Kardinya Counselling

An authentic apology is a critical part of repairing the hurt you have caused your partner. However, simply saying, “I’m sorry,” doesn’t mean you’ve properly apologized.

To offer an apology that will reassure your partner, make sure you’re doing the following:

Rapidly address the issue: The sooner you repair this, the less likely it will form a long-term memory and cause future problems.

Be fully present: Remove all distractions. Maintain eye contact with your partner so you can see how they are receiving your words. If you notice something is wrong, stop everything and tend to their pain.

Actively listen: Give your partner the space to share their feelings. Repeat what you think they are saying. Ensure that you fully understand them.

Be specific: Instead of a generic "I'm sorry," apologize for the exact action or behavior that caused your partner pain.

Own your mistake: Take full responsibility. Avoid shifting back to your partner by saying things like, "I'm sorry you felt that way."

Don’t explain your intentions: Your reasons behind the action aren't as important as the impact it had on your partner. Apologize for your behavior, don’t justify it.

Keep these steps in mind the next time you have to apologize. The better you become at sincerely apologizing, the safer you both will feel in your relationship.

Your brain was wired for war. It was built to rapidly respond to threats and stay alert to any potential dangers. It’s great at picking up dangerous sounds, gestures, movements, facial expressions, and more.
All of this is excellent for survival, but it can make your relationships difficult if you’re not mindful of how your brain works.

You don’t have to agree with your partner at all times (it’s a guarantee that you won’t), but you will be wise to have their back in front of others.

Disagreeing with them in front of others can make your partner feel betrayed or even feel threatened. You can protect the security of your relationship by publicly backing them up and privately letting them know how you really feel. Plus, they will be more receptive to hearing your point of view if you share it with them this way.

Island (anxious-avoidant) partners find dependency – their own and others – a central issue in relationships. They tend to distance and have a “do-it-myself” orientation.

Islands fear having their autonomy taken from them. They fear having their sense of freedom and mobility taken from them. This comes from an experience of feeling used or exploited in childhood. In families where there’s a strong emphasis on the self, importance is placed on performance, appearance, regard, money, power, beauty, and intelligence.

NOTE: Attachment styles are not fixed personalities. This is simply a memory system that anticipates threat. It’s flexible. You might be between styles or find that you behave more like an island in certain relationships and a wave in others.

It’s important to learn your attachment styles so you can better be with the partner you picked. Any attachment style can form a secure-functioning relationship with this knowledge.

If you know how one another reacts under stress, you’ll be better able to prevent problems and care for each other when they occur. Without this knowledge, you could compound an issue by behaving in ways that amplify each other’s fears.

Anchors and Waves: stay tuned, you're up soon!

When you are in distress, you lose the capacity to think using the higher-cortical areas of your brain. This makes it more difficult to think rationally and effectively process information.

If you are saying too much in an argument, and your partner is not fully resourced because they are upset, it will be difficult for them to follow what you’re saying.

That alone will make them more upset.

This is why you want to keep what you’re saying short and have a good back and forth. If one of you holds the stage for too long, you’re in trouble.

Just because you have problems, does not mean you’re with the wrong person.

Your issues likely stem from not knowing how to handle each other yet. That’s something you can learn – and as you do you’ll find that you picked the person you’re with because something about them was familiar to you.

We pair-bond with people we recognize. They either share parts of ourselves or the people we grew up around. You chose your partner for a good reason. You just need to learn how to be with them specifically.

Commit to becoming experts on all aspects of each other, including your attachment styles, fears, sensitivities, joys, passions, and values. The more you learn about each other, the better you will be able to manage each other and navigate problems together.

We have to acknowledge that for as loving and kind as we can be, we can also be negative, reactive, and selfish. Our brains are wired for survival. That bent towards self-preservation is great in the wild but can work against us in our relationships.

The best way to prepare for this is to come up with “Shared Principles of Governance” with your partner. These principles are agreements that will act as guardrails for when you slip.

When one of you makes a mistake, you can be reminded of the agreement, and quickly repair the problem. Without a prior agreement, you can easily fall into an argument over who is “right” and who is “wrong.” You’ll be much better served if you work these issues out ahead of time when you’re both feeling calm.

Take care of your needs as a couple before the needs of others. This isn’t about being selfish or neglecting your friends and family. It’s simply about ensuring that your primary relationship is safe and secure.

Having that relationship be secure will give you the bandwidth you need to strengthen other relationships in your life. It will allow you to feel more at ease, which will help those around you to feel the same.

