#14 Repair is the path back to each other
- Maria Strauss
- Dec 3, 2025
- 2 min read
We all hurt the people we love from time to time - parents, partners, children, friends. Not because we’re broken or unworthy or dramatic, but because being human means bumping into each other’s unhealed places.
Conflict isn’t the problem in relationships. The absence of repair is.
Most of us didn’t grow up seeing repair done well. We learned to “move on,” to smooth over the discomfort, to pretend the sting in our chest wasn’t still there. And then we wonder why the same argument resurfaces again and again - just in a different form.
It’s because nothing healed. The wound stayed open.
Repair is the moment we turn toward each other again. It’s the moment we say:
“What happened between us polluted our space, and I want to take responsibility for cleaning it.”
Repair does not mean “I was wrong and you were right”. It means that I value our connection more than being right.
The Anatomy of a Repair
Repair is a gentle cleansing and re-opening of the space between you.
It sounds simething like this:
“Are you open to talking about what happened?”
It acknowledges the rupture without rehearsing the entire fight:
“We had a hard moment when we talked about money.”
It takes ownership without conditions:
“I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I can imagine it made you feel ashamed.”
It listens - really listens - to the impact (and especially the impact on the other person). Not to debate it. Not to correct it. But to understand the world inside the other person.
And then it offers a way forward:
“Next time I feel overwhelmed, I’ll ask for a break instead of shutting down.”
Repair is one of the most vulnerable and intimate things two people can do.
It says:
We can disagree and still stay connected.
We can hurt each other and still come back.
We choose connection over being right.
Connected couples are nót the ones who never fight. They are the ones who understand that conflict will happen, but that it is important to turn back toward each other and repair the connection. They become skilled at mending.
Because repair isn’t about erasing the rupture.
It’s about weaving a stronger bond in the place where it tore.
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