Forgetting an anniversary. Speaking unkind words in the heat of an argument. Breaking an important promise and betraying your partner’s trust. If you’re like me, you’ve experienced the tail-tucked-between-your-legs feeling of screwing up and hurting somebody you care about. You know how it feels to be in the doghouse.
So, how do you get out of the doghouse and back into good graces of your partner?
The secret is cultivating attunement and empathy. I’ll talk about both a bit and then describe a simple and practical tool, The Three A’s, to help you get out of the doghouse.
Attunement and Empathy: Showing — not just telling — that you care
I didn’t come across the concept of attunement until graduate school in counseling. I’ve found the term helpful to describe the intuitive understanding that people have when they are connecting with each other.
Think of a radio tuner. When dialed to the right frequency, the tuner lets me hear my favorite 49ers announcer Greg Papa celebrate a score with, “TOOOUCCCH DDDDDOOOOOOOWWWNNN! SAN. FRAN. CISCO.” With the tuner on the wrong frequency, I may get static.
When you attune, or tune into, a person, you see what’s important in this person’s life and you make it important to yours. For instance, my toddler loves the Thomas the Tank Engine series. I personally don’t care to enter the world of Sir Topham Hat, but I happily play with my son with one of his favorites, his Thomas & Friends interactive sound book with its own steering wheel — it’s really a toy masquerading as a book. I do so because it’s important to my son.
The message I am sending is that what’s important to you is important to me — because you are important to me.
Empathy is feeling the pain that is not your own. When you tune into somebody who is hurting, angry or feeling bad, you enter into their world of thoughts and feelings — because that person is important to you.
I recently attended a training by Stan Tatkin who talked in part about the need for empathy in relationships. I recommend his book, Wired for Love, which discusses research into marriage through a lens he calls a psychobiological approach that incorporates neurobiology. Science in effect is confirming what many happy couples know: empathy is incredibly important to connecting deeply.
Here is an effective tool that I use with my counseling clients to help foster empathy when in the doghouse. It’s called The Three A’s. I learned it from my mentor and friend Terry Kendrick. The tool is intentionally simple and practical because during tense moments, many of my male clients just want to know what to do to quickly fix the problem.
Tip #1 to Getting Out of the Doghouse: Acknowledge (or Affirm) Feelings
The first A stands for acknowledging (or affirming) feelings. Use a calm voice and maintain polite eye contact as you listen and identify the feeling you believe the other person is experiencing. That acknowledgment of emotion is powerfully connecting; it invites the person to calm down. It’s how you enter into their world of thoughts and feelings during a stressful time.
Conversely, some people in heated discussions start by explaining the facts or extenuating circumstances. This line of thinking reveals a mindset of “If you understand everything, you wouldn’t feel as bad.” Sometimes, this mindset devolves into presenting evidence to prove themselves right and the other person wrong. Somebody wins while the other person loses in this zero-sum game.
There is a time and place for this line of thinking. Prior to becoming a therapist, I worked as a paralegal at a corporate law firm for five years. The discipline of the legal field is to use tools, laws or arguments to prove that you are right and the other party is wrong in front of a third-party judge.
The pursuit of justice doesn’t build connection. Offering and receiving grace does. Often, the person who loses the argument is unconsciously roaring to fight again because s/he feels one-upped. There is an underlying stress in the relationship, which keeps you in the doghouse longer.
Feelings aren’t right or wrong. When you acknowledge and affirm your partner’s feelings, it conveys the message, You’re important to me. Humans are social beings. Feelings are important because they gesture toward a person’s valid relational need.
For instance, if you feel sad or lonely, you need comfort or a hug. If you feel grieved, you need somebody to understand. If you feel celebratory, you need somebody to witness your achievement and celebrate with you.
I teach clients to use the words, “I see,” or “I hear” when reflecting feelings. For instance, “I see that you are making a fist as you talk. That shows how angry you are.” Or “I hear you are choking up on words because you feel sad, and this means so much to you.”
As leadership expert John Maxwell once said, “For many people, feeling seen and heard feels a lot like feeling loved.”
For more study in validating feelings and providing comfort, check out the book How We Love by Milan and Kay Yerkovich. Milan is a pastor and his wife Kay is a marriage and family therapist. Together, they break down Attachment Theory, which has close to 60 years of valid research. I especially appreciate the book’s accessible language, as opposed to some research papers that use technical language that isn’t as easy to understand.
Another resource is the book Emotional Fitness by Dr. Douglass Weiss. If you’re somebody who has trouble identifying your own feelings, much less somebody else’s, this book is a good place to start! Weiss focuses on creating short and simple exercises to help identify and reflect feelings so you can use them constructively in your relationships.
