no longer give so much.’

‘I will no longer show what can make me vulnerable.’

These statements may help us regain control for a time. But a new person then risks being made to pay for a wrong they did not commit.

Their lateness reawakens a sense of abandonment. Their clumsiness receives the punishment intended for contempt. Their request for trust is treated like the strategy of the person who deceived us.

The new partner must build their credibility. They are not entitled to unlimited trust. But their own actions must be able to change our conclusion.

Our experience should increase our capacity for observation, not deprive every new person of the possibility of being different.

Our principles resemble a language

We learn words, grammar and rules. Yet no one gives us in advance every sentence we will utter during our life.

We compose according to the person, the moment and what we want to convey. Mastering a language does not consist in reciting a single sentence in every conversation.

Our principles should work in the same way.

Our history gives us a vocabulary: respect, faithfulness, distance, forgiveness, boundary, caution, consequence, commitment.

But the useful response still has to be composed.

Was the wrongdoing known to be wrong? Was it the first time? Have we explained our boundary? What do we still want to build after our response?

A mature principle does not eliminate reasoning. It gives it reference points.

Making an exception can even honour its intention. A rule created for our dignity may now be better served by a clear conversation than by silence that we endure. A limited chance may provide more information than an automatic departure. Occasional help does not necessarily establish the dependence we wanted to avoid.

The useful exception does not say, ‘My rule had no value.’

It says, ‘I am protecting its intention with a response better suited to the present reality.’

Let us ask for flexibility with reciprocity

We sometimes want our history to explain our rigidities, but describe our partner’s as whims. We call the exception the other person makes for us love, and the one we could make on our side weakness.

Understanding our partner’s rule does not oblige us to accept it. Some boundaries are incompatible and some requests would cost too much.

But if we want the other person to listen to what we are protecting, we must be able to ask them:

‘What does your rule protect within you?’

Firmness must also consult the moment.

Too early, it leaves no room for an explanation or for correcting a clumsy mistake. Too late, it comes after months of silent acceptance and turns accumulated resentment into an incomprehensible break.

Have we named the problem? Does the person understand its effect? Are we facing a mistake, a recurring pattern or a refusal that has become clear?

Firmness does not need to humiliate in order to be visible. It is useful when it makes a boundary understandable and produces information about the other person’s willingness.

Relaxing a rule does not mean negotiating everything

Some people know the cost of a principle and choose to maintain it. They have examined the history, the consequences and the possible efforts, then judge that yielding would destroy a more important part of their dignity, their peace or their vision of life.

That choice may be consistent.

The purpose of reflection is not systematically to produce an exception. It must produce a conscious decision.

Nor does adapting mean changing the rule every time applying it becomes uncomfortable. If our principle disappears when it deprives us of a pleasure, then returns when it serves our interest, it is not alive. It is opportunistic.

A living principle retains its intention, consults the facts and learns from the consequences. Its evolution must be explainable.

‘I had taken that distance to observe a change. The efforts are visible; I am opening a new stage without declaring that trust has been rebuilt.’

‘I had accepted this exception because the situation was unusual. Its repetition changes what I am observing; I am returning to a firmer boundary.’

We have not become inconsistent. We have made our reasoning capable of learning.

We must not work for our former decisions

A principle is meant to do work for us. It protects a value, saves us from repeating a reasoning process and recalls a lesson when emotion risks erasing it.

But when we indefinitely sacrifice our joy, our curiosity and a relationship that is still precious solely to obey it, the roles have changed.

We are now working to maintain the principle.

Relational responsibility asks us to know why our boundaries exist, to whom we apply them, at what moment and towards what result.

We can be firm without becoming automatic.

We can make an exception without abandoning our dignity.

We can retain a principle after examining it without demanding that everyone make the same choice.

A principle that serves us protects the life we want to build. A principle that has become a master can leave us irreproachable in our own eyes and profoundly distant from that life.