Charlie and Linda Bloom share their insights on when being wrong is actually right. You’ll learn how both Linda and Charlie came to this realization through interactions with people outside of their relationship.
Charlie’s Story
When it comes to relationships, it’s very possible that the most powerful words you’ll ever hear are, “You can be right or you can have a relationship.” And the most powerful word of those ten is “or.” I first heard this phrase about twenty-five years ago, when a friend, from whom I’d been trying to gain some sympathy, instead gave me something far more valuable: the realization that being right and having good relationships are mutually exclusive and do not go together. You can have either one or the other; you just can’t have both.
I wanted to have it both ways, and when things didn’t work out that way, which they usually didn’t, I would feel victimized, resentful, unappreciated and misunderstood. The idea that my needing to be right was actually at least as big a part of the problem as the crimes I had judged Linda to be guilty of, had been inconceivable to me prior to the awakening that was provoked by my friend’s simple words.
