Finding Joy and Peace in Being Wrong

I grew up in the 1960s as the firstborn child of my parents. I was not only the firstborn, I was also the firstborn male who was named after my dad and grandad.

I remember my dad being very strict about what was right and wrong when it came to my behaviors. Even before I knew what it meant to be gay, I was drawn to playing with the girls in my neighborhood.

As a result, I would go and play jump rope, jacks, or hopscotch with the girls in my neighborhood. I wanted to be a kid and do fun kid things while I was in elementary school and these were the things that I liked to do most.

My dad did not think that was right and he made sure to punish me when he found out that I was playing with the girls. As a result of the punishment, I always felt confused, ashamed, and embarrassed.

My mom had a different way of looking at right and wrong. I am grateful that for the first eleven years of my life while my parents were married and raising me that she gave me a shot at seeing another side of what it meant to do something ‘wrong’.

I vividly remember my mom getting lost while we were driving in a new place and telling my sisters and me that indeed she was lost unabashedly. It may not seem like much to some, however, my mom had a way of making wrong things something we could learn from or better yet, enjoy.

My mom made doing something wrong a thing to be embraced and accepted, and as such, she made it safe for me to tell her when I had done something wrong.

My experience for coming out to my mom was filled with love and acceptance while with my dad it was nothing like that.

I cannot think of a time when my mom shamed me or punished me for doing something wrong growing up, rather what I recall is her listening to me ‘confess’ my mistake and then starting a conversation for me to reflect on what I had done so I could learn from it.

My mom set in motion for me what would become a lifelong pursuit of owning my mistakes and apologizing for them. It is a habit that I remain focused on to this day and I am not professing perfection.

My first relationship lasted 20 years before I ended it after much thought and consternation. When I realized that I was living with someone who I made wrong for small and big things, I knew that I was hurting him more than loving him unconditionally.

I did not have the capacity to learn how to be different and thought my only option was to end the relationship. I realize today that I was wrong for the way that I ended that relationship and for the ways I communicated to him why I had to leave it.

I did a lot of soul-searching when I ended that relationship and tried to learn more about breaking the patterns of making the people I love wrong. I had to own the paradigms and scripts that were input from a young age and since they were not serving me anymore, I needed to initiate the reboot of my own operating system.

Sadly, I did not stay in the much-needed post-relationship reflections long enough to gain all of the insights and wisdom that come with the recency of ending it.

When I jumped into my second relationship, I thought I knew enough about not making the other person wrong to make a healthy partnership. What I failed to comprehend as I fell in love with my second partner, was that the roles could very well be reversed. I fell in love with someone who made me feel like I had done things wrong.

At the very beginning of the ten-year relationship, there were numerous interactions that left me feeling confused and shame. I did not heed the warning signs and stayed in a relationship where I felt wrong about the things I did, small and big.

My saving grace was in the self-work I did with therapists and in 12-step rooms for nearly the entire 10 years of that relationship. Without that intense focus on healing myself running alongside the dysfunction of the relationship’s dynamics, I am not certain that I would have survived it.

Just as I began to come to the realization that I needed to leave the relationship, I was gifted with it ending abruptly when he told me that he was not moving with me for my new job. I sometimes wonder how much longer it would have taken me to get to the point of ending it, and I always come to the conclusion that I was spared.

It took me longer to figure out that I was playing power games in making my first partner wrong than it did to see that my second partner was asserting his power over me in making me wrong.

Rather than dwell on the time it took for me to get it, I choose to look at what I learned from it.

My marriage today benefits from my awareness and understanding of the impact that making someone else wrong has. It can be hurtful and painful to make someone else wrong or to be made to feel like you are wrong for the things that you do.

I rely on several mantras and affirmations as my training wheels today to make sure that I do not inflict pain on others by making them wrong or taking on hurt from others who might think I have done something wrong.