How Couples Can Rebuild Emotional Safety After Repeated Misunderstandings
How did we get from loving each other to constantly getting each other wrong?
Have you ever tried to tell your partner something fairly simple, only to find yourselves in a full-blown argument approximately four minutes later?
You say, “You didn't even ask how my appointment went.”
What you mean is, “Today mattered to me, and I wanted to feel like it mattered to you too.” But what your partner hears is, “You're selfish. You never think about me. You're a terrible partner.”
So they respond, “I've been flat out all bloody day! I can't remember everything.”
And what you hear is, “Your feelings aren't important to me.” Which just confirms your feelings in the first place.
Now you're angrier. And they're more defensive.
And somehow you're no longer talking about the appointment at all. You're talking about everything.
Every other time you haven't felt considered.
Every other time they've felt criticised.
Every other argument that ended exactly like this one.
And there it is… “Here we bloody go again!”
This is what makes repeated misunderstandings so damaging.
It's rarely one conversation that destroys emotional safety in a relationship. It's the accumulation of them. And once enough painful interactions accumulate, we stop responding only to what our partner is doing right now. We start responding to what we've learned to expect from them.
Emotional safety isn't another impossible relationship benchmark
We talk a lot about needing to feel emotionally safe in relationships. And yes. Absolutely. But I sometimes wonder whether we've accidentally turned emotional safety into another impossible standard our partners are expected to meet. Because emotional safety does not mean your partner never upsets you.
It doesn't mean they never get moody.
Never become defensive.
Never misunderstand you.
Never need space.
Never say the wrong bloody thing.
Never trigger an insecurity.
Never have an emotion you'd rather they weren't having.
Because unless your partner is a Labrador, I'm not sure that's realistic. Actually, even Labradors have their moments.
You're in a relationship with another imperfect human being, complete with their own childhood experiences, sensitivities, insecurities, coping strategies, schemas, stress responses and occasional spectacularly poor choice of words. And they're in a relationship with yours.
Conflict is normal because it’s inevitable.
Getting it wrong sometimes is normal.
Your partner being upset is normal.
Emotional safety isn't knowing your partner will never get it wrong. It's knowing that when things go wrong, there's a pathway back.
Can I tell you I'm hurt without having to prove I'm entitled to feel hurt?
Can you disagree with me without humiliating, belittling or punishing me?
Can you be disappointed with me without me immediately needing to make your disappointment disappear?
Can I tolerate you being frustrated without deciding your emotions are now my emergency?
Can we get this wrong and come back?
Because that's important too. We can support each other. We can comfort each other. We can co-regulate. But we don't want to become responsible for regulating every uncomfortable emotion our partner experiences.
That's not partnership. Eventually, that's parenting.
The problem isn't one misunderstanding. It's what happens when they accumulate.
Imagine your partner has been trying to become less defensive. They've actually been doing pretty well. You've brought up four difficult things recently, and they've listened.
Then comes number five.
You say something. They immediately get defensive. And before you know it, your nervous system goes, “SEE?! Here we bloody go again!”. All the previous hurt comes flooding back. Meanwhile, your partner is thinking, “For God's sake. I'm TRYING!” Both experiences make sense. Because when something has happened repeatedly, our brains become very good at predicting it.
He never listens.
She always criticises me.
My feelings don't matter.
Nothing I do is ever good enough.
If I bring this up, it'll become an argument.
It's easier to say nothing.
Eventually, we don't wait to see how the conversation unfolds. We anticipate the ending. And once we anticipate the ending, we start protecting ourselves from it.
Meet the protective versions of yourselves
Here's where relationships get really interesting. Because the version of you your partner sees during conflict isn't always the part of you that's actually hurting.
Maybe underneath you're thinking, “I'm scared I don't matter to you”.
But your partner doesn't see scared-you. They see angry-you. Critical-you.
The You-never-bloody-listen-to-me-you.
