What if "Both sides" isn't the point?
Hello lovely,
Walking and talking with my partner on the beach as the sun rose, I felt a familiar frustration rising in me.
We were talking about a couple we know. I was speaking candidly about the energy I experience between them, and he said,“Well, I can’t really speak to it until I know both sides."
Of course there are two sides. Of course there are different perspectives, different experiences, different truths. But something about this particular response got under my skin. Because I think we have become so committed to neutrality, political correctness and not making a judgement that we have forgotten how to have a moral compass.
Because you don’t actually need to know every detail of a situation to know what your values are.
You don’t need to know both sides to know that intimidation isn’t okay. That manipulation isn’t okay. That cruelty isn’t okay. That making someone feel unsafe isn’t okay. That using power, money, fear or control in a relationship isn’t okay. And you don’t have to decide who is right and who is wrong in order to hold a standard for how human beings should treat one another.
This feels especially important when we talk about men and women. I think part of being a good man in this world is being conscious of the impact your presence has on women. Not because every woman is fragile. Not because every man is dangerous. But because women have spent a long time learning to assess their safety around men. And I think men can call one another forth into something more here.
Not: “Mate, what’s her side of the story?” so we can work out whether your behaviour was justified.
But:“Mate, regardless of her behaviour, is this who you want to be?” Because there is a subtle but profoundly important difference.
We can hold two truths. We can have compassion for someone’s experience AND hold them accountable for their behaviour. We can’t know the whole story AND know what we stand for. We can understand why someone behaved the way they did AND still say, “That’s not okay.”
That isn’t judgement. That’s integrity.
And I think we’ve confused apathy with fairness. We’ve confused neutrality with wisdom. We’ve confused withholding an opinion with being conscious. When actually, having a rich foundation of values — knowing how we treat ourselves, how we treat each other, what we will participate in and what we will not — isn’t apathetic at all.
It’s a passionate devotion to the kind of world we want to live in. And maybe the question isn’t always: “Who is right?” Maybe the better question is: “Regardless of who is “right”, what kind of human being do I want to be here?”
And particularly for the men in our lives: Can we create relationships and cultures where women don’t have to lose their minds, become louder, more distressed or “crazy” before someone takes seriously the fact that they don’t feel safe?
Because safety shouldn’t have to be proven by a woman’s breakdown.
We can do better than that.
Big love,
PS: If you’re a couple who love each other but keep getting stuck in the same conversations, the same reactions, the same bloody cycle.
I love working with couples.
Not helping you decide who’s right. Helping you understand what’s actually happening between you - so you can stop fighting the problem and start finding your way back to each other.
If something in this post landed a little too close to home, message me. Let’s talk.
Or check out my 'Attuned' couples coaching program
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