That’s the question I often ask people when they tell me that they either cannot find the right relationship, don’t believe they can be in relationship, cannot get on with their partners or have given up on their relationship and are ready to leave.

So what do I mean when I ask them this question? I am not being facetious or glib. Human beings love to be right about so many things. Our egos depend on us being right to preserve the identity they have created for us. Our egos are the persona we wear and show to the outside world. They are created from behaviours we adapted when we were young to survive in the world. They become the underpinning of our lives. The very structure that we live by.

We live out these adapted behaviours as if they were the only way and the right way for us to live. The problem is that many of us cannot understand how other people can see life so differently.

Let me give you an example. Why do you think the terrorists who flew into the twin towers, killing themselves and so many innocent people in the process did what they did? They did it because they believed they were right to do so. They believed they were right and justified and that the people who were about to die were wrong to live and breathe in the way that they did. That’s how much human beings want to be right.

Take it back to intimate relationships and people are just as determined to be right. Here’s just a short list of the ‘rightness’ I hear daily:

I’m right that he does not do things the way I want him to and when he does do them its in a half hearted way

I’m right that she has let herself ‘go’

I’m right that there are no decent men out there

I’m right that he doesn’t ‘get’ me

I’m right that she does not initiate intimacy and I had no choice but to be unfaithful

I’m right that he is lazy/she is fat/ he is not emotionally available/she won’t commit/she is boring/he is boring etc etc.

And, it has to be said, that each and every one of these complaints is backed up by a ‘story’ to justify them. All of them extremely plausible and making a lot of sense to the person telling the ‘story’.

And haven’t all of us had a story at some time or another. But where does it get us? What’s the benefit to us and our partners or future partners of holding on to our rightness? One things for sure, if you hold on to be being right, it makes it near on impossible to be in relationship.

Self-rightness keeps us from connecting to others and showing our vulnerabilities. It keeps us from having to admit that we may be partly responsible for the other’s behaviour, or that we are in a relationship that is past its sell by date but we are fearful of leaving for whatever reason, or that given who our partner is and where they come from emotionally, they may have a point. Or in the case of people who blow other people up – literally and metaphorically - that sometimes its just impossible to change someone else to our way of thinking and so the only way forward is to let go of our rightness and let them live their lives how they want to – but without having to ‘kill’ them in the process with blame and anger and resentment.

In relationship, being right is the booby prize. Its not relationship building, in fact it will eventually destroy. Ask yourself the question: ‘if I wasn’t right about how wrong my partner or ex partner is (or was), what would I have to accept about myself or them, that I find it hard to accept’? Try not to manipulate this enquiry to make yourself right again? (I have your number!). Answer this question in exactly the way I worded it.

Really the only question is – do you want to be right or do you want to be in relationship? I’d be so interested in hearing your answers, so feel free to leave your comments or email me – Francine@francinekaye.com.

Love Francine