The Other Person Thinks They Are Right Too

No one wakes up in the morning wanting to do the wrong thing.

That sentence is not literally true of every person or every action. People can lie, act carelessly, choose selfishly, and cause harm. Some behaviour needs to be challenged or stopped.

But in most ordinary conflicts, the person on the other side is not thinking, “I know this is wrong, and I will do it anyway.”

They usually have a reason.

Inside their own experience, information, beliefs, and priorities, the action makes sense. They may even believe they are protecting the relationship, the team, the work, or a principle that matters.

The problem is that what appears right from their position may not appear right from ours.

And both sides can be completely certain.

Every judgement has a reference point

We do not judge a situation from nowhere.

We judge from what we have experienced, what we were taught, what we believe, which responsibilities we carry, what information we can see, and what consequences we fear most.

Education gives us frameworks. Experience gives us patterns. Culture gives us expectations. A legal system defines shared limits. Family, work, and relationships create their own spoken and unspoken rules.

These become reference points.

Two people can look at the same event and notice different risks. One may believe speed is responsible because delay has a cost. Another may believe caution is responsible because a mistake has a cost. One may speak directly because clarity feels respectful. Another may experience the same directness as unnecessary aggression.

Neither person needs to be pretending.

They are judging the situation from different positions.

Human right and wrong is rarely as clean as mathematics

Mathematics may be the cleaner exception. Two plus two leaves little room for personal history.

Human situations contain more layers.

There may be facts that can be checked. There may also be intentions, interpretations, values, obligations, cultural expectations, and consequences. A legal rule may establish what is permitted, but it may not settle what feels fair. A cultural norm may explain an expectation, but another person may not share it.

Saying that our judgement has a reference point does not mean facts no longer matter or every action becomes acceptable.

It means we should understand which part of the disagreement we are actually trying to resolve.

Conflict becomes harder when these layers collapse into one accusation.

If a factual disagreement becomes a judgement about character, evidence feels like a personal attack. If a difference in values is treated as deliberate disrespect, both people begin defending themselves instead of explaining what matters.

Separating the layers creates room to think.

The other person's logic may be invisible to us

When another person's decision makes no sense, the easiest conclusion is that the person is unreasonable.

Sometimes that conclusion may be correct.

But often we are missing part of the model they are using. They may know something we do not. They may be responsible for a consequence we cannot see. They may have learned from an experience we never had. They may be reacting to a risk that feels remote to us because we have never paid its cost.

A useful question is:

What would this person have to believe, know, fear, or value for this action to make sense to them?

The answer may not make them right.

It may make the conflict understandable.

That is an important difference. We cannot respond well to a position we have reduced to “this person is simply wrong.” Once we understand the internal logic, we can test the facts, address the real fear, clarify the trade-off, or state exactly where the boundary sits.

Empathy is not agreement

People sometimes resist empathy because it feels like surrender.

If I try to understand the other person, am I excusing the behaviour? Am I giving up my position? Am I allowing someone else to decide what is acceptable?

No.

Empathy is an attempt to see the reference point from which another person's response became possible. Agreement is a decision about whether we accept the conclusion.

They are not the same.

I explored a similar distinction in why empathy is not passive acceptance. Understanding pressure on the other side can help me choose a better response. It does not turn poor behaviour into good behaviour.

We can understand why a person acted and still say:

• the facts do not support that conclusion;
• the impact was unacceptable;
• the commitment was not honoured;
• the behaviour cannot continue;
• a boundary or consequence is necessary.

Standing up for ourselves is compatible with empathy.

In fact, understanding the actual disagreement can help us stand up for the right thing instead of fighting the story we first created about it.

Conflict with people close to us deserves more curiosity

This matters most when the other person is someone we expect to keep in our life.

A spouse. A teammate. A business partner. A friend. A family member.

When the relationship matters, winning the argument may be a smaller outcome than understanding what the conflict has exposed.

A conflict often reveals an expectation that was never said aloud. It may show that two people attach different meanings to respect, fairness, support, responsibility, time, money, or trust. It may reveal that both people believed the same decision belonged to them, or that neither knew what the other person needed.

This is where a difficult but necessary conversation becomes valuable. The purpose is not to prove that one person's experience is false. It is to make the hidden reference points visible enough for both people to decide what happens next.

Useful questions can sound simple:

• What did you believe was happening?
• What were you trying to achieve or prevent?
• Which part of my action affected you most?
• What information or assumption did we not share?
• What do we need to agree on for the future?

These questions do not guarantee agreement.

They give the disagreement a chance to become understanding rather than only distance.

We can be firm without needing the other person to be bad

One reason conflict escalates is that a firm position can feel easier to defend when the other person is assigned a bad motive.

If they are selfish, careless, disrespectful, or incompetent, then our own position feels cleaner.

But we do not need to prove that another person is bad before protecting ourselves, correcting a fact, or enforcing a boundary.

The effect of an action matters even when the intention was good. A commitment matters even when breaking it felt reasonable at the time. A boundary can remain firm even after we understand why someone crossed it.

This is connected to never assuming that my own position is the final truth. I can hold a clear view, act on it, and remain willing to discover that I misunderstood part of the situation.

The aim is not to become uncertain about everything.

It is to stop using certainty as a reason not to listen.

What I hope we understand more

I hope the world can hold two ideas at the same time.

People usually act from a position that feels right to them.

Their position can still be wrong in fact, harmful in impact, or unacceptable to us.

Empathy lives between those two ideas. It asks us to understand how another person arrived somewhere without requiring us to follow them there.

The next time conflict appears, especially with a spouse, teammate, partner, friend, or family member, the first question does not have to be, “How can they possibly think this is right?”

It can be, “From where they are standing, what makes this feel right?”

Then we can examine the facts, explain the impact, state the boundary, and decide what the relationship or situation needs.

Conflict does not always end in agreement.

But when the person matters, it should at least have a chance to create understanding.