Being right is a dangerous place if being right will split your family and alienate you from people you love.
Being right is never as important and powerful as being loving.
I am not suggesting a compromise of standards although you may believe it to be when you are right. It’s about trying to view the world from many perspectives, understanding people see things differently from you. Being right may give you the moral high ground but you may also lose significant relationships. This is the challenge we face when being right is more important than being loving.
Being right may work in your favor when interpreting your deceased dad’s will but the questions will remain long after you’ve spent the money or sold the sofa: have you been loving, kind, and fair?
Being right means others are wrong.
When your “rightness” makes others “wrong” they are placed on the outside.
At this point you may have forgotten the importance their worlds hold for them and the loggerheads that ensue could turn to years of cut-off and alienation.
It’s not about giving in. It’s about taking the time to respect the humanity of others as frail and faulty as it may be, and allowing people to meet as beings, all of whom are as imperfect, even as you are, as right as you may well be.
The Mercury (Monday Feb 6, 2023)
difficultrelationships.com 
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