Relationship Repair Basics

You likely grew up witnessing tragic models of relationship repair that included fighting over who was “right,” and the exchange of blame and shame. In current relationships, you may find yourself arguing over the details of what happened, and who has the most accurate memory. Concepts like forgiveness become about restoring another's goodness, rather than movement toward healing and understanding. Accountability turns into admitting you're wrong, but doesn't require you to learn a new way forward for next time.

In the context of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue, relationship repair means coming into connection after a rupture in relationship. Reconnecting includes nervous system regulation, offering empathy, self-responsibility, honesty, and making agreements. Relationship repair rests on the assumption that you seek connection.

Nervous system regulation is the first step in relationship repair and helps every other step go well. The key to coming back to a settled nervous system is different for everyone, but here are some common aids:

• A warm loving tone of voice from the person with whom you had the conflict

• A hug or other form of physical touch

• Exercise

• Sleep

• Healthy food

• Empathy from someone outside of the situation

• Self-empathy

It’s important not only to care for your nervous system, but also to give it ample time in a settled state. For example, if you are attempting repair with a partner, you might come together and do what is needed just to assist each other’s nervous systems, and then schedule a time to talk about what happened later in the week. In the interim you can take responsibility for your part in the conflict by reflecting on a few central questions:

• Thoughts: What story am I telling myself about what happened? Do I completely believe my story? What else could be true?

• Feelings: What feelings were up for me during the conflict? What feelings do I guess were up for the other person?

• Needs: What needs were up for me during the conflict? What needs do I guess were up for the other person?

• Actions: What different actions by me or the other person would meet needs in future similar situations? What would either of us ideally have done in that situation?

When you are ready to engage about what happened, it’s helpful to set yourself up for success by having a private uninterrupted space and an agreement about how long you want to talk. In addition, you could read over, and even commit aloud to the following steps in relationship repair:

1. Responsibility: Both people are responsible for re-connecting and maintaining connection. Regardless of who did what, each person is responsible for finding their way back to connection. The other person may make every effort at repair, but they can't be responsible for you opening your heart to reconnection. In long-term relationships, it contributes to thriving and mutuality when both people take responsibility for initiating repair. When only one person initiates repair each time there is disconnect, it is a sign that the relationship is in jeopardy. A thriving relationship is created in the context of an equal willingness to do what it takes to invest in and maintain connection.

2. Empathy: Giving and receiving empathy is the central aspect of relationship repair. You come to the repair dialogue with a willingness to fully honor and understand the other person's experience, regardless of how different it is from your own.

3. Accountability: Accountability means a willingness to identify the needs that went unmet due to your behavior, and to make a commitment to do something different in a future similar situation. This commitment includes specific and doable actions for both people in the conflict, as well as a time to revisit those agreements. 

4. Tolerating Discomfort: Repair isn't instantaneous — it occurs little by little as connection is built and trust is earned through new behaviors. True repair occurs in the experiences of connection and trust built over time. This means finding a way to be present with the pain and discomfort of what happened for as long as it takes to heal; rather than pushing for a quick fix, or what you hope would be a quick fix.

If you are making a whole-hearted attempt to reconnect and still not creating repair, check in with yourself regarding the following common places that repair is derailed: 

• Insecurity: To the extent that you are unsure about the validity of your own feelings and needs, you will tend to shame, blame, analyze, minimize, dismiss, criticize, defend, use "should's," and compare. You may need empathy from someone outside of the situation in order to access a sense of honor for your own feelings and needs.

• Reactivity: You are caught in reactivity when you hold onto your story of who someone is based on past events to the degree that you cannot take in new information about them in the present. Another form of reactivity is perceiving threat when none is present. When you are unable to separate past from present moment painful events, or move toward healing in the present, you are stuck in reactivity. To move forward, you may need to create a greater sense of safety in the interaction.

• Fear of Disharmony: When fear of disharmony is deciding for you, you likely don't trust that repair is possible. You then choose to ignore disconnecting interactions and allow separation and resentment to grow. This leaves you cut off from your own feelings and needs, and from those in another. Repair is very difficult to create from this disconnected place. You may need more support before you can approach repair in a self-connected way.

• Lack of Skill: When there is a lack of skill, you have good intentions, but don't know how to create repair without falling into the old model of blame and shame. You may need learning and practice to integrate new skills.

If all this sounds like a long and complicated process, it may be most helpful to remember the essential principles of effective relationship repair: settle your nervous system; take full responsibility for your own feelings, needs, and actions; find a way to empathize with yourself and the other person; and get support if repair is inaccessible.

Practice

Take a moment to review the essential aspects of repair and identify what you already do regularly. Then, identify one thing you would like to keep in mind the next time you have a repair dialogue.