Tips While You Wait For An Apology

by Amy Ensminger

It can be agonizing; sitting there in a tense house, waiting for an apology that you feel is owed to you about the simplest of things. After a while, you have to ask yourself – ‘exactly how long do I want to sit here, feeling hurt, miserable and getting angrier by the minute’.

Waiting for an apology or admission of wrong that we think is OWED to us can be some of the loneliest and most frustrating waiting there is. The ironic thing is, your mate is doing the same thing wherever they are. Then this hurt your feeling begins to turn to resentment, which turns to anger (whether you say it out loud or stuff it!), which now means that you don’t have to just resolve the original

thing of feeling they owe you an apology – now you have to resolve the resentment and anger as well.

Then finally one of you breaks the silence after who knows how long and escapes from the prison you’ve both been in for what seems like eternity, and sadly, in most cases without true reconciliation of all the feelings and hurt you’ve both just endured. It’s the perfect picture of both of you in a right-fight with a mega dose of selfishness and pride sitting flat dab in the middle of it. [OUCH – yes I did just say that!]

Although in the beginning it’s VERY hard to break those sabotaging behaviors of right-fighting, selfishness and pride, if you truly love your mate it ultimately isn’t important of who is more wrong or who offended whom first. The most important thing is that BOTH of you want to love and respect one another enough that you want to mend the damage that’s been done and make peace. Don’t wait. Be the more mature person and say you are sorry first. The sooner you get past all that crazy cycle of finger-pointing and pouting, the sooner you’ll get to the making up!

CHALLENGE:

To make it easier, use the 5 steps of the Apology Process we teach in our training:

1. Confession

2. Apologize

3. Reconciliation

4. Ask Forgiveness

5. Recommit to the Relationship

(To learn how to use this simple process as well as resolving conflict attend our Couples Training)

HOMEWORK:

Be the first to apologize and start using the Apology Process above. With me flat-lining twice in June during surgery, David & I are able to imagine very easily life without one another. To help remind you just how short life really is, what can you do to remind you that your mate is too precious for this right-fight or selfishness? Is what you are agonizing over really worth it?

SUGGESTION:

Attend a Creating Intimacy & Respect Couples Training. For info or to register go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect.com or call 800.229.9252. Limited Seating

About the Author

David & Amy Ensminger are founders of Creating Intimacy & Respect which provides a 2.5-Day Couples Training and 1-Day Relationship Workshop's for Singles & Couples.  For more information go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect.com 

Overcoming Fears that Sabotage our Relationships

So often we don’t acknowledge to our mate what we “need” because of fear. Quite frankly, we are afraid our mate will reject us, our imperfections will be exposed or we will get hurt again.

For all of us, there is something in our human nature that causes us to want to hide vs. being real with our mate (or any relationship). Not being real surfaces through our sabotaging behaviors (actions, reactions, emotions, thoughts) and spills right into our relationship.

Fears that Sabotage our Relationship:

►Fear of Exposure. We fear that our mate will know we aren’t perfect. We are convinced & afraid they will see or hear that we make mistakes, have failures & weaknesses. We wear masks; tell lies; or cover up what is really going on. We focus on being right instead of happy, struggling with anger, judgments & independent behaviors. Cost: Intimacy & Respect

►Fear of rejection. We fear that our mate will not love or accept us for what or who we are. That our mate (or anyone) will believe we aren’t good enough so we wear masks, are image driven & give the “10 o’clock news” when we share our feelings. We avoid intimacy all together, struggling with selfish demands, anger & independent behavior. Cost: Intimacy & Respect

►Fear of being hurt again. We stop trusting our mate & close our hearts off with them because of past hurts. We justify to them and ourselves why we have the walls that we’ve built up. We remind ourselves of all the reasons why we can’t trust them because we just won’t go through that kind of hurt or pain again. We are determined to NEVER let anyone do that to us again. We tell half truths, crawl in our custom made ‘caves’ and hide. We disrespect our mate by not sharing how we really feel, struggling with selfish demands, judgments, anger, dishonesty & annoying habits. Cost: Intimacy & Respect

The key to overcoming all these sabotaging behaviors is to be transparent, authentic and real with your mate, especially in low resources or tough times. The worst possible thing you can do in your relationship is to hide or stuff your true feelings of – hurt; pain; feeling unworthy, unloved, not good enough or feeling stupid or like a failure. We need to get below the anger or rage and share with them why we feel hurt and pain.


CHALLENGE: 
Every single one of us need a safe place to fall in our relationship. To create that YOU have to take the first step of being transparent, authentic AND real with your mate.

HOMEWORK: 
The biggest tool David & I use for sharing our feelings and having a voice is a stuffed elephant that we keep on our closet shelf. When one of us is happy, glad, sad or mad, we lay the elephant on the closet floor. When we both have the resources to talk, we sit in the middle of the closet, bed or sofa. If I put out the elephant, that means I need to talk with David and his job is to listen (not defend, justify or fix what I’m talking about). When he puts out the elephant, it is my job is to listen.

• NOTE: If you just put out the elephant on the mad stuff vs. the happy, glad & sad stuff – they will avoid the elephant!

SUGGESTION: 
Learn how to overcome your fears; communicate about what you want to share with your mate in a safe way along with over 50+ tools in our Couples Training. Seating is limited and available to committed & engaged couples; married couples who are stuck or want to enhance their relationship, couples who are separated or divorced and both willing to attend OR couples who have already attended our training and want to refresh the tools and training. For info or to register go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect.com or call 800.229.9252

About the Author

David & Amy Ensminger are founders of Creating Intimacy & Respect which provides a 2.5-Day Couples Training and 1-Day Relationship Workshop's for Singles & Couples.  For more information go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect.com