Jessica has a great memory for details and enjoyed sharing adventures with her husband. She was shocked when he asked for a divorce–she had no idea how unhappy he was. Only after he filed the papers did she understand that there was no big event that changed their relationship, but a series of small episodes. For example, when out with friends, her husband enjoyed sharing stories about the trips he and Jessica had taken. Jessica often corrected the small mistakes he made and she was usually right. When he complained, she explained she was just helping him get it right. She didn’t see that as a problem.
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Thanks for this. I too have the horrible habit of correcting my husband. It is automatic. I see it happening, I am aware of this need to be right. However, even with my awareness I have difficulty in stopping myself. For me I think it’s about the details being correct – but I don’t know why that should matter to me.
Again, thanks for this post – really helpful.
–Conflicts over my Mom, her death and bequeathed items have plagued my family for years, but it goes beyond who is right when my brothers started accussing me of killing Mom. It is all out of control and doesn’t matter about the truth anymore,…it has gone to the extremes that I fear dementia on their part (65+ and 70′s). I haven’t been the one who started demanding to be ‘right’ all the time, but I can’t do anything about the situation any longer except just to love them from afar and rest in knowing I’ve tried everything and am on my own,…different situations!!!
I liked your title, but not the story. There’s something off about a guy who makes mistakes like that. Hard to say he wasn’t doing it on purpose, playing his own mind games with a woman he knew would correct him. Guys often try to bait me into destroying my relationship with them, as if to say ‘I know you’ll screw up with a little help from my mind games, then I can use it as an excuse to screw with you later.’
Anecdotes are nice, but a two paragraph divorce story about feelings is going to seem lacking.
I remember Joan Borysenko in one of her books talking about an argument with her son when this dawned on her – sometimes you have to choose to be “right” OR happy but not both. As an oldest child (alert #1), who always felt the need to be perfect to please parents(#2) and who faced verbal attacks as a kid for making mistakes (#3), I really really have to be careful about this business imposing my stupid perfectionism (taking great pains and giving them to someone else)on others.As someone who is normally kind, I had to see that any “corrections” i might feel compelled to make to others probably made them feel that way i used to feel – and that isn’t how you want to make a friend, spouse of family member feel. I also realized that whenever I start feeling that I “have to” correct someone else , that’s a signal to back off, bite my tongue and look at why? Why does it bother me at all?
So no matter what being right or wrong is wrong. Truth, honesty and justice are fairy tales and have nothing to do with the “real world”? Manipulation and deceit are perfectly wonderful as long as the person being deceived is willing to be “effective”? Have you ever hear the term, “gas lighting”?