Occasionally a marriage will end as a result of one single incident, such as infidelity. But more often than not, it’s the day-to-day hurtful words and actions between a couple that dissolve a marriage slowly over time. And almost nothing can chip away at a marriage more directly than one or both partners’ need to be right when there’s a disagreement.

The desire to be right is something that was taught to us at a very young age. When we got the answers right in school, we got better grades. We went out into competitive working environments and those that received the promotions seemed to be those that make the right choices and had the fewest failures. This is how we came to believe that being right was the goal.