Lindsay (00:00)
Have you ever had the experience where you apologize and then your spouse reacts by actually getting worked up or criticizing you or the whole fight starts again and you're thinking, This is why I don't apologize. If you have had that experience, you are definitely not alone. And there's actually a really understandable reason why this happens, even though it is painful, and there's something that you can do if this does happen.
Because I would hate for that to be something that holds you back from apologizing, because repair is so freaking important in our marriages, in our relationships. I'm Lindsay, this is Loving with Intention. let us dive right in to talk about apologies and feel fired up right now. So the reason that this is on my heart is we had our weekly momentum call last week.
And one of the men in there, because there are men, there are women, there are couples, people come live, they go to the replays, it's totally anonymous coaching. It is the best. I digress. So one of the men in there shared a win, and his win was that he apologized. And this is such a win. We get to celebrate all of these things. Often we might think, you know, it's only a win if our partner apologizes to us.
But we really want to be celebrating ourselves in this journey as well, because for a lot of people that I work with, apologizing isn't something that they do really easily, or when they reflect back on all of the years in their marriage, they really recognize that this isn't something that they've been doing. They haven't been giving meaningful repair. And it is the thing that they would love from their spouses. So when they start doing it, you better freaking believe we are celebrating every time it happens. So
The thing was that he shared that he did apologize and it didn't go perfectly. So two things there. We're gonna be tangenting all over the place here. But two things there. One, I'm celebrating the heck out of him, which I did on the call, because he is choosing to celebrate this win even though it didn't go perfectly. So it would be super easy to be like, I apologized, but
This is how it went afterwards. Or I apologize, but she did all of this. And instead, it was like, I am celebrating this win and it didn't go perfectly, and that's okay.
So celebrating him for choosing to still see that as a win because it totally is. And then the next piece is the fact that it didn't go perfectly. So when he apologized for something that he did that he knew upset his wife, and she ended up responding with something like, you know, I don't know why you do that. It's so frustrating. So in that moment, she's kind of getting a little bit activated.
It would be super easy and human and understandable if in that moment he did do something like say, screw this, I'm not even gonna bother, I don't want to apologize anymore, or if he started to get really defensive about the thing that he did, or maybe he started to criticize her. All of these things, it's understandable. It's not okay. It's just understandable because we're all human and we all get triggered and we all get reactive and we all have these quote unquote relationship poisons.
That we do that hurt each other. And we want to bring in so much love around all of this. And just noting what he didn't do was any of those things, he just chose to acknowledge it with a yeah. And that may just be like the simplest little thing that we could do. We talked about how there are lots of options, which we're going to talk about and how in that moment, what he had access to was a simple yeah. And then it went well.
They just continued with their day. She didn't escalate anymore. She didn't keep talking about it. They were able to let it go. It felt like real repair. Again, we are celebrating a the heck out of this.
And when I say that that's what he had, what did I say? Access to or capacity for, either one of those things, what I mean by that is there's a chance that he was a little bit triggered, like his nervous system was a little bit activated. And in those moments, like I always talk about, you can have the perfect scripts or the perfect ways to answer, you can have studied the communication tools.
But when our nervous system starts to get activated, we start to lose access to our prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of our brain, and our amygdala, the fight, flight, freeze, fawn part of our brain, our protection part, starts to take over. So we can't remember all of these perfect tools that work so well when we're nice and calm and regulated. And of course, they work well when we're dysregulated. It's just really hard to remember them. So in that moment, that is what he had access to.
And he didn't choose any other relationship poison or I say choose, he didn't fall into any other relationship poison in that moment.
So first I just want to talk about why this happens, why when we apologize, our person can actually get mad at us for that thing. Often what it is is okay, something happened and let's just make up a scenario now.
Your spouse asked you to pick up one specific thing for dinner on the way home. They reminded you, they sent a reminder text, you assured them I have got this. And then you get home and you don't have it. And there's no time to go back out and get it. The guests are arriving for dinner, and your spouse is frustrated at you. So they express that frustration in whatever way that they do, say it's a healthy way, say it's a not so healthy way.
And maybe in that moment you don't have the healthiest response or reaction. So thinking about outside of that moment when maybe you're reflecting on this thing and you're like, crap, I can totally see why they were upset. Of course they were upset. I assured them I would have this thing. Maybe in the moment you were like, it's not that big of a deal, it'll be fine without it, looking at the meal that they had just prepared.
So later you're like, of course, they really wanted that thing. It was a special part of the meal. They put so much effort into that. I can totally see that. I should definitely apologize for not grabbing that thing. So when you go back and apologize, it's almost like it opens the door for your spouse to be like, they're actually hearing me. They're actually owning that what they did.
was hurtful to me or was upsetting to me or didn't feel good to me. So now is my chance to actually really let them know how I felt about it because they're hearing me. Because when I initially let them know, they didn't hear me. They got defensive or they just brushed it off. But now, now that they're apologizing, this is the moment. And I'm not saying that your spouse is consciously thinking this. This is just happening. This is just an experience.
And then unfortunately what often tends to happen is
Because we don't learn any of this stuff, we don't learn relationship skills and tools. Often when we try to be heard, we use relationship poisons, quote unquote, to try to be heard. So we start getting critical or saying, I can't believe you do that. We start getting frustrated. Our tone changes.
There's a good chance that we are getting triggered again in this moment because it's bringing back that feeling of when you walked through the door without the thing that you promised to bring home. So the nervous system is now involved. And like I said, we are using these unhealthy strategies to try to be heard. And this is what relationship poisons are: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling.
