Talking about the Past & Effective Relationship Repair

Everything seems to be okay when suddenly, your partner wants to talk about something you did in the past that was painful for them. You sigh in exasperation and turn away. You know healing is needed, but all you hear is blame. In your mind, you are just trying to stay connected by not talking about it. In your partner’s mind, you are avoiding things and adding toxic resentment to the relationship.

Both of you are attempting to care for the relationship, but neither talking nor avoiding will ultimately be helpful. You need a new way through. 

When you and your partner are not able to process past hurts without stimulating more pain for each other, it’s a sign that you need more support so that you can learn and apply the skills of relationship repair.

Relationship repair means coming back together after an experience of disconnect and unmet needs and establishing connection and care. It requires the intention to connect and take responsibility for your behavior by naming what didn’t work, offering empathy, and making a plan to do something differently next time.

To engage in relationship repair requires that you can begin from a place of care and curiosity even if there are feelings present like hurt, anger, or resentment. You may both need empathy from someone outside of the relationship to help you find the internal resources to stand firmly in your own needs, tolerate painful feelings, manage reactivity, and approach the other person with care and curiosity. That’s a lot, right?! When you remember how much is required of you and another person to engage in effective relationship repair, you can access more celebration when you succeed and more compassion when you don’t.

When you have sufficient empathy to find care and curiosity for the other person, start the repair process by reflecting on your own first. Use these key elements to guide your reflection process - observation, thoughts, feelings, needs & requests/actions to meet a need. 

1. Observation: Identify what exact behavior or words triggered you at the time. Separate this from your interpretation of the other’s behavior or projection of motive.

2. Thoughts: Identify the thoughts and interpretations of this specific observation that keep you stuck in hurt, resentment, or anger.

3. Identify the feelings and needs alive for you then and now related to this observation.

4. Make a guess at the other person’s feelings and needs alive at the time and now.

5. What are the specific and doable requests you would like to make that you believe would contribute to repair?

Let’s look at an example. After taking time on your own to reflect using the key elements identified above, you invite your partner to engage in a repair dialogue and set up a time when you both will be the most resourced. 

When you begin the conversation, it's important to express your intention first. For example, you might start like this, "I would like to talk about our move last summer because I am wanting to understand and connect around what was going on for both of us – not to blame or judge. Would you be willing to listen and share about the feelings and needs that were up for us at the time and now?"

Your partner agrees and so you begin.You might be tempted to begin with all that happened according to your memory (including what you think your partner did or didn't do), but it will be more helpful to limit your expression to one thing at a time and remind yourself to attend more to your heart than the details of the event. Beginning from your heart, it might sound something like this: 

"Thinking about the move, I feel sadness and pain because I was missing a sense of open communication, support, and partnership. I am trying to think exactly what the trigger for me was at the time. Hmm, a lot happened during that time, but I think one trigger for me was when I chose a realtor and heard you say something like, "just do whatever you want." When I heard that, I made it mean that I was on my own and I shut down. Would you be willing to tell me what you heard me say so far?"

Going slow and just saying a little at a time is key to creating a healing conversation about the past. When your partner reflects back what they heard, immediately thank them for being willing to try to hear you.Then fill in whatever was missing in the reflection. At this point, you may not experience a deep sense of empathy.That's okay. It may take several rounds of hearing each other, a little at a time, before a heartfelt sense of empathy can arise.

Here are some specifics for a structure that might support you: 

• Share for no more than two minutes before you ask for a reflection.  

• Ask for reflection only twice before switching to hear the other person. In this way, you will both build confidence that you can be heard, little by little. 

• If you sense reactivity in yourself or the other person, immediately call a timeout, engage your anchor and self-empathy and whatever grounding practices you have. If you can't get grounded in that moment, schedule another time to continue the dialogue.

• Pause often to express caring and associated feelings like regret and warmth through physical affection or words.

• When mutual understanding and care is established, commit to new specific and doable actions to meet needs in future similar situations.

Relationship repair is a complex and subtle process. When you can’t create effective repair, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you or the other person. It just means you need more support to heal, learn, and practice the awareness and skills that help with repair.

Practice

Is there something you would like to repair with someone, but you haven’t been able to initiate a dialogue. Take a baby step in that process by using the reflection process outlined above on your own.