You Don’t Have to Make the Other Person Wrong to Be Right.

I’m always pondering communication skills. It seems to me that much of the pain people experience, and cause, in their relationships (and mine, too!) can be averted. I help clients learn new communication skills that help them speak compassionately. By using these skills, they build bridges of cooperation that help them resolve disagreements without causing alienation and excessive pain.

To give an example, one of my clients, a middle-aged man in a polyamorous relationship, was feeling irritable that his girlfriend couldn’t seem to relax during a date. He wanted to cook her a nice meal, but she kept offering to help. She wanted to kiss him while he was trying to cook and offered to cut vegetables and set the table. He felt irritated and wanted to say things like, “Get off me, I’m trying to cook!” And, “Why can’t you just sit down and talk to me and let me cook?!” But because he feared that these were too harsh, he held it in, and his irritation grew.

When we look at his inner dialogue, we see that he “makes her wrong” to want to kiss him or to offer to help. Luckily, he knows this is hurtful, and he restrains himself from saying the words. But he lacks the tools to say what he wants without having to “make her wrong” in the process.
In the short term, he and I worked out how he could express what he wanted without making his girlfriend “wrong.” He practiced saying, “I’d like to cook a nice meal for you. I get great satisfaction from doing all of it as a gift. I’d like you to sit here and talk with me while I cook.” He even joked that it would be easier if he said this was a homework assignment from therapy!

The next step in the process was to learn to validate his girlfriend’s feelings while still expressing what he needs or wants, that way, they are both allowed to be “right.”

For example: “I understand you want to be helpful and it’s one of the things I love about you. You are very giving. And at the same time, I want to do all the tasks related to preparing this meal for you. Is that okay?” Asking, “Is that okay?” is a reminder of respect for your partner’s feelings, but also that consent is important! 
In another example, a new poly couple disagreed on whether to cook a big traditional Thanksgiving meal at home or to go out to eat. Originally, they took opposite positions and assumed one person has to be wrong and the other right, one will win and one will lose. The discussion looked something like this:

Jai - “Going out to a restaurant is so impersonal. I don’t want that. I want to feel together, like a family on the holidays!”

Kevin - “But, it’s so much work! I hate cooking, I hate the cleanup, and we’ll have leftovers for weeks. It’s so much simpler to go out. And I wanted to take you somewhere special, that’s the family tradition I would like to start.”

The language being used, “Going out to a restaurant is so impersonal.” and “But, it’s so much work!” suggest the other person’s opinion is “wrong.”  This is a common mistake. We think shooting down the opposing argument is just part of trying to elevate our side. 

But, if we remove this tendency to make the other person wrong, the conversation looks like this:

Jai - “I want to feel together, like a family on the holidays!”

Kevin - “I wanted to take you somewhere special, that’s the family tradition I would like to start.”

Now look at where they had an agreement. They both wanted to feel family togetherness during the holiday meal. Once I helped them see this, they had a wonderful bonding moment and agreed to work together to find a solution that would result in them both feeling this family togetherness.

Then, we explored “how” they each expected their idea to achieve this family-together feeling. I emphasized that they both get to be “right.” Jai wanted to prepare the whole meal as a gift for Kevin. Jai wanted the house filled with the smell of good food and to hear sports playing in the background and recreate their memories of childhood, homey holiday meals. Kevin also wanted to provide the holiday meal as a gift, but hates cooking, so he wanted to make it special in his way, by going somewhere nice.

They discussed having two Thanksgiving meals, one on the actual day and one later on the weekend. They also discussed eating out for Thanksgiving and home-cooking the Christmas meal. In both cases, they discussed alternating year-by-year to make it fair. They didn’t reach a final decision in the session but felt they now had the tools and the foundation of cooperation in place to complete the discussion successfully at home.

Acknowledging the “rightness,” or the merits, of both ideas and validating the feelings behind them, neither person feels hurt or ignored. No one was made to feel wrong for wanting what they wanted. They agreed it was not possible to do both ideas on the same day, so they agreed to compromise. 

This is the heart of what healthy communication looks like. Where understanding and validating each other’s perspectives, not dismissing them, is the key to fostering compassion and respect to strengthen our relationships.