When Winning is Losing

Dear readers: I published the following article yesterday but have heard from no one, which is suspicious. So I suspect there might be a technical glitch and am sending it out again. I hope you find it helpful.

Winning is good.  It can also be destructive.

When I was a boy, my father, brother, and I would debate current political issues over dinner.  In the spirit of the 1950’s, it didn’t occur to me that my mother and sister, both physically present, were essentially left out.  My brother Kenny was three years younger and posed no threat to my position.  In a way, he was left out, too.  These debates between my father and me — judging by the intensity of the conversation, some might say arguments — continued into my early twenties.

Then, one day in 1963, while my father and I were arguing about civil rights, he taking a moderate and me taking a trenchant position, he said:

“I give up.” 

“What do you mean,” I said, both annoyed and puzzled.

“I can’t do this with you anymore.  You win.”

Even in the moment, I recognized the theme of generations passing.  I felt sad, frightened, and not at all triumphant.  That was also the first time I clearly saw how fraught winning could be.    

Winning in a way that leaves your companion, or opponent, feeling depleted, humiliated, and defeated is almost never winning at all.  Generally it creates distrust and distance.  At worst, it creates an enemy, however silent s/he is at the moment of defeat.  In other words, winning can be losing. 

Let me offer a few examples.  The Versailles Treaty that stated the draconian terms of German surrender after World War I created such a mood of humiliation and anger that the only way that the German people felt they could redeem themselves was to fight again, and win.  Their powerful resentments, readily mobilized, were central to the rise of Nazism during the 1930’s.  And, of course, there are countless, if lesser, historical examples of the need that nations feel to seek retribution on those who defeat them.   

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If you listen carefully to the American populists, dating back to the nineteenth century and culminating in the MAGA fury today, you see a similar transformation of the shame and defeat among the rural and working class masses into defiance and vitriolic rage.  And, of course, there’s the archetypal example of Trump’s need for retribution against anyone who might make him seem like “a loser.”  Like the New York City upper crust that spurned him.

Study the family background of violent people and you almost invariably find a history of parental rage and abuse.  In family therapy, I saw many such angry and defeated people who passed on their own humiliation to their children.  Each generation of parents no doubt experiences a moment of satisfaction in their triumph — literally showing their children who’s boss — then a scorching internal retaliation.  “I don’t mean to do this,” they confess.  It makes me hate myself.  But sometimes, I can’t help it.”

Early in marriage and, sadly, sometimes still, I have gone to great lengths to prove to prove my point, which, in turn, requires proving that my wife was wrong.  Or to prove that she had wronged me.  The result, of course, is never gratitude, as in, “Thanks for showing me the truth of things”  — or closeness.  It is almost invariably distance, at best.  I am ashamed of that behavior and, over the years, I have learned how ineffectual, how destructive it can be to relationships.

I could go on, but I think the point is clear.  And I’m pretty sure that each of you has been on one or both sides of dramas where one party defeats another only to later find the “losers” exacting some form of revenge—usually through withdrawal in some degree or through counter-attack. 

Most of us know how counter-productive shaming others can be.  Yet, when hurt or threatened, we do it, anyway.  It’s almost a reflexive response.  In the short run, winning makes us feel stronger and less vulnerable.  It protects us.  But in the end, winning by beating someone else is almost invariably a losing strategy that comes back to haunt you.

When people feel like winners, they are almost always more generous and compromising.  Over and again, as a psychotherapist, my challenge was to teach people how to get their point across or how to get their way, more or less, without alienating friends, partners, colleagues, and family.

The most effective strategy may seem paradoxical: Help your “opponents” feel like winners. 

Even when you really want to win, when it’s important, there may still be ways to make others feel like at least partial winners.  This is tricky.  I don’t mean that you undermine yourself or completely let go of something important to you.  Rather you pursue a partial victory that allows your partner or opponent to retain their dignity.

I’m not suggesting you give up wanting what you want or even striving for it.  I am suggesting that you conceive partial victories and then seek them in ways that leave your partner feeling whole and not threatened. 

And here’s the key: Early on in disagreements, you need to conceive tolerable strategies for both you and your opponent. That takes practice and a great deal of discipline.  I’m not suggesting solutions that martyr you, that make you feel defeated.  Nor am I suggesting solutions that simply revive the original fights.    

You’re looking for something more creative.  And just this act of repositioning yourself — from opponent to problem-solver — helps you retain your dignity. 

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When the air cools, you’re looking to collaborate with your partner/opponent.  You might literally ask: “What can you accept for yourself; What can you accept from me?” These kinds of questions, when authentically offered, begin productive conversations.

I’m pretty sure that most of us have gone this route some of the time and with some degree of success in personal relations, but, still, there may remain intractable differences.  In that case, I’d suggest playing out this kind of negotiation—commonly called “Getting to Yes”—with someone with whom you don’t generally do battle, and then build up your skill for more charged relationships.

In this era of pitched and apparently irreconcilable differences, we will need to figure out how to make our opponents, political and personal, feel that at least partial victories are possible.  That way, they will at least stay at the table with us.

It has taken me decades to learn this lesson but, given my passionate views and long history of argumentation, it still requires a good deal of vigilance to act on it.

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