Repair and Repair Again
In this episode, Libby talks about repair, how essential it is to having secure relationships, and outlines the steps for how to make a good repair.
*From Libby: to my listeners who have been following this podcast for awhile, this is to replace the episode "If You Break if, Fix It" - which was pulled, because it didn't say what I wanted it to say. I'm much much happier with this version, which is VERY different.
Transcript
There's an old saying that you may have heard burn me once. Shame on you burn me twice. Shame on me. This statement says a lot, right? That you get like one chance with people to get it right. And if you give someone a second chance after they've screwed up with you, well, then you're a fool. And yet I don't think that's how things actually work in my world. Every week. I talk to people who are actively trying to repair their relationship. Sometimes it's a perfect storm of mistakes and miscommunications. Sometimes it's just the clash of imperfections that lead to regular moments of disharmony. Sometimes there's been an outright betrayal though, and sometimes several and yeah, they wanna work it out and give things a second chance. Sometimes a 100th chance. Are they doing the right thing or are they fooling themselves? That's what we're gonna talk about today.
So I'm gonna start by telling you about Blake and Rio. They are a couple that I made up for this episode and they are in a long term relationship and live together and they are polyamorous. They both have other partners, but Blake has been feeling really insecure about Rio's new partner, Monica, because that relationship has really taken off quickly and gotten super intense. And recently Rio and Monica began telling each other that they love other, but Rio put off telling Blake about it because she was worried that Blake would have a bad reaction. Blake has been pretty open about feeling insecure. So eventually Rio tells Blake and Blake had a bad reaction. And sure that was in part because it was, is yet another escalation of Rio and Monica's rocket ship, exploding relationship, but they also felt that they'd been set up to react that way because Rio hadn't been up front with Blake.
Initially they'd held back. And so Blake felt really blindsided and that made a sensitive situation, even worse. Now you listen to this story and you might go straight to thinking about who is to blame here in this situation who is right and who is wrong. You might think that Rio needs to be more transparent and upfront after all polyamory is, is rooted in open communication. And without that there's no trust or you might think Blake needs to be more chill and stop freaking out about other people's relationships. Polyamory is also rooted in autonomy and it's not Rio's job to quell. Blake's insecurities by live tweeting. What's happening with Monica every five seconds. And Blake isn't even a entitled to that information saying, I love you is between Rio and Monica. What Blake is feeling though, is that Rio should just know that Blake would feel better.
If Rio communicated better with them, they don't feel entitled to know everything about Rio and Monica's relationship, but it would make them feel safer and more connected. If Rio were more forthcoming and of Rio is thinking that Blake needs to cut her some slack she does wanna share, but sometimes it's hard dealing with Blake's reactions. They both don't really feel seen or understood right now. And that is amplifying insecurity for both of them. They also both feel that this discord shouldn't be happening between them and is making them question the relationship. But I don't think the discord is the problem. There's another path back to feeling more secure and connected. So I've talked on multiple episodes of this podcast about how important I think it is to create a secure attachment with your partner. I think this is important whether you have one partner or multiple partners, but I think it's essential if you're doing polyamory and want to maintain long term relationships because secure bonds are basically the only thing you have to rely on when you don't have the cultural scripts and structure of monogamy.
And I have said that some research on attachment has shown that people feel more secure when they're partners are attuned, responsive and available. And that this is more important than focusing on things like rules and agreements to try to make yourself feel more secure. But if you listen to my episode on attachment styles, you know that I have some problems with where some folks have taken attachment theory. Some folks have gotten this idea that to create a secure attachment, we're all supposed to be perfectly attuned and responsive and accessible to our partners all the time. And I have cried on this because it's just not realistic. Where I get especially burned up is how people have applied attachment theory to and carried forth this idea that all insecure attachment styles and indeed your child's entire success in life are rooted in how attuned, responsive and accessible you are with them as a parent, but to expect parents to be perfectly attuned, responsive, and accessible, all of the time puts an unreasonable amount of pressure on them.
