I would go out and get proof of something I was sure of, a detail or name or song lyric or whatever (and this was decades before the internet so it wasn’t easy sometimes), but he would never allow me to be right, ever. It was so frustrating. (Reading that back it seems like I HAD to be right too, but, truly, I just wanted to be right some of the time.)

This set me up for decades of feeling impotently angry when people didn’t believe me. I think I’m over it now, I’ve learned to distinguish when there is only one right way to proceed, and when my position is my choice but one of many on a scale. When to dig my heels in and when to, graciously, concede.

There is a line in a song, by the brilliant David Roth (no relation to the irritating David Lee Roth), that goes “Would you rather be happy than right?”. I know my choice. I wonder if old boyfriend was ever really happy?