Or perhaps underneath you're thinking, “I've disappointed you again. Nothing I do is good enough”.
But your partner doesn't see that vulnerability. They see defensive-you. Dismissive-you.
The Fine!-Everything's-my-fault-then!-you.
Terry Real has a mantra I love: “Adaptive then, maladaptive now.” Many of these protective strategies made perfect sense at some point in our lives. They helped us adapt, cope or stay connected when we didn’t have better options. But what protected us then can create distance in our adult relationships now.
Most of us have heard of fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Schema Therapy takes this further in a way I find incredibly useful in relationship counselling.
Broadly, Schema Therapy describes a number of coping modes we can slip into when our emotional trip wires are hit. You don't need to become a psychologist or diagnose each other over dinner, but recognising a few common patterns can be incredibly useful. These aren't all of them, but here are a few I regularly see walking into relationship counselling:
Bully/Attack might become angry, critical, blaming, contemptuous or be downright abusive. Underneath may be hurt, shame, fear or powerlessness.
The Overcompensating Perfectionist might correct, control, organise, fix, fawn, rescue or relentlessly problem-solve. Underneath may be fear of failure, rejection or everything falling apart.
The Avoidant Protector might leave the room, avoid difficult conversations and situations, keep busy or find reasons not to engage. Underneath may be overwhelm or fear of conflict.
The Detached Protector may stay physically present but emotionally disappear. They're sitting right there, but you're getting absolutely nothing back.
And the Compliant Surrenderer might give in, freeze, apologise, give up or think, “It's easier to just do what they want than have another argument”.
None of these automatically make someone a bad partner. Nor is every one of these responses always wrong. If someone held a gun to my head, choosing to be compliant and surrendering is a healthy response. And I hope every heart surgeon is an overcompensating perfectionist in the operation room.
The problem is when they become our default setting rather than a choice.
What protected us then can create distance now. And this is where self-responsibility comes in.
Ask yourself, “What happens inside me when my tripwire gets hit?”
What protective version of you tends to walk into the room? And what might happen if you let your partner meet the person underneath the armour instead?
Vulnerability means letting them see what's underneath the armour
Imagine the difference between:
“YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ME!” and “I'm feel invisisble. The story in my head is that I’m not important to you right now.”
Or:
“Nothing I ever do is good enough for you!”, versus, “I'm feeling defensive because the story inmy head is I've disappointed you again, and that's hard for me to sit with.”
That's vulnerability. You're giving your partner access to the softer experience underneath your protection, instead of blaming and shaming your partner.
But there's another important piece here. Vulnerability isn't, “I feel unimportant, therefore it's your job to make me feel important immediately.” Your feelings belong to you. Your partner's feelings belong to them. We absolutely want to care about each other's emotions. We can offer reassurance, affection, understanding and co-regulation. But neither of us should have to become the other's emotional parent.
Your intention doesn't erase your impact
This one gets couples stuck ALL. THE. TIME.
“But that's not what I meant!”
Maybe it wasn't. And it still hurt.
Both things can be true.
I think part of the problem is that many of us grew up being repeatedly asked, “WHY did you do that?”
So we learned to explain ourselves. We became remarkably good at presenting evidence for our innocence and remarkably bad at sitting with the fact that we hurt somebody. And we turn our relationship into a courtroom, and our partner into our enemy.
I didn't mean to.
I was only joking.
That's not what I was trying to say.
You're taking it the wrong way.
You misunderstood me.
And suddenly we're defending our intention instead of becoming curious about our impact.
Your intention explains your behaviour. It doesn't erase its impact.
Acknowledging impact doesn't mean admitting to an intention you didn't have.
You don't have to say, “Yes, I deliberately tried to make you feel insignificant.”
You can say, “That wasn't what I intended. AND I can understand that what I did left you feeling insignificant. I'm sorry. Can you help me understand what happened for you?”