When I last checked, the only people who are raising children are flawed human beings, who are raised by flawed human beings in a highly flawed society who are incapable of reading their children's minds all the time, sometimes get triggered, so have bad days, and also just have limits limited time, limited money, limited sleep. And they're also contending with the added challenge of doing something they've never done before and having new challenges with each developmental stage of their children. And now of course, many parents have their kids home 24 7. I imagine there are, are a lot of imperfectly intuned parents and children right now, I think to survive parenthood and indeed any relationship you have to let go of the idea that you're supposed to be perfect. And as it turns out, there's research to back up this idea, that being imperfect is not just, okay, it's a good thing.
As long as you do one important thing I present to you now, the work of ed Tron Tron is a developmental psychologist who has spent decades studying interactions between parents and young children. And he found that as I've said, even the best parents are in fact, never perfectly attuned to children. Instead, his research showed, get this, that even the most happily bonded parents and children, miss each other's signals fully 70% of the time, 70% of the time they get it wrong. This is especially true. If you've ever had a baby, I mean, babies can't even talk a lot of times, you just don't know what the is wrong. And you're making a lot of guesses. And I just wanna say here that the attachment parenting style of over-responding to every whimper or bluster that your baby has so that they never feel any discomfort or discord.
I think that can actually be detrimental. It not only can wear out the parents, but it can also curb a child's resilience, which I'll get to in a second. So basically if chronic found that attunement, isn't what creates a secure bond between parent and child. And in fact, misattunement is the norm. Then what does create that secure bond? Well, Eltron found when he observed parents and their kids is that they were constantly cycling through harmony, disharmony and repair in study after study. It wasn't attunement, but how likely the parents would repair after a misattunement that predicted a better relationship. And also how outcomes like better child emotion, regulation, fewer behavioral problems and greater chances of success in life discord. Wasn't the problem. That was the norm. It was the presence or absence of repair. And reattunement whether the parent would come back and try to make things better.
When things went sideways that determined whether or not there was a secure attachment. And this has been shown by research to be true in adults as well. But Gottman Institute found in its studies that it is not couples who avoid fights, who have the best outcomes for satisfying relationships, but rather couples who are constantly repairing with one another, just like parents and children, adults miss each other. Most of the time too, we misread cues or misinterpret what someone says or aren't paying attention, or we drop the ball. And even though I encourage everyone to learn how to be less reactive, sometimes we do that too. We sometimes get triggered, but low up freak out, run and hide. And generally, sometimes aren't our best selves. Sometimes we also just make mistakes and screw up. I also find it interesting that chronic found parents misread their children 70% of the time, because the Gottman's found that 70% of all problems between couple are perpetual and unsolvable.
I just find it interesting that both numbers are 70%. What makes, what matters isn't that these things don't happen. It's not that we shouldn't have problems or disagreements or discord, but how we are accountable for our mistakes, how we make it better, how we repair and come back into harmony and if needed, how we grow as a result and knowing that repair will happen when something doesn't go well. Well, that creates a tremendous amount of security and it makes it easier to face problems with more grace and less fee as with trying to be that perfect parent, avoiding conflict and striving only for harmony in your adult relationships also doesn't serve you the reason. Why is that? If you have the expectation of only harmony that's when disharmony can feel catastrophic because repair feels impossible because you don't have any practice at it. If the minute someone screws up with you, they're outta here.
How secure are you going to feel when you inevitably screw up? It's interesting to me that I think this means that you could have the most, absolutely perfectly attuned parents who never fought, or at least never let you see the fighting and still be set up for a very ins secure attachment style, because you were never taught how to cope with disharmony. And you never saw what repair looked like. Of course, if you grew up seeing repeated disharmony and never saw or experienced repair, you will also likely struggle with secure attachment either way without learning repair. You're generally gonna have one of these responses to disharmony. Maybe you'll feel panicked and desperate to fix things right away. Maybe you'll beat yourself up or maybe you'll blame and berate the other person. You might try to hide from any disharmony or pretend it isn't happening. Maybe you'll let too much go and just seek repair because that would just give more air and attention to the fact that there's a problem.