Communicating well means being collaborative, responsive, and ensuring what you are saying is clear enough to be easily understood. Pay close attention to:

1. The Quality of your speech. Are you telling the truth? Are you withholding information or lying?

2. Quantity. Are you telling too much or too little? Too little information will leave your partner trying to fill in the blanks. Too much information and you become uncollaborative and hard to follow.

3. Relevance. Are you speaking on-topic or becoming tangential?

4. Manner. Are you making sense? Are you taking care to properly explain or introduce the people/places/things/concepts that you bring up?

Communication is hard. We are misunderstanding each other most of the time. Putting in the extra effort to be mindful about these aspects of your speech will always be worth it, especially if you’re talking about difficult issues.

Keep your texts positive. Aside from how difficult it is to read tone in texts, it’s impossible to emotionally regulate each other if you are not face-to-face. You can keep each other regulated with eye contact, touch, and your vocal tone.

When you are texting back and forth, you won’t be able to catch mistakes and repair them quickly. This will cause avoidable problems.

Don’t even imply to your partner through texts that you want to have a difficult conversation with them. The brain runs negative, so as soon as they see, “We need to talk,” their brain will be running wild with negative predictions. This will elevate their threat levels, so by the time you see each other, you could be just one wrong word away from a big fight.

Save it for when you are face-to-face.

If you’ve messed up, “I’m sorry,” won’t repair the problem on its own. A meaningful apology requires attention, specificity, and full ownership of the mistake.

Having an agreement with your partner to be available to each other at all times can make you both feel more secure.

You’re not going to be reachable 24/7/365 – that’s completely understandable and beside the point.

The point is that you are agreeing to be receptive to your partner whenever they seek you out for help with their anxiety, stress, or just the need to talk. If they call when you are in the middle of a work presentation, they can feel assured knowing you will call them back as soon as you are able.
When you both feel you can rely on each other no matter what, you will help each other thrive in all areas of life.

Exciting love is the feeling you get when you are infatuated with someone. You’ll easily feel this in the beginning of a relationship when everything is new. You can and should learn how to recreate this throughout your relationship.

Excitement can be co-created at any time through touch or gazing into each other’s eyes. It can also be created through joint attention. Joint attention happens when a third object is not used just for personal enjoyment but to amplify positive feelings in each other. This can happen when you take in new scenery together while traveling, play with a pet together, or practice a hobby together.

Quiet love is a relaxed but alert state where you don’t feel the need to do anything. It comes from a deep sense of safety and security together. Some people get to this feeling through meditation or other solitary exercises, but it’s important to learn how to do this with another person. Practice just being with each other without any pressure to do something else.

Co-managing distress is the ability to skillfully shift emotional states together. It does not involve denying or sweeping things under the rug. It’s essentially metabolizing distress so that when you are in conflict in the morning, those feelings do not bleed over into the afternoon. You are both able to tense and relax together. You quickly repair mistakes and relieve pressure so neither one of you is holding on to feelings of pain, overwhelm, defeat, or stress.

You may not always agree with your partner. You may RARELY agree with your partner. When you’re in front of others though, I strongly recommend you take your partner’s side.

The security of your relationship will get chipped away if one of you doesn’t feel the other has their back.

If you disagree with them or their actions, you can have that conversation privately. Publicly undermining them could make them feel betrayed or threatened. If you support them in public and then address the issue in private, they’ll be in a far more receptive state to hear you out.

Logic and self-control fly out the window when we are feeling unsafe. Distress engages the “primitive” parts of our brain, which inhibit our ability to act rationally.

This is why it’s important to learn what it feels like at the edge of your “window of tolerance” and what it looks like when your partner is nearing their edge.

The window of tolerance is the state in which you feel safe enough to fully and rationally engage.

Outside your window of tolerance, you will enter a survival state and either fight, fly, freeze, or fold. You won’t be able to properly socially engage.

Get to know what it feels and looks like when one of you is nearing the edge of your window of tolerance.

When you feel that, agree to take a pause in whatever conversation you are having. Continuing will only push you over the edge and you won’t be able to resolve anything.

Repair emotional injuries and take a break. You can always come back to the issue later.

If possible, start your day together. This can help create the feeling of a secure base in which the both of you can then dive into your day.

Even a few moments makes a difference. If breakfast together isn’t possible, try spending a few moments gazing into each other’s eyes or holding each other in bed before getting up.

Going to bed together accomplishes the same thing. It provides a safe “home” from which you two can come back to and leave from to tackle the day ahead.