Relationship First Aid, Part 1: How to Mend What You Broke

All human beings have things we feel legitimately guilty about — things we did that we know better than, things below our personal heartfelt standards, things that caused someone else a pain or a problem. Whether the repercussions are large or small, these incidents disturb our connection with others and our own peace of mind. And we only make things worse if we don’t deal with what happened, and don’t properly address and fix the problems we caused.

Example: The sales manager asked David to send some requested information to an important potential customer. After a few days with no response, she asked David to follow up. To his dismay, David found that he had completely forgotten to send the information. He sent it in a panic, praying it wasn’t too late. He was too embarrassed to tell the sales manager what happened — and felt even worse after the customer decided to buy from another company. When his manager discovered what happened, she was deeply disturbed at David’s dishonesty. She might have been able to preserve the relationship with the customer if David had told her about his mistake right away, instead of hiding it from her.

The wrongs we’re talking about don’t necessarily cause big problems. But the thing is, human beings are extremely sensitive. We all have high inner standards for how we want to be treated, and how well we aspire to treat others. But, even though we know better, we don’t always treat others with that high degree of care. When we don’t, we’re like dance partners stepping on each other’s toes. We can all tolerate a certain amount of that — but more often than we like to admit, our carelessness goes over the line.

Example: John and Marion were volunteering on a project together. One of the ideas Marion contributed to the project turned out to be an important innovation with far-reaching effects. Later, while having lunch with a group of other volunteers, someone asked how their project was going. John spoke up and proudly described their accomplishments, including Marion’s idea, using the word “we” — implying that they came up with the innovation together. Marion glanced away, disturbed that he took credit for her idea, but let it go by. John noticed her discomfort, and didn’t say anything.

We may decide such incidents are too small to mention and are better off forgotten, but they’re not too small to notice. Each one leaves an impression. If the incidents are not addressed and healed, those impressions accumulate between us, as clouds gathering in a previously clear sky. Gradually, our openness to each other diminishes, and the discomfort becomes palpable.

The true and effective solution whenever we do wrong is to restore loving connection by truly feeling, acknowledging, and healing the hurt we caused. When we do that, we invite others back into the circle of closeness and trust with us, and we again feel welcome there ourselves.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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