Or you might crash into shame and feel completely unworthy for feeling one Iotta of unhappiness, or you might blame yourself for the other person being, you know, behaving in the way that they shouldn't, or you might withdraw and wall off unwilling to seek or accept repair because any discord that just breaks your trust and you've decided it's unfixable at that point in the case of Rio and Blake, part of the reason why Rio avoids difficult conversations that might upset Blake is because repair is not something that Rio has a lot of experience with because growing up Rio's whole family avoided of conflict in Rio's family. It was rare that anyone got openly upset. And if you said, or did something that resulted an upset, if you rocked the boat or made anything difficult, it was highly frowned upon. And when little hurts happened, nobody was ever really accountable for that.
Either you were just kind of expected to roll with it and let it go. And Rio's really good at that. Rio has learn to be really easygoing and is generally very good at peace-making because she was taught that everything was supposed to be smooth all the time. When Blake gets upset, they do tend to have a bigger emotional reaction. And that's a level of intensity that Rio just never really experienced much growing up. And she just gets super out of sorts when and confronted with it. She bounces between feeling scared and ashamed for being the cause of upset because that was frowned upon. But also she finds herself sometimes resentful that Blake has these reactions and seems to want to make everything more difficult. Never lets anything go. Blake's family was very confrontational and critical. Demanding arguments were encouraged and both their parents would occasionally even be mean and nasty in the heat of a fight they would make up.
But Blake never really saw how that worked or the repair process. And eventually Blake's dad just left and didn't come back, which has given Blake some fears of abandonment. Blake does find some security though that Rio doesn't fight like their parents did, but Blake also finds it exhausting that they have to be the one to confront every difficult issue because Rio is so afraid of having those conversations and of Blake's reaction. And yes, Blake does sometimes burn hot and get emotional, but they are also careful not to attack and be critical. And if they do go below the belt, they always own it and apologize. That's something they have been really committed to working on. And the problem is though, that they've noticed that when that happens, Rio tends to withdraw in response and it takes a few days for her to recover. So if you're listening to all this and you realizing that maybe you struggle with repair know that it's probably not your fault.
You just weren't taught how to do it. And if you don't know how to do repair well, the good news is that you can learn and creating a solid repair process in your relationships is in my view, essential to being able to weather the inevitable turbulent moments that are going to happen without those things damaging the very foundation of your relationship. So here's how you repair the first step in making a good repair is moving out of either grandiosity or shame. You know, you're in grandiosity. If you are blaming your partner for the disharmony, you know, you're in shame. If you're blaming yourself now, can I tell you something about shame and grandiosity? Both are forms of self preoccupation. Either you're preoccupied with how right you are or with how wrong you are. And neither of those are a useful frame for working through disharmony, right?
And wrong really don't matter here. Also shame and grandiosity are both forms of contempt. One is just pointed, outward at others while the other is pointed inward at yourself and contempt is toxic to intimacy and just incompatible with repair, whether it's shame or grandiosity, the mantra to adopt here is that everyone is doing the best. They can a good way to tell if you're not seeing things this way is if you're using lots of when thinking about the problem, he should have told me he was running late. I shouldn't have forgotten our date. She should have told me about that text message, et cetera. If you're in grandiosity, you've got to get off your high horse. That makes you think you can tell someone else what they should or shouldn't have done. And instead step into empathy and compass in. If you're in shame, you need to take a breath and remind yourself that part of being human is missing the mark. Sometimes you need to practice holding yourself in warm regard, beating yourself up. Isn't going to serve you or your partner here. Instead, the easiest way out of shame is to turn toward how your partner's feeling, giving care to them and taking steps to make things better rather than wallowing or berating yourself is the best way to demonstrate for yourself that you're not a piece of.
Now it can be hard to get yourself out of shame or grandiosity. If you are in your wish. If you dunno what I'm talking about, I have a whole episode on this called TAing your wish, but in a nutshell, your wish is your survival mode. And when you're in that survival mode, you are more likely to either sore up to being above everyone or else crash down to feeling like the worst piece of crap in the world. So if you're feeling like you're caught up in your stress response, breathe or take a break and self soothe yourself until you are calm enough to be able to reach for that compassion and empathy. So once you've gotten out of your whoo once you've spent some time self-reflecting so that you can step out of the blame and contempt Merry go round. The next step in a good repair is acknowledgment.
