Navigating Arguments and Conflict

Couple Toolbox Article
November 2006

Warm Greetings,

When misunderstanding happens, often the first victim is the climate of safety in the relationship. The most important task then becomes how to go about restoring the climate of safety and trust. But how?

Power tool #1: Apologize.

An apology is a statement that really expresses your empathy and sorrow for your role in causing or bringing about the pain or difficulty. Central to an apology is shift in heart. One has to give up the “ I gotta be right” or “I gotta win the fight” agenda. Rather one has to reconnect with what do I really want here? What is my intention?

I need to listen to my heart. Really sink inside and listen. If my intention is to hurt you, to make you suffer because of all the hurt you caused me…Whoops. At this point we need to turn on the buzzer, the kind they use in quiz shows that go off when the answer is wrong. If my intention is show you that I am right and that you’re wrong…Whoops. Again the buzzer.

The only way in which we can move forward is to create a climate that allows for each of our sharing what this issue means to each of us. And in order to make this possible, we have to establish an ease of recognizing that each of our behaviours and actions impact on each other, sometimes hurtfully. And sometimes the impact which we have is the furthest thing away from what we ever intended.

This is why we need to get good at acknowledging and recognizing these effects which we can have on each other. And saying sorry gets us there really fast. Sometimes we need to add a few words expressing that we understand how this made our partner feel. “I know how much this let you down. I can see how much this hurt you. I really never intended it to be this way”.

In our workshops we spend quite a bit of time focusing on repairing and healing relationship damage. Getting to the place where apologizing happens easily is not easy. This takes work and practice. But it is definitely worthwhile.

So be patient and keep practicing. And remember, apologizing is simply another way of letting our partner know that we really care and want them to know that we care. And perhaps most importantly, that I want to get to a place where we can be open to each other again. Where the relationship climate is one of safety and trust.

Warmest Regards,

Allan Pleaner MFCT
allanpleaner@earthlink.net
#415-468-2627