How to Ensure Your Relationship is Winning

Most of us love to win. We’re drawn to competition—sports, games, debates, even self-improvement. But when that same competitive instinct sneaks into our relationships, it can quickly become an unhealthy dynamic, perhaps even toxic.

When it comes to relational arguments, even if you think you’ve won, something negative almost always happens to the relationship. You’ll win the argument and still walk away feeling like you lost. This is true across every kind of relationship—co-workers, roommates, friends, spouses, and family members—because the moment one person loses, the relationship itself does too.

When we bring win/lose thinking into conversations that were never meant to have a scoreboard, we begin sacrificing connection for control.

You’ve probably felt this: you're in the middle of a heated argument and you land that final point. In theory you won. But you also probably walked away with distance, tension, or silence. Over time, those moments erode trust because the goal wasn’t mutual understanding, it was individual victory.

That competitive drive is natural, and we all lean toward it in different ways. For some, it shows up as trying to change the other person. For others, they make the other person guess what’s wrong. Others will blame the other person for every issue, compare them to someone “better,” or assign motives to their actions.

Whatever form it takes, we can unintentionally turn relational conflicts into games, with the goal being to come out on top and prove we’re right. And we often forget that when one person wins and the other loses, the relationship is the one that pays the price.

So, if you want to protect your relationships, the mindset has to shift. The goal can’t be winning—it has to be building a mutually satisfying, enjoyable, and beneficial connection. That means redirecting your competitive energy toward something better: being the first to put the other person first. Make it your goal to out-honor them because choosing honor leads to healthier, stronger relationships.

This doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations. It doesn’t mean ignoring boundaries or suppressing your thoughts and feelings. It means you refuse to dishonor the person across from you. You can still disagree. You can still speak honestly. But you lay down the need to always be right and choose to serve the relationship instead of your ego.

Practical Practice: Seek to Understand

The next time you find yourself in conflict, shift your goal. Not from disagreement to agreement, but from winning to understanding. Understanding the other person and understanding yourself.

Start by checking your motive: are you trying to win, or are you trying to understand what is happening and how to fix it or restore your relationship?

As the conversation unfolds, ask yourself:

• Will what I’m about to say strengthen the relationship or strain it?
• Am I trying to preserve connection or prove a point?
• Am I fighting for clarity or control?

Honor grows through curiosity, but more importantly, honor is rooted in love. And love is not self-seeking, is not proud, and always perseveres (1 Corinthians 13). So instead of asking, How can I get control? or How can I prove I’m right?, start by asking:

• Where is the real disconnect?
• How can I express my perspective kindly and clearly?
• What is the other person hoping for or trying to communicate?
• How do we move from me vs. them back to us vs. the problem?

When you choose to honor the other person, you give your relationship the best chance to win.

It’s Your Move.