Now acknowledgment has three parts. First state what happened. This is just like in the feedback wheel. And you can find an episode on that as well. So you wanna stick to specific objective facts, just what happened. The second step is state the impact that it had in this case, you're acknowledging other people's pain rather than your own. If your person has told you what happened to them and how they feel about it and what they made of it, reflect all of that back to them. Use your active listening skills here and empathize the next step after that is, if you've done this kind of thing before, if it's pattern or a flaw or some behavior, you're working to shift acknowledge that I've said that when you're using the feedback wheel, when you're talking to someone else about their behavior, it's really important to remain in the particular, rather than moving into generalizations or patterns or criticism.
That's very damaging to do when you're talking about someone else. But when you're talking about your own behavior, acknowledging those patterns and deep-seated flaws can be really great for building trust and accountability. The more you can acknowledge the better your people are going to feel. For example, one reason why Blake had so much pain around the thing with Monica is that Rio has a history of avoiding bringing up difficult issues or disclosing information that she knows will upset Blake. A few years ago, this really came to a head when there was an incident where Rio was told she was gonna be getting a substantial pay editor job. And I mean, she was one of the lucky ones because a lot of people were getting laid off, but Rio didn't tell Blake about it because she so ashamed and also scared that Blake would get upset.
But it was a really big deal to not tell Blake because less money in would mean they would have to rethink their household expenses. Eventually, Rio did have to explain what had happened. And of course Blake was furious and they have remained afraid of what Rio might neglect to tell them in the future. So this Monica thing is extra upsetting up because of that. If Rio wanted to begin to make a good repair with Blake around her avoidance, she could first acknowledge that she did avoid talking to Blake about the change in her and Monica's relationship. And then she could say, she knows how that can make Blake feel fearful of being black. And like they can't trust her. Rio could also say that she sees that her actions increase Blake's fear of losing connection to Rio or being abandoned in favor of this rapidly escalating relationship with Monica.
Then Rio could say that, yep. She has a pattern of avoiding things and she knows that's hard on Blake. Sometimes that's hurtful and undermines trust, and she really wants to work on being better about all of that. Now you might be wondering what about Blake and their reactivity? Isn't that important to talk about too? Yes. But an important thing to say here is that repair, like lots of other things is a turn-taking process. If you're trying to make a repair while also asking for one you won't accomplish either of course, when there's been discord, it's often not just one person who has the repair to do so. There's not always one person who needs to do the acknowledging and one person who needs to be receiving that acknowledgment. Although sometimes that is the case, but even so someone has to go first. So in the case of Rio and Blake, yeah.
Part of the problem in this situation is Blake's reactions when Rio does tell them things. So Blake does have some repair to do there as well. But if Rio starts to say, Hey, the reason she avoids is of Blake's reactions, that's not going to result in a good repair. Rio needs to totally own her part and acknowledge Blake's experience. First. Now, if you get to a place where you feel like you're doing all the acknowledging of your part and your partner, isn't owning their part in things, then yes, repair, isn't really working. And you might want to think about getting some help. But before you, you start worrying about that, focus on owning and acknowledging your part. Oftentimes that follows that the other person will do the same. And if you start out worrying about whether your partner will own their part, that's like two people standing outside of a door saying, you go first.
No, you go first. No, you go first and you just never get anywhere. And it's definitely going to derail any sort of repair after acknowledgment. The next step is to moving into making it better, making it better is sometimes really simple. Sometimes the acknowledgment is enough and you can seal the deal with a hug. Sometimes it can be as simple as a brief sincere apology. Sometimes the making it better part is more lengthy and involved though. If you apologize, make sure you keep the buts out of your apologies, no excuses or explanations here. This is about the other person and what they need right now. Not about you and how you felt. Remember you have to take turns also don't belitle their emotions by saying, I'm
Sorry. You felt that way or I'm sorry. You had a hard time or I'm sorry. That was so hard for you.
