Taking My Own Medicine
A quick update on why Libby took down last week's episode on repair, and what she'll be doing instead.
Transcript
Hi, my lovely listeners. This is Libby, and this is a bonus episode of making polyamory work.
This is just a brief message, a couple of quick announcements. I'm gonna be moving my release date for new episodes to Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays, I'm making this change so that I can continue it to deliver the quality content that I think you all deserve. And in order to do that, I need an extra day to get everything together because my schedule has been turned inside out from having kids home 24/7. So I just need to shift my schedule around and I need a little more time to get the episode out. So look for the next episode, the next full episode of making polyamory work on Wednesday. I also just wanna quickly tell you that if you missed my relationship survival skills workshop, I am doing it two additional times.
So finally though, the main reason why I wanted to create this quick bonus episode for you is that I wanted to explain why I've taken down the episode that I released last week on repair.
You might have noticed that it's gone now and the reason why is because after some reflection and some feedback from a very thoughtful listener, I realized the episode, wasn't saying what I wanted it to say. And so I'm reworking that episode for a re-release in coming weeks. And I also wanna say a couple things about that episode right now, just to clarify some things, because about 300 people, listen to it, content note here I will be referencing, although not describing some acts of violence. The first thing is I want you to know that I realized I ended up combining two very different concepts in this episode on repair. And I think both needed a bit more nuance and attention de separation to really get it right. The first concept that I was presenting, the one that was the main point of my episode was around repair around typical relationship problems that are common, that are normal. You know, we all make mistakes. We're negligent. We sometimes fall short of our expectations and our values. And when we act in a way that's not in accordance with our values or what our partners should be expecting from us, especially if that hurts people, we care about it's important to repair with those people that we love. But the incident that I used to
Frame that concept is something that I wanna just be clear. Isn't the same as a normal everyday relationship transgression, depending on the context and the people involved punching a wall or another inanimate object, throwing things or other physical acts of rage can be experienced by the people involved as violence. And I wanna be clear so that nobody mistakes. What I think here I am a big, no on violence, whether it be physical, whether it be emotional, whether it be sexual, whether it be financial, whether it be informational or psychological, no matter what kind of violence it is. It's not okay whether it's intentional or whether it's the result of a loss of control. I stated this on the episode, but I just wanna make sure that it doesn't get lost under no circumstances is violence. Okay. There are many different levels of boundary violations that can happen in relationships, but I wanna be clear that they do not all have equal value.
Some are really common and mild and some are more extreme. And I believe that by using an example that is on the more extreme end to talk about repair, that I think everyone needs to learn how to do. I can see how some people might get the message that I equate. Something like being dismissive of someone's feelings with punching a wall. And I wanna make clear to my listeners, they're not equivalent, they're different. And I mix them up. And I apologize for that. I do hold the view that just because you do something extreme, doesn't mean it's unforgivable. I do believe that there are times when there is a way back from an extreme transgression. I'm very passionate about accountability, both in relationships and in communities, and in organizations. But I think the repair around extreme transgressions looks very different and it often takes longer too.
It may be something that has to be revisited over and over again. Now I'm confident for the people in the story that I shared in last week's episode, that accountability is happening and will continue to happen. And that breach is being repaired. But everyone in that situation agrees that it was an unacceptable thing to do, and that its effects were harmful and felt by everyone who witnessed it. So it's not something that anyone's taking lightly. So if you saw yourself in that story that I told, I don't want you to hear from me that I think you should be taking that lightly either. So, because I mixed up ideas of accountability for a violent action, with the importance of repair for everyday kinds of screwups, I don't think I did either of them adequate justice. And so I'm just gonna, I pulled the episode, I'm just gonna retool it.
I'm gonna write a new episode on repair. And I'm also at some point in the future going to talk about accountability and repair for extreme boundary violations, as well as talking about when you absolutely should not repair, because there are times when that's also the case. And I also just wanna take a moment to apologize to any of my listeners who were triggered or otherwise harmed by my words last week, I owe it to all of you to do better. And since I know better, I will do better. And I also wanna thank the listener who reached out to me with their feedback on, on how the episode landed for them. It helped me a lot to see what was going on. And because I saw very clearly that their perspective was correct. I was able to take steps to fix it. I'm taking my own medicine y'all I broke it and now I'm fixing it. So that's all I have to say about that.
