No one likes to hear the words “I told you so!” Especially from a spouse (or a teenager). But the truth is, when it comes to other people’s decisions in life, it’s easy to spot potential errors from the outside. When you point these out to someone and they continue with their hair-brained behavior or ideas, it feels good to assert your intelligence with those four little words. In the adult world of marriage and relationships, it’s the equivalent of sticking your tongue out at someone. Yet, much more grown-up!
In relationships, there are millions of “I told you so” moments. When your wife goes to the mall and overspends, her husband, who already knew it would happen, points this out. When your husband waits until the last minute to fix a leaky pipe, causing much more damage than necessary, the wife—who has no plumbing experience—shrugs in disbelief and exclaims, “I told you so.” If your spouse knows something is bothering you and tries to figure out what’s wrong, but you tell them that if you tell them, they’ll only get mad—and then they do—it’s time for “I told you so.”
In fact, one of the biggest mistakes we make in relationships is believing that we know our spouses better than they know themselves. It’s this “psychic wisdom” that leads us to point fingers in disdain and recite those infamous and frustrating four words just to prove it.
The Impact of “I Told You So” on Our Children
The same is true for our children. We tell them “I told you so” all the time: “You are going to spill your drink,” “You won’t go to sleep tonight if you eat that candy bar,” “This television show will cause you to have nightmares,” “You’ll fall down if you climb up there,” “You’ll throw a fit if I take you to the store with me,” and many other premeditated forecasts. The funny thing is, even when they all come true, we’re still surprised and completely frustrated. Are we more upset because we knew what would happen and did nothing to stop it? Or have we, in truth, simply created our own reality?
It should give you pause to think: if we expected the best from our kids as easily as we brace for the worst, they might surprise us. But then we could never say, “I told you so!”
There has been much research into how the expectation of infidelity in a marriage can actually cause it. If you are married to someone who is constantly suspicious and overly accusatory or jealous of your relationships with the opposite sex, does this predispose you to cheating? While no “real” research has been conclusive, it does make sense. If someone is accused of doing something all the time, and the accuser feels the same reaction as they would if the event were true, the accused may think that actually cheating might not be much worse.
Another school of thought is that by talking about something so much—like cheating—we are actually planting small tidbits of subliminal conditioning in the minds of those we love. So, the person being accused of cheating day in and day out may end up thinking about cheating more than they would have otherwise. All because someone is waiting to be vindicated and shout, “I told you so!”
This same thinking holds true for our children. If we stopped scaring them with predictions that every bad thing in the world is going to happen to them, and allowed them to scale the jungle gym with confidence, maybe they would be less likely to fall. After all, the fact that they want to do it shows their own confidence. And if you remember any of the life lessons from your own childhood, you’ll recall the quote: “Whether you think you can or can’t, either way you’re right!” So, planting seeds of doubt punctuated with the taunting “I told you so” may actually be the first step to being right about everything in our lives. But being “right” in this sense is not always a good thing.
Obviously, there are benefits to having partners, friends, and others in our lives to talk to. Often, we hash out our worries and problems with others, hoping to hear some words of wisdom we hadn’t thought of on our own. When you have a support system, such as a spouse, you’re much more likely to get alternate perspectives on things. The problem, however, is that most people—adults and children alike—don’t listen very well. They may hear the warnings but definitely don’t heed them.
Take the cliché but typical mid-life crisis example of a husband who decides at 45 that he wants a motorcycle again. His reasoning is that it would save on gas (but we know the real reason). He talks to his wife about this, and she points out all the extra money it would take, the dangers, and how riding to work in his three-piece suit on a motorcycle would not be a good idea. Since neither agrees with the other, resentment about the motorcycle issue begins to build. The wife, knowing that her husband is about to spend a bunch of money on a useless motorcycle, doesn’t understand why he even asked her opinion in the first place. Suddenly, the motorcycle is in the garage, driven only occasionally, and one day the husband comes home after getting into a minor wreck. After all this time, the wife can say, “I told you so,” because she did. And for her, this is a good day. Why? Because she was right, and for just a moment, she feels a sense of superiority and intelligence that comes with one-upping someone.
If you find that you are often saying “I told you so,” chances are you have a few issues of your own to work through. In life, arguments or disagreements aren’t about being right above all else. They’re about finding solutions and having enough mutual respect for others (spouses included) to allow them to follow their dreams. When it comes to children, being full of “I told you so’s” and always feeling like you knew something was going to happen might mean you’re living with a pretty negative expectation of what life offers you and your children. This is not something you want to pass on.
Bottom line: everyone has to make their own mistakes. Sure, you might know a bad idea when you hear it, but you have to allow others to live their own lives.
