Happy or Right?

Guest Opinion

By Greg Holmes | May 2, 2026

Have you been in an argument lately? Odds are that you have.

Our lives are filled with disagreements of all kinds, from petty squabbles to intense verbal fights. Your argument could have been with anyone: your partner, child, friend, coworker or neighbor. Disagreements are a natural part of life, and effectively communicating our differences is essential to navigating our many relationships.

But arguments become a problem when the combative parts of our nature hijack our ability to express ourselves. They can quickly turn into a contest where we need to win to feel better about ourselves at the expense of the other person.

How did your last argument turn out? Did you “win”? Was it productive and did it deepen your understanding of the other person? Did you feel like you were heard? Did either of you feel happy when it was over? Or did each party continue to feel negative about the whole process of disagreement?

If you want to improve your communication, it’s important for you to attempt to answer a basic question before your next argument. Take a minute and ask what your goal is for entering into the disagreement. Do you want to walk away at the end of the day feeling happy and understood, or do you need to be “right” and win the argument? (Let’s be honest here. You might want both.)

Why do we want to be right? Why is it so important for some people that it makes it difficult for them to let it go, to listen to another point of view or to enjoy a life with better understanding and less conflict?

It’s normal to want to be right, to be well-regarded by others around us. Problems arise when this normal desire is experienced and expressed as a need, when argumentative behavior becomes a habit, and when arguments become a manipulative tool in relationships.

While arguments may make someone feel better or even help them get their way, they predictably lead to frustration and resentment and eventually to dysfunctional relationships and isolation. Who wants to hang around a verbal bully? People who need to be right have little or no desire to hear or learn from others with different opinions. Anyone who dares to differ from them is simply wrong and can risk becoming a target for verbal abuse. The bottom line is they need to be right at all costs, even if this means isolation and the further development of delusional thinking.

Take a look at your last argument and the patterns of the arguments in your life. When are your arguments rooted in productive communication and when are they a contest that creates a hostile and bitter dynamic in the relationship?

Whether or not the normal desire to be understood turns into an abnormal, alienating need to be right depends on a person’s basic level of self-esteem. It’s not difficult to decide whether someone has an ego problem when they constantly call attention to themselves and their achievements while putting down the efforts of others. These problems with self-esteem and the resulting inflated ego exist on a continuum from mild to extreme. All of us fall somewhere on this continuum.

Unlike the relatively quiet confidence exhibited by a person with healthy self-esteem, the person with poor self-esteem tends to be loud and constantly tries to seek validation and prove that their detractors are wrong.

One of the challenging issues when trying to deal with people who have this exaggerated need to be right is that they often are loath to admit they have any problems in the first place or that their opinion might possibly be wrong. They often act with a sense of arrogance and superiority which is irritating and makes satisfying communication difficult, if not impossible.

If you are in a relationship with someone who has to be “right” regardless of the situation or feelings you might have, or if you find yourself sabotaging relationships with these out-of-control patterns of arguing, it might be time to step back. Realize that it’s going to be hard to have healthy communication or to be able to make collaborative decisions with the people in your life if this continues.

Is it worth being in a relationship that treats disagreement as combat? If not, how much is it worth to work to change that dynamic? Is therapy or mediation something to consider trying? Or is it possible to look at past arguments and reframe them going forward? Can we recognize the limitations of always needing to be right?

Greg Holmes lives and writes in Traverse City. Brenin Wertz Roth is a farmer, builder and protector of land who lives on Cedar Creek outside Traverse City.