Rolling your eyes, getting loud, talking over your partner, interrupting, completely withdrawing. Those are some examples of so many relationship poisons. These are unhealthy strategies that we use to get our needs met. So your spouse's needs in that moment might be to be heard, to be understood, for compassion, to really feel like you get them. But when they use these relationship poisons in the moment and this frustration comes out in unhealthy ways.
Then you don't actually see that.
You're just on the receiving end of them getting mad again and you feeling like, well, what the heck? What's the point in doing this if we're just gonna fight about it? So instead, just like this man in Momentum shared.
He chose in that moment to just lean in and hear her.
And based on his tone, the way he looked at her, just the word yeah was enough for her to express. I hear you, that makes sense.
He didn't actually have to say all those words. And let's be real, because he's been diving in and doing this work, he has been saying a lot of those words and using a lot of those words in his marriage, which might have helped in this moment when the word that he had available was yeah.
So instead of getting caught up in a dance where he gets defensive or reactive, he's speaking to the need underneath what she is saying without even saying it out loud. I know he's not saying I know you just need to be heard right now. He's just responding with love. And we talked about, like I said, other ways that he could respond in those moments, just so that we have this toolbox to grab from. And the more that we talk about it outside of triggered moments,
The more we will be able to access it in triggered moments and use it outside of triggered moments. I feel like I am just like talking really fast today. I'm very excited about this. Just because, my gosh, I just love celebrating these wins so stinking much because they are no small thing. One apology creates just this positive ripple effect. Had he not apologized, where would that have gone? It could have gone.
you know, swept under the rug. They could have ended up in another argument later that had nothing to do with that thing, but was just a remnant from what was swept under the rug. I always say like we sweep all these things under the rug and then we're just tripping over the rug. So we want to bring them out from under the rug and apologize for them.
So other ways that we can respond when our spouse reacts in that way.
So in that scenario where you go and apologize for the thing that you forgot to pick up and your spouse is like, I can't believe you did that. You promised you would pick it up. You always do that. This is a moment to pause, take a few deep breaths.
Inside the love journey process, you learn how to identify and recognize your nervous system cues that you are getting dysregulated. So they can be this little signal to you that it really is time to pause and take a deep breath. And this happens so quickly, so we really get to slow things down in these moments. So you pause, you take a deep breath, and then you say something like, It makes sense that you're frustrated. Of course, you would be upset. You're right, I totally did.
Tell you that I would pick that up. And then I walked in the door without it. And I can imagine how frustrating that must have been for you because you had worked so hard on this dinner all day. Everybody was arriving and I didn't have the thing that I said that I would have. I am really sorry. So in that, my gosh, what you didn't do was address the piece where your spouse was like, You always do this. You didn't agree that you always did this. What your spouse is doing in that moment is using criticism.
Unhealthy strategy to get a valid need met. Instead of getting tied up in the criticism, unhealthy strategy dance, you're just speaking to the need. You're validating their experience, you're validating their feelings. You're showing them that you really get it by saying, you know, my gosh, you have spent so much time on this all day, and then I go and forget this thing. Like just imagine hearing that, and you're like, you get it. Okay, you get why I was frustrated. You really get it.
And then you could even throw in appreciation because we can never get enough appreciation. And you can say something like, I really appreciate how hard you worked on this. I shouldn't have gotten defensive, and I shouldn't have brushed it off when you were upset. I'm really sorry that I forgot, and I'm really sorry that I reacted in that way in the moment. I was wrong to do that. So holy smokes, what a different experience we can have in those moments.
And this doesn't mean that we don't get to talk about, you know, the criticism or the defensiveness or whatever is coming out from our spouse in that moment. Just know that often if we do bring it up in that moment because of nervous systems and getting tied up in the dance and not feeling heard, your spouse isn't going to be able to hear you. So you can speak directly to their nervous system and their heart by validating them and seeing them in this moment. And then later, maybe this looks like bringing up
You know, earlier when you said that I always forget things, that really hurt. I don't really feel like that's true, and I would just like for you to know that that didn't feel very good.
And you can still maintain, I am really sorry about forgetting that thing. I just wish that you wouldn't say things like that in the future. That would mean a lot to me. So that is bringing in so much safety. It's holding your boundaries. It's letting your spouse know what wasn't okay about that interaction.
These boundaries are so important. And just rewinding, if you're in that situation and your spouse is really coming down on you and it's getting really heated and really escalated,
If it feels like it's gone too far and you've missed that moment to bring in love, validation, appreciation that that's actually going to connect you, that moment is gone. Then of course, having boundaries and we can have boundaries with so much love. So I love you. I really am sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have gotten defensive. And when you talk to me in this way, I really can't hear you. I feel myself shutting down. This isn't okay. So I'm just gonna take a pause and we can come back to this conversation.
And in saying that, you're creating loving space. Loving boundaries are so okay. I mean, boundaries, period, are so okay. And when we express them in a loving way, we're really setting ourselves up for success moving forward. So I hope this was helpful for today. This is something I am very passionate about, this conversation.
I would love, love, love to hear your thoughts on this. You can always DM me on Instagram, loving dotwith.intention. And if you have been loving the podcast, I would so appreciate a five-star rating and review. Let us get this podcast into more hearts. You can be part of the Love Ripples. Thank you so much for being here. I am sending so much love into your day. And just remember that nothing changes if nothing changes. So let's have a super intentional week and look for wins that we can celebrate. Bye.
