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RelationshipBaggage.com

Right or Happy...Pick One

Everything thing we believe, we believe to be right – otherwise we’d believe something else. What we believe dictates how we feel. Our attitudes about people and events generate our emotional responses to them. Since we have practiced our attitudes and beliefs over a lifetime, we are very loyal to them.

It is very common to get stuck on our rightness and lose sight of our real human objective which is to be happy. Many people believe that being right IS being happy. If we’re lucky, we eventually learn that our rightness may be limiting or restricting our happiness. In the arena of romantic relationships, we can assure you that rightness has killed more relationships than any other single factor.

When it comes to dealing with the feelings generated by losses, we have all learned many incorrect ideas. We develop and practice a rightness even about wrong ideas. Our rightness about the ideas we use to deal with relationship endings often limits our ability to complete romantic relationships that have ended so we can move on. For example, we were all taught that "time heals all wounds." But time does not complete anything that is left emotionally unfinished when a romantic relationship ends. If we believe, with absolute rightness, that time is going to heal our emotional wounds, we are destined to wait forever.

Time does not heal. Time just goes by. It is the actions that you take within time that can help you complete relationships that have ended. It is essential to learn and take new actions will help you complete what your prior relationships left unfinished.

If you are still incomplete with prior romantic relationships, you will drag that residue into your new relationships. Unfortunately you also drag along your rightness about not dealing effectively with the end of the relationship. Even though most of the ideas and beliefs that we were taught about dealing with loss are incorrect after practicing them for a lifetime, WRONG can seem to be very RIGHT.

Another example of a belief that you may have learned and practiced is “keeping busy.” As a response to the conflicting feelings caused by the end of a relationship, keeping busy can be a dangerous short-term distraction. At the end of a busy day your heart is still broken, but the relationship is still incomplete. All you are is exhausted. Keeping busy does not complete relationships any more than time does. Yet, people are often as “right” about keeping busy as they are about time healing wounds.

Long ago, we wrote an article on familiarity. In it we said, "Familiar is not necessarily good, it is only familiar." By the same token, right is not necessarily correct, it is only that you believe it to be right. We tend to develop ferocious loyalty to our rightness even though it often leads us to horrible squabbles with our mates. If you think about most of the fights you've ever had, you will realize that both of you clung fiercely to the rightness of your position. Even in the aftermath, either party may have stayed on a position of rightness and refused to apologize, and thereby extended the fray.

It may be time for you to examine some of your beliefs and attitudes about dealing with the emotions caused by a significant emotional loss. How you process the conflicting feelings caused by the end of a relationship is dictated by what you believe. You must ensure that you have effective beliefs that can lead you towards happiness, rather than keep you stuck in rightness.

Moving On is the perfect book to teach you new and better ideas for dealing with the feelings caused by relationship endings. It will also walk you through the actions you need to take to complete what is left unfinished with in your prior relationships. Then you can attach your rightness to ideas and actions that will affirm your life rather than limit it.

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