When I got my new butthole, I had a long, slow recovery that involved many pain killers and an inordinate amount of daytime television. I mainly watched the Food Network, but sometimes tuned in for the afternoon talk shows– Ellen, Oprah, and now and again (though it shames me to say it) Dr. Phil. (And when I say “tuned in,” please understand that this mostly involved sleeping on the couch with the TV on.)

Dr. Phil is this decade’s Jerry Springer. But without the breast implants and the paternity testing.

Anywho.

It’s not like I was paying the most attention– the excruciating pain and narcotics were quite distracting– but I do remember a specific thing that Dr. Phil said once.

He was speaking with a couple who had ongoing issues in their marriage. I can’t remember what, and the domestic turmoil that weaves its web over on that show is interchangeable anyway. But the wife went on a long recounting of her husband’s many flaws. He was dishonest, he was lazy, he was sometimes mean, he made promises he did not keep… The Jerry Springer watcher in me was all, “Oh no he din’t! You need to dump that sleazeball!”

As a woman, I felt an automatic allegiance to this woman, this stranger. I couldn’t understand why she put up with all of this dude’s shit. At the end of her diatribe of his faults, she reassured Dr. Phil that although he made it terribly difficult to do so, she still loved her husband very much.

And Dr. Phil said, “You have to decide what’s more important to you. Do you want to be RIGHT? Or do you want to be TOGETHER?”

And that has struck me ever since.

I am, you see, a person for whom being right is very, very important. I love being right. I revel in it, almost unhealthfully so. It makes me feel competent, smart, confident.

And sometimes… many times… in my need to prove that I am right about something, I lose sight of the bigger picture. I have a hard time letting go of being “right” to preserve important relationships. I fight every fight to win it, regardless of the cost. I couch this in my deep belief that honesty is at the core of who I am, but in truth, my urge to win each fight is not always that altruistic.

I can hear you saying that any relationship worth having should include honesty. I get that. But unless you just walked into your bedroom, whipped back the sheets, and said, “honey, it’s not really all that big” I know you are maneuvering the truth too. It IS a part of a healthy relationship. Not out and out lying, mind you, but massaging our truths to be palatable, gentle, and fair. Every hill is not worth dying on, and I need to be better about letting some things go. (And for the record, that doesn’t change how right I am, it just changes how hard I push to assert that righteousness.)

I sometimes fail in this regard. I forget that at the end of the day, it’s probably worth giving up a few fights to preserve the love I value. And I’m not just talking about marriage. I’m talking about friends, family… even my kids.

I would rather be together than right all the time.