Role of Accountability in Relationship Repair
While kayaking recently, I was inspired by a sign, “Slow, you are responsible for your wake”. Growing up on the water, I’ve heard that phrase for many years. But this time, it hit me differently. Boaters are encouraged to slow down near marinas and residential areas so they don’t cause erosion or damage to property caused by waves created by the movement of boats through water. What a great metaphor for how we should approach relationships….to be careful of the path we leave behind us and the potential damage we can create by our actions, intentionally or not.
As a couple’s therapist in Marietta, GA, I’ve been witness to many intimate discussions between partners as they attempt to understand ruptures in the relationship and heal. However, there are times I see those efforts thwarted by one partner’s defenses…those strategies that are put into use unconsciously in a nanosecond. Often these defenses are fueled by something running in the background that isn’t even conscious to the one using the defense.
Often underlying reactions such as anger, defensiveness and dismissiveness is the really uncomfortable feeling of shame. These behaviors ‘protect’ them from noticing and connecting with that awful feeling of unworthiness that is underneath.
The capacity to empathize with your partner…to really get their experience by being able to understand what it feels like to be in their shoes…is an integral part of healing when there has been a fracture in a relationship. However, spiraling into shame about your transgression or behavior often blocks the ability to heal and repair. This is because shame results in what I refer to as ‘your eyes going inward’. When in shame, you tend to focus on your own inner experience and feelings of inadequacy or inferiority and lose contact with your partner. When in shame, you aren’t truly present to your partner and their experience, which is a necessary part of reparation. When the offending person is unaware of their shame, the hurt partner certainly isn’t doesn’t recognize it either. All they experience is the anger and defensiveness directed at them that covers it up and muddies the waters, often inflaming the hurt partner even more.
To create a bridge towards healing, we need to learn to slow down, hear our partners experience with an open heart, and pause long enough to ask ourselves, honestly, is there is any part of our partner’s experience that we contributed to. If you contributed to your partner’s pain in some way, through the wake you created by your actions, take accountability for your contribution. Taking accountability includes acknowledging that your behavior contributed to your partners pain, sometimes in excruciating ways. A big part of relationship repair is validating your partner from a place of authenticity.
If this shame spiral sounds familiar to you and it is interfering in your ability to move forward and repair your relationship, in addition to taking accountability, another thing you can do is recognize and accept that we are all imperfect. Having contributed to your partner’s pain doesn’t mean you are an unworthy person. No one is all good or all bad. We all have a combination of admirable attributes and shadow parts. Take this as an opportunity to learn about yourself and your relationship and use it as an opportunity to evolve. Make a commitment to yourself and your partner that you will engage in inner work to better understand yourself, including exploring how it is that you got here. That may require you to look at early messages you got in life, feelings of entitlement, or even ways you justified the choices you made that were hurtful. The best you can do is learn about yourself, your partner, and your relationship from the experience, making a commitment to honor yourself, one another, and the agreements you have going forward. If you would like some support in your efforts toward relationship repair or overcoming shame, feel free to connect with me here.
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