You might think you're trying to say this to empathize, but the better way to do that, if that's what you're trying to do is say, I can see how much that hurt you and I can see how hard that was also when making it better. Don't overdo it. Be careful not to over apologize or self-flag or be caught up in placating over apologize and can come across as either insincere or patronizing self-flagellating can come across as pressuring someone into forgiveness by making the repair about making you feel better. And you know, placating can lead you to be taking more responsibility for stuff that you actually shouldn't be taking responsibility for. But the truth is in an intimate relationship. If someone is trying to make things better for you, your work in the repair is being able to receive and participate in that. If your partner is working on behavior change, part of your role is acknowledging and even celebrating when there is even partial steps in the right direction.
If you feel hurt, of course, you were going to process your feelings, take space, give yourself time if that's what you need. But at some point you have to be willing to let it go. One thing that I've seen is that when one partner finally begins to take steps towards repair and change, particularly if there's been a hurtful pattern, that's happened time. The other partner doesn't fall into their arms with love and gratitude saying, oh my darling, thank you so much. How can I help you with this? Instead? What can happen in is that they flare up in resentment or they tell them that their steps toward change aren't good enough or in fast enough or that it's all too little too late. And I mean, you're entitled to that. Those feelings are valid. However, that bitter pill is that being unwilling to receive a repair and participate in it will mean that the repair fails repair in an intimate relationship is not the same as personal accountability.
It's something you both have to make together and remake together. So if, for example, someone tries can repair with you. They apologize. And your response is to say that's okay, but then you actually am passive-aggressive with them for two days, that's a failed repair and it's possible. Your partner will experience that as punishment for making what is a functional relational move. That's ultimately very disempowering. And if that keeps happening, I try to keep making things better. They're likely to stop doing that and give up feeling like their hard work is going unrecognized or that they just can't do anything right. As I said, sometimes apology and acknowledgment is all the repair that's needed my loved ones. And I micro repair all the time like this, man, I totally snapped at you. I'm sorry, hug boo done. But for bigger things, an apology alone might not be sufficient.
You may need to take bigger steps to make the person feel better. And this may be obvious, but it's good to ask your partner what they'd like, that would make things feel better, or you can check out an offer with them. Like here's what I think. You'd like, here's what I think we would make things better. Would that work for you? You can also make a commitment to them towards some behavior change that you want to make to improve things. But even then, it's good to ask if that will in fact be good for them before moving forward. It's actually important. I think, to be collaborative in your repair when your partner is asking for things to make it, it's really good to give generously when you can, don't get tripped up by pride or righteousness here. Remember that this is someone you love. And it's really not about winning.
If you've made things better that's a good day for you and a good day for your relationship. I mean, don't give things that feel like a violation of your own boundaries, but if it won't cost you anything it's per probably worth it to do. And it's also worth saying that you might not be able to make it better, right? When you want to, if the problem is a reheated hurtful behavior, that's been hitting your partner in a vulnerable place. Repair might first require some time and space. And then after that, the making it better process may take many steps forward and backward over time. Or if there's just been a big blow up and your partner is a little wounded, they might not be ready to receive the repair. They might still be upset. They might need to take some time to self sooth and get out of their own whoosh.
And that has to be okay in the story of Rio and Blake. When Blake gets caught up in their whoosh, it's so jarring to Rio that she really needs some time before she can receive Blake's repair your job here is to give it your best shot and do what you can and go slow. If that's what's being asked and then let go of attachment to outcome. If your partner isn't receptive at first, you might have to try again or even several times, depending on how deep the hurt is. I also just wanna say that if part of making things better is some commitment to behavior change that is going to take time. It takes regular self-reflection and practice and lots of, of love and often support. It can be hard work, but I will say it's worth it because if you're caught up in certain kinds of patterns of hurt with your partner behavior change is the thing that will probably make things better.
I wanna say here too, that when I'm talking about patterns of behavior, I'm not talking about abusive relationships use is something that is beyond the scope of what I can talk about in this episode. But I do wanna just say one thing, which is that repair and abusive relationships like so many other healthy relationship practices can be used against the person being abused. So if you're concerned that that may be true for you. If repair feels like this thing that is weaponized I, you to seek professional help or contact to the domestic violence hotline. But it's important to say here that you can also be caught up in a pattern of harm in your relationship that isn't at all abusive in my experience, this is pretty common. And yet those patterns of harm can definitely over time, really just grind away, trust and love and security in, in a relationship and the relationship and the people in it will suffer greatly unless there is behavior change.
