101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married by Charlie Bloom

Author:Charlie Bloom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781577313458
Publisher: New World Library

CHARLIE: For years, I always had to rub it in when I was right. I was driven by my desire to impress Linda and others with my intelligence, and by the adrenaline rush of decisively driving my point home in an argument. It was so important to me that I would frequently lose sight of the consequences of my indulgence. I would press loudly onward until I was either proven wrong (in my eyes, this happened rarely, as I was usually closed to conflicting opinion) or I got the final say. The thrill of this victory would be followed by a kind of defeat, as trust, closeness, and caring were inevitably sacrificed. I’m a slow learner, so it took me a long time to realize that these losses far outweighed the momentary pleasures of my victory. I was winning the arguments, but losing the real prize.

These days, I’m rarely tempted to drive my point home — the need to be right just isn’t as compelling as it used to be, as I’ve stopped feeding that desire the way I used to. Bad habits weaken and eventually die when we stop indulging them. The result for me has been a strengthening of the quality of goodwill and sweetness in my marriage, which has made it all the more worthwhile.

At first, however, even after I found the motivation to break the self-righteousness habit, letting go of being right proved to be more of a challenge than I’d expected. I found that when I didn’t try to prove my point, I often felt susceptible to feeling blamed and wrong myself. Preemptively blaming others had enabled me to feel less vulnerable to the possibility of others’ criticisms and attacks. Now I felt naked and unprotected without the defense of my intellectually combative strategies. Ultimately, I learned that the best defense is the truth of my experience, which unlike defensiveness does not invite attack or aggression.

Learning to recognize the ways in which I have emotionally armed myself and finding the courage and strength to disarm has been one of the hardest challenges of my life. It has also been one of the most rewarding. In giving up my need to prove my point, I discovered a degree of trust, openness, and connection with Linda and others that I had never even imagined. Being relieved of this burden has left me feeling freer, lighter, and more relaxed than ever before. And contrary to my fears, the world seems to have become a safer rather than a more dangerous place. Go figure.

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