Tip #2 to Getting Out of the Doghouse: Apologize
For this post, I presume that you’re in the doghouse because of something you’ve done or haven’t done and that you feel badly about your actions. Your partner isn’t in the best of moods and may harshly speak to you out of their hurt. That’s why a sincere apology is both necessary and difficult to do.
The most powerful interaction to foster connection is a sincere apology followed by genuine forgiveness. When you are in the doghouse, you can control the former and hope for the latter with time. A sincere apology is disarming. Not too many people want to argue with a person who is sincerely apologizing. If anything, the apology invites the person to calm down because s/he feels valued.
I love the book 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work by marriage researcher Dr. John Gottman. Gottman has an undergraduate bachelor’s degree in mathematics. His book speaks to me because he backs up his principles with quantifiable research.
After observing a couple argue for about fifteen minutes, Gottman can predict, with over 90 percent accuracy, a couple’s long-term feelings about their relationship. That is, the couple reports either long-term marital satisfaction (they are happy, growing, and connecting) or long-term marital dissatisfaction (they are disconnected, perhaps arguing a lot, and in some instances divorcing).
Gottman’s research shows that one of the most corrosive ways of relating is defensiveness.
It’s hard not to respond with defensiveness when you’re in the doghouse or feeling criticized. Defensiveness is deflecting responsibility. It is discharging blame.
Defensiveness sounds like something to this effect: “Oh… so, I’m the one who is lazy, because I don’t wash my dishes huh…. but, you never fill up the gas tank!” Instead, perhaps you could say something like, “It sounds like keeping the kitchen clean is a strong reflection of who you are. That’s my bad. I’ll make it a priority to do the dishes.”
The antidote to defensiveness is to take responsibility for your part and then apologizing. Even if your part in the problem is only one percent, and the other person is 99 percent at fault. Even if what you did happened a year ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago.
Resist the urge to say something like, “Can’t you just let that go!!?? That happened eight years ago!” Instead, try looking at him/her in the eyes and saying, “I’m sorry that those things I said all those years ago still hurt you. I wish I had said it in a kinder way.”
Apologizing sincerely requires humility, the recognition that you have much to learn and that you’re not perfect. I believe Winston Churchill once said something like, “I’ve never liked the taste of humble pie. But I’ve always learned something valuable after eating it.” To apologize is to send the message, You are more important than my pride.
Tip #3 to Getting Out of the Doghouse: Ask
The third A stands for Ask. Here are some examples of questions that help move the conversation toward resolution:
- How can I make this right for you?
- What can I do to help you feel safe?
- What do you need right now?
If s/he asks for something reasonable, such as, “I don’t want to cook after a fight like this, let’s get takeout.” Sure thing! By all means, start dialing the restaurant. If your partner asks you to make a commitment for the future that makes sense, agree and follow through. Keeping your promises over time builds trust. Apologies without positive change are meaningless words and makes you lose credibility.
If the response is something unreasonable such as, “I hate your guts, go jump off a bridge!” then don’t do that! Sometimes things don’t de-escalate as quickly as you’d like when you are using The Three A’s. That might be a sign that The Three A’s are working.
It may mean that the person is trying to convey deeper, more intense feelings. It may also mean that this discussion is causing past issues to bubble up to the surface. This is an opportunity. Simply go back to the first A, in which you provide empathy and attunement while reflecting their feelings.
When people feel calmer after being attuned to, they tend to be more open to hearing others as well. This “Ask” phase is a good time to ask whether providing information regarding external circumstances would help. If the answer is yes, then it’s helpful at that point to provide information to give context to the situation.
As a certified sex addiction therapist, I work with individuals and couples touched by sex addiction and infidelity. I recommend the book, Out of the Doghouse, by Dr. Robert Weiss (no relation to Dr. Douglas Weiss mentioned earlier) because of its readability and discussion on how to recover from sex addiction. Dr. Robert Weiss has co-authored Out of the Doghouse for Christian Men as well.
Thanks for reading to the end of my post! If you find that your conflicts lead to chaos and hurt feelings, then The Three A’s may be a powerful way to introduce structure to those important conversations. Remember, Acknowledge, Apologize, and Ask! Conflict resolution skills can be learned with intentional practice and patience.
In contrast, if by this point, you find that you’re intuitively using The Three A’s, then good for you! Keep up the good work because you’re well on your way to resolving conflicts well.
If you’d like more tools to help you repair your fights, subscribe below to receive the free resource pack that my wife Joy put together:
Here’s to you not having to spend too much time in the doghouse!
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