5 Losing Strategies in Relationships

(Terry) Real Life Intimacy

Terry Real just punched me in the gut.

Just before my plane took off, a close girlfriend texted me: “You gotta listen to this.” Attached was a link to Terry Real’s episode on Tim Ferris’s podcast. It took me all of taxiing and takeoff to get through the episode—and by 30,000 feet, I was already hitting repeat.

Look, we all know no relationship is perfect. But thanks to social media, curated narratives, and our deeeeeeep desire to control how people perceive us, it's rare to see the real-real—the raw, messy, dark, and hard stuff that any (let me rephrase: EVERY) long-term relationship inevitably goes through.

My partner, Kevin, and I love each other. Without a doubt. Of course! AND YET… we ride the rollercoaster Terry describes as Harmony → Disharmony → Repair with relative frequency. Truth be told, as I write this, we’re deep in the process of repairing. And what’s useful to say—and hear, and be reminded of—is this: that cycle doesn’t mean a relationship is broken, or failing, or abnormal. It’s actually par for the course.

The question isn’t: How do I find a relationship that never experiences disharmony?
The real question is: Can this relationship get good at repair and if so, how?

And to start down that journey, we (all of us, me included - hand raised!) need to understand the strategies we employ during Disharmony that ain’t gonna get us anywhere so that we can get to Repair, quicker and with less harm.

Let’s get into it. Terry’s five “losing strategies” that come up over and over in relationships—peppered with my own experiences.

image by Joseph Avila

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1. Being Right

Ooooooh, he had to start with this one, didn’t he?
Everyone knows this game:

• Who remembered it correctly?

• Whose feelings were valid?

• My favorite one, especially for those of us who work in the (quote un-quote) industry of well-being: What’s objectively true?

Kevin and I have done our fair share of tangoing in this tornado: My reality vs. your reality. My memory vs. yours. My need to be right vs. yours. And then, Terry drops the hammer:

“Objective reality has no place in personal relationships. It doesn’t matter. The answer to ‘who is right’ is ‘who cares?’”

Because, ultimately, what matters in a relationship—romantic, professional, or otherwise—isn’t who wins the argument. It’s: How do we work through this as a team?

I remember reading this section in Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth like it was yesterday: Needing to be right is a function of the ego’s fear. Fear. Fear that we aren’t enough, fear of losing, fear of not belonging, and fear that our existence is somehow invalidated. When we insist on being right, we disconnect from presence and enter the painful world of separateness. Fear disguises itself as rightness. But if we can let go of the need to win, we make space for repair.

Terry uses a simple but perfect example:

"The waiter shouted."
"No, he didn’t, he was emphatic."
*"No, he shouted."
*"No, he was emphatic."

(Now everyone’s emphatically shouting.)

Where is that going to get anyone? There’s no universal adjudicator coming in to rule on whether the waiter shouted or was simply emphatic, so why waste the life force? Why do we have to be right?

Because, deep down, we think that if our partner finally agrees with us about the goddamn waiter, our existence will be validated. Then we can feel safe. Then our fear will be squelched. Then we’re loved. And then… we can go back to loving each other.

Oh man, isn’t the need to be right exhausting?

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2. Controlling Your Partner

This is the one where we try—relentlessly—to get our partner to see, do, or believe exactly what we think they should, for all the oh-so-brilliant reasons we have.

Maybe it looks like trying to convince them to eat healthier, or meditate, or dress differently, or be more social, or literally anything else because, of course, we know best.

Guilty as charged!
And then Terry slams the door shut:

“Who are you to tell another adult what they should or should not be doing?”

Pause.
(Mouth-shut, eyes blinking.)

So I guess let your partner be the adult that they are? And they should let me be the adult that I am? Nah… that can’t be right. ;)

Net-net: No one actually controls their partner. In reality, there’s just one person pressuring and one person acquiescing, creating an unhealthy dynamic of “Parent Knows Best” with your partner. Unsexy. At the end of the day, this strategy will never work, because no one likes to be controlled. Period.

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3. Unbridled Self-Expression

Aka ventilating. Aka the point system. Aka the snowball of grievances.

This is when I’m not just mad that Kevin forgot to buy milk at the store—I also decide to unleash every single time he’s forgotten… not just MILK but - you know - ANYthing, and every other time he’s disappointed me, and oh yeah, every other thing that reminds me of that thing that one time five years ago.

The insight here is friggin’ brilliantly simple: