Do You Want to Be Right… Or Do You Want to Be Close?

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “You can be right, or you can be close.”

The concept deserves some very careful consideration because we sometimes aren’t aware of how destructive it can be to feed our need to be right.

I’ve had the chance to watch the effect of “I need to be right,” first-hand, and I’ve come to realize it’s not so much about who’s right that costs you closeness; it’s the way a person positions themselves when they need to be right.

When someone is driven by a need to be right, they tend to hold such a strong posture of me, not you; they make it clear that rightness is much more important to them than closeness. That posture has a destructive effect on emotional connection.

A person who needs to feel right loses sight of the ongoing importance of preserving connection with another—it’s as if they’re reaching for fool’s gold, rather than valuing the precious experience of remaining bonded.

David knew he was right about which used car he and his wife, Tara, should buy. They’d been scanning ads and testing driving cars for weeks. He felt strongly that they should go with the Toyota; his wife favored the Honda.

The hallmark of the discussions was David’s relentless lobbying for his choice—he had done the research, he had a list of reasons, and he had (basically) made the decision. Tara simply felt more comfortable in the Honda—she didn’t have a stack of precise rationales.

In the end, David wore her down and got his way. Tara felt like this was how decisions were usually made: David declared what was best and then pressed for his choice.

David never even noticed the cost of his patterns. In the satisfaction of “winning,” he lost sight of the subtleties of inclusion, sharing power, and giving in (sometimes).

That’s a common pattern: When someone is focused on being right, they tend to lose sight of other aspects of the relationship. Reaching for being right, they fail to notice how the other person might feel beaten down, bullied, or hopeless about being heard or included.

3 Ways to Reconsider Wanting to Be Right

1. In some ways, it’s not so important who is factually right in the discussion—what matters is how someone handles that sense of being right.

If I cling to the need to be right, there’s simply no room for you, your point of view, or your sense of being included and honored in the exchange. I push you out of my emotional space because there’s only room for me to proclaim how correct I am.

Marcia had ongoing arguments with her mother about memories from Marcia’s childhood. Her mom relentlessly corrected Marcia’s stories, pressing hard for the way she remembered things. Marcia would typically give up and let her mom be right; her mom didn’t even see how Marcia was withdrawing more and more from what had once been delightful exchanges. When I worked with Marcia’s mom, I pressed her on being able to know she was right and letting Marcia have her memories.

Over time, she could see that her need to be right was driven by a great need to feel precise in her recall; she realized she had dominated their conversations and vowed to handle them differently.

2. Focusing so strongly on a need to be right sets up a power struggle.

One of my mentors used to say, “Power struggles are like a tug-of-war. Each person holds on to their point of view no matter what. There’s only one way out of a tug-of-war: You have to drop the rope.”

It’s an interesting perspective, isn’t it? What if I truly believe my point of view to be right? Do I need to require that the other person see it my way? Do I want to lose goodwill and closeness to achieve that? These questions get to the heart of the pattern. In a relationship, that need to be right often squelches (or obliterates) the other person’s perspective. The need to be right can dominate to the extent that we relentlessly demand the other’s agreement.

3. Challenging your need to be right relieves others of trying to challenge you.

We can reach for a much more complex exchange, full of curiosity, a willingness to stand down and “share the podium,” and the possibility that each person—in their way—is right. We can say, “No matter how I see this, I value your perspective, too. Let’s talk.”

Here are some questions to work with to begin to challenge the need for control:

Can you be right without requiring that the other person shares your point of view? Can you let them have a point of view or memory or viewpoint that’s different from yours, without feeling challenged by it?

Can you step back and be curious about why being right is so important to you? Maybe it gives you a sense of power—but why is that so crucial?
Where does the hunger for being right come from? A family experience of never being right? Or growing up with family patterns that taught you that being right was crucial? Take a look back, and maybe recalibrate the importance of being right.

So, once again: Do you want to be right . . . or do you want to be close?

Those two things are often mutually exclusive.

Once in a while, “Drop the rope.”