Love is a perplexing thing. No matter how much experience you have with it or how much you learn about it, there's always more. In other words, no one really knows what love is, at least not perfectly, not completely.
I'm learning that conflict or disagreements are a natural part of having a loving relationship with someone. They're also part of any relationship, really, loving or otherwise. The difference being the point of the conflict. In a zero-sum game, the point of a conflict is to win, or to be right. Contrarily, this is defeatist in a loving relationship. In order for you to be right, that must mean that your partner is "wrong." So essentially what you have demonstrated, if you take this stance, is that you are with someone who believes wrongly or behaves badly. If that is how you view your partner, why are you with them? So if your attitude towards a disagreement with your loved one is that one of you MUST be right and the other MUST be wrong, one of you is better than the other. While this may be beneficial in terms of abilities or aptitudes, if you are morally superior to your partner that's going to be a lopsided and unfulfilling relationship.
Rather the take is that both people have their perspectives on the situation, and neither is completely right nor completely wrong or, better yet, neither is right/wrong, but rather just different. The ultimate point is not determining "truth" but rather coming to an understanding that can help your relationship grow. Understand that neither of you is a mind-reader, understand that each of your motivations may have been quite different, understand that each of you may have assumed you were talking about different things, understand that each of you has different experiences with the world, and both of your experiences are equally valid. Letting go of a sense of justice (which is more likely a sense of self-righteous or even vindication) and embracing a desire for understanding and empathy, I think, is more beneficial in the long run.
I'm learning that conflict or disagreements are a natural part of having a loving relationship with someone. They're also part of any relationship, really, loving or otherwise. The difference being the point of the conflict. In a zero-sum game, the point of a conflict is to win, or to be right. Contrarily, this is defeatist in a loving relationship. In order for you to be right, that must mean that your partner is "wrong." So essentially what you have demonstrated, if you take this stance, is that you are with someone who believes wrongly or behaves badly. If that is how you view your partner, why are you with them? So if your attitude towards a disagreement with your loved one is that one of you MUST be right and the other MUST be wrong, one of you is better than the other. While this may be beneficial in terms of abilities or aptitudes, if you are morally superior to your partner that's going to be a lopsided and unfulfilling relationship.
Rather the take is that both people have their perspectives on the situation, and neither is completely right nor completely wrong or, better yet, neither is right/wrong, but rather just different. The ultimate point is not determining "truth" but rather coming to an understanding that can help your relationship grow. Understand that neither of you is a mind-reader, understand that each of your motivations may have been quite different, understand that each of you may have assumed you were talking about different things, understand that each of you has different experiences with the world, and both of your experiences are equally valid. Letting go of a sense of justice (which is more likely a sense of self-righteous or even vindication) and embracing a desire for understanding and empathy, I think, is more beneficial in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment