When I am winning, WE are usually losing
“You can either be right, or you can be one, but you can’t be both”. Our mentors were talking to us about a frustrating argument, and we were both digging in.
They were right, of course, but we struggled to put it into practice. It would not be the last time either. Like just this past weekend.
The argument was over handling a distressed toddler. It’s a well-worn path for us, and now it’s playing out through our grandchildren.
We’d been caring for the two girls for a second day, and it was bedtime. Everyone was tired and grumpy, especially the grandparents!
Things were not going well between us. We bit our tongues to avoid upsetting the girls, but a quiet fury was simmering below the surface.
With girls in bed, Byron reached out with a wordless touch of conciliation. But Francine wasn’t ready to let it go and a coldness persisted between us. ‘We’ were definitely losing at this point.
Pride – the enemy of unity
Pride is the enemy of unity. It manifests in us as a desire to be proven right, to be victorious over the other. Pride makes us stubborn and defensive.
Our pride can keep an argument going indefinitely. Every day provides new data to sustain our point of view.
It leads us to resist resolution with unholy determination. Even after a truce, pride secretly keeps the tab open, waiting for the moment of vindication.
It is such an ugly part of our fallen nature. No wonder, pride is considered the worst of the seven deadly sins and the gateway to the other six: wrath, envy, sloth, greed, lust, and gluttony.
When captured by pride, it’s not uncommon for us to lash out in self-righteous anger whenever we feel wronged (wrath), or to ‘zone out’ leaving our spouse to do chores we should do (sloth). We might resent that they ‘have it easier than us’ (envy), or indulge in escapist behaviours like eating or drinking to excess (gluttony), shopping or gambling (greed) or pornography (lust).
Pride is profoundly I-centred. It defends our threatened ego by diminishing the other and consequently puts distance between us. Pride orientates our desire towards being better than our spouse, rather than towards being united in love and service.
Fortunately for us, a weekly Holy Hour in our parish on Monday evenings provides a regular opportunity to reflect on the ‘state of our union’. It’s good timing because, after a weekend together, we often have plenty of material for our examination of conscience!
From me to we
So practically, how do we deal with our pride? According to St Augustine, humility is the virtue to counter it: “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels”.
Humility is resisted in our culture with many seeing it as equivalent to a negative self-esteem. People argue it is responsible for maintaining power imbalance and is even dangerous in abusive relationships.
Yet this is a misunderstanding of humility. CS Lewis described it this way “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”.
If we’re thinking less ourself, we’re thinking more about the other. In other words, it fosters other-centredness.
Humility empowers us to go beyond our ego defences and to have compassion for the interior turmoil of the other. It enables us to suspend judgement and to resist taking pre-emptive offense from their words or actions.
A careless gesture or unkind word might still happen, but instead of taking immediate and furious offence, and thus escalating it to an argument, humility focuses on the other’s pain rather than our own.
How many of our arguments and mishaps could have been avoided if either of us had a little more humility and a little less pride? How many may have been repaired more quickly?
Humility is the foundation of harmony and love between husband and wife. It helps us get the focus off winning and on to each other. And that’s a win for ‘us’.
