DB Suggestions Thread

[SteveLW]

While we are on the subject of the board and dynamics, one of the things I've observed here that causes problems, just as it does in other avenues of life, is right-fighting.

I mention that the W and I enjoy watching a certain bald-headed, Texas born talk show host. And it was watching him that I learned about right-fighting. And that I realized I was a bad right-fighter. Right-fighting is a zero sum game. Especially on an internet message board! And right-fighting causes the right-fighter more stress than anyone he may be right-fighting against.

When those board has (rarely) devolved into attacks, right-fighting has always been front and center. As I said earlier, most of the time we can disagree with someone's advice without being disagreeable. And there is nothing wrong with that. Multiple perspectives is one of the draws of this forum! The minute we all start spouting the same thing, is the minute we should have Cadet employ a bot to respond to people's threads! No the different perspectives are essential.

This thread has delved into some of that. For instance, separation and the belief that it is a critical component to get to reconciliation. There may be those that prescribe to that because it worked in their sitch and sitches similar. There are a few of us that never physically separated, that were able to get to reconciliation. Why? Because there is no one-size fits all. I think of the young man that came here distraught because his now XW had a restraining order against him. His sitch was completely different than mine, where we never even stopped sleeping in the same bed. Giving him advice for what worked for me more than likely wouldn't apply in his situation. And he needed to GAL for completely different reasons than I did.

But devolving into right-fighting here, where your attitude is "my advice is right! and yours is wrong!" does nothing but hijack threads into flame-wars. Kind of like we recently saw. I have been impressed with the level of maturity that this board has shown, and the ability to avoid right-fighting. After all, the bald-headed Texas talk show says it best when he asks: "Would you rather be right, or happy?"