Rio knows she needs to break her pattern of avoidance. It comes from an understandable place because of how she grew up and she doesn't do it with an intent to hurt anyone, but it's undermining Blake's trust and feelings of security, however, it's firmly ingrained in her to avoid. So it will take a lot of intentional practice and probably a lot of failure to learn how to shift, to being more proactive in communicating. And she might need Blake's support and encouragement to get there, which brings me to one last important thing to say about the making it better stage, which is that repair is a two way street. This can be a bitter pill to swallow for some people. And if behavior change is needed, I'm going to suggest something a little controversial, which is that if someone is really trying to make things better with you and is working on behavior change, it probably won't be good enough at first and yet you might still have to appreciate the effort and you even might want to help them with that.
I know some people will recoil at that idea and say no way other people's stuff is theirs to work on. It's not my job to fix anybody. I'm the one who's hurt. I shouldn't have to do any work, but the reality is if someone is working to give you more of what you want, it's in your interest to help them and they might need your help. I get it. It's not fun to do that work, but this is often what being in a relationship over the long term looks like you get the person you get, and if you want them, it's worthwhile to take them as they are with grace and humor and be part of their growth towards something that you want. It's also important to say that it's a whole lot safer to remain hard instead of softening and really accepting someone's care attempt, and being part of the work with them receiving is vulnerable.
Opening yourself up to trust. When someone has failed, you can be scary and hard. And yet that space of vulnerability is also where you find intimacy and connection. You cannot be completely protected from being hurt and also have intimacy. So obviously I don't think it's wrong to let someone burn you twice, as long as they're trying not to. Of course, though, you do ultimately get to decide when it's not sustainable anymore for you when it's too little too late or when you're just not up for the work anymore. But I've found that most of the time, the work is worth it. In the case of Blake and Rio again can see that their reactivity is part of the pattern in Rio's avoidance and in response to their fear of being abandoned. They had been going into this hypervigilance mode and berating Rio, anytime they suspected them of holding something back.
So their work is to help Rio by dialing back that hypervigilance and instead create more safety, more space for Rio to tell them things and really to just try to trust her when she's holding back so that she can eventually open up and then reward her for that. Blake will also work to recognize Rio's effort when she catches herself avoiding and thank her when she does step up and initiate difficult conversations, supporting Rio in proactively communicating is hard and vulnerable for Blake because sometimes Rio will screw up and it's going to hurt. But if the two of them are able to slow down and sort through what happened and repair with compassion, humor, and grace over time, and after several successful repairs and working towards behavior change, they are a able to feel much more secure together. So to recap, secure relationships are not built by never experiencing misattunement or disharmony the goal isn't to avoid discomfort or difficult things from ever happening at all costs.
Rather, those things are to be expected. And one of the huge ways that you can build trust and security in a relationship is through repair. By moving through cycles of harmony, disharmony, and repair, your relationship will become more resilient and strong to repair. You first have to come up from shame or down from grandiosity and get centered, take time to get out of any whoosh you might be in. Then take turns, acknowledge what happened and your part and the impact it had. And if there's any pattern that it's a part of or a flaw, you might be able to acknowledge, then make it better apologize. And if needed, make amends or commit to behavior change. And when someone is trying to repair with you, think about how you can receive their repair and empower them to make the functional moves to do better. I think repair is one of the most essential and underrated skills you need to make any relationship work.
And I think it's especially crucial if you're polyamorous, because I have not met a polyamorous person yet who hasn't had to confront a lot of challenges, disruption and disharmony, myself included. And a lot of us just aren't ever taught how to repair from disharmony. We're fed that burn me once line. Instead, I am inviting you now to lean into repair and make, get part of your intentional relationship. Practice. My wish for you is that when you or your partner make a mistake or fall out of harmony with each other, that you're able to accept it as part of the dance, rather than something that shouldn't happen or that's meant to be avoided. The process of coming back into harmony can then become an opportunity to grow closer, to become more resilient and to find deeper lasting love on the other side.
