by Rose Calder

Created on: March 26, 2009

If there is one thing I am eternally grateful towards my high school guidance counselor for, it's for this little nugget of wisdom: "Before getting into a fight, ask yourself: Is this the hill I want to die on?" I wasn't the intended recipient of said wisdom, as that he was talking to another student as they walked out of his office and I was waiting to be admitted inside. However, they struck a chord with me, and well over a decade later those words have been - and continue to be - some of the most helpful relationship advice I've ever heard.

As I interpret it, the phrase refers to consciously picking and choosing your battles. Considering that my guidance counselor was a former Marine, it makes a certain amount of sense that he would dispense advice in a somewhat militaristic sense, but at the same time it still works when implemented in civilian life. After all, unless you live in an echo chamber where everyone agrees with everyone else and there are no dissenting opinions, it's too easy to spend every waking moment in the grips of battle. Particularly if, say, you and your partner have two very different outlooks on life.

Case in point: My husband and I are ideologically as different as night and day. According to him, I'm a bleeding-heart liberal/commie pinko, whereas I see my husband's personal politics as being more along the lines of a cold-blooded conservative/capitalistic pig. To add further fuel to this potential powder keg of a situation, we're both very firm believers in our political stances and have a difficult time reaching across the aisle (in short, we have a lot in common with the current situation in the capitol.) So how on earth did we make it down the aisle, let alone stay together for eight years, which means that we've been through two election years during our time together? Simple: Of all the hills this relationship could die on, it certainly wasn't going to be on Capitol Hill.

It's easy to say that you agree to disagree; it's a lot harder to actually put your money where your mouth is, because people (particularly those of the opinionated stripe) have a hard time letting things go without there being some sort of decision one way or the other. When it comes to closely-held beliefs, we dearly want to convince others of the rightness of our cause, to convert them over to our way of thinking. We want to be proven right in the end. We want a victory, and calling a cease-fire just leaves a bad taste in our mouths. But in order to live harmoniously with one another, you have to recognize that everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion doesn't even begin to resemble our own.

Which isn't to say that we just ignore our differences, since that doesn't help, either. We are both aware of where we stand, and have come to terms with the fact that our opinions are unlikely to change. We have both done the soul-searching and the research on these topics, and we're not likely to back down from our positions anytime soon. We're just not going to fight over them, because our love and respect for one another means more to us than our differing political views.

Despite what Pat Benatar once sang, love doesn't have to be a battlefield. Embrace your differences, and leave the quibbling to the Congress; they're the ones who get paid for it.

Learn more about this author, Rose Calder.
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