That is an entirely different conversation.
Because if every time your behaviour hurts your partner you're more concerned with proving you're not a bad person than understanding their experience, eventually they learn that protecting yourself is more important to you, than protecting your relationship.
And THAT damages emotional safety. One tiny shift I often encourage couples to practise is replacing but with and.
“I get you're angry. I’d feel angry too. But I didn’t intend to hurt you”. When you use the word ‘but ’, you erase and dismiss anything before the ‘but’.
“I get you’re angry. I’d feel angry too. And I didn’t intend to hurt you”. ‘And’ allows both experiences to exist at the same time.
Can we please stop litigating the relationship?
I can't tell you how many couples arrive in counselling and promptly begin recreating the exact same argument they have at home. Sometimes with impressive commitment. One person is explaining something painful that happened and suddenly their partner chips in with, “It wasn't Tuesday. It was Wednesday.”
Right… thank goodness we cleared that up. Marriage saved. Everyone go home. (Said with sarcasm)😂
Obviously facts sometimes matter. But often these tiny corrections don't fundamentally change the story. Instead, they redirect the conversation because we’re desperately trying to avoid being completely wrong by finding any possible flaw in our partners’ story. Now we're no longer talking about the behaviour or its emotional impact. Now it’s a character battle.
“Was it Tuesday or Wednesday?”
“That wasn’t the exact word you used!”
“I didn’t roll my eyes! I merely looked upwards!”
“Was it 7:15am or 7:22am?”
Welcome to Relationship Court, where both parties have arrived with seventeen pieces of supporting evidence, and nobody feels loved.
There's a saying: You can be right or you can be happy. I'd take it one step further. You can be right, or you can be connected.
That doesn't mean truth doesn't matter or that you should agree with something that isn't true.
It means asking yourself, “Does correcting this detail help us understand what happened between us—or is it helping me avoid being uncomfortable in this conversation?”
Emotional experiences aren't court case battles. Your experience can be real. And your partner's experience can be real. And curiosity will always get you much further than prosecution. Stop arguing over the fine details and get curious about the emotional impact.
Welcome to Apologies Anonymous - or Double AA
Hi, I'm Verity, and I'm recovering from saying, “I'm sorry, BUT…” 😂
Because repair isn't “I'm sorry you feel that way.”
And it isn't, “I'm sorry, but you…”
A genuine repair requires us to acknowledge our partner's perspective and the emotional impact of our behaviour. It requires remorse. Sincerity. Responsibility. And, eventually, different behaviour. I like to think about a good apology using the Double AA.
Acknowledge
Acknowledge what happened and your partner's experience of it.
“I can see that when I immediately became defensive, you felt like I wasn't interested in why you were hurt.”
Accept
Accept responsibility for your part without immediately explaining it away.
“I was so focused on proving I hadn't done anything wrong that I stopped listening to you.”
Affirm
Affirm what you want to do differently.
“Next time I’ll aim to understand what you're telling me before I explain my side.”
Act
Act-ually bloody do it.
Because this is where apologies either become meaningful... or meaningless. This is where trust is built. Repair is a verb. It's something we actively do, not something we're entitled to because we said the right words.
Which brings me to the next point…
Trust the pattern, not the promise
You don't teach your partner to trust you by saying, “I'll communicate better.”. You teach them through what happens next time. And the time after that.
And the time after that.
And the time after that.
And the time after… you get the picture.
If your partner has learned, “When I bring something difficult up, you'll get defensive” (because you taught them that through repeatedly being defensive), one nice conversation is probably NOT going to erase years of that learnt experience.
When we notice the pattern changing we can believe the pattern is changing.
He listened this time. And again.
She told me what she actually felt instead of attacking me. And again.
He became defensive but caught himself and came back, again.
She let me be upset without immediately trying to fix me.
We disagreed, and once again they didn’t withdraw love… I think something is changing.
When they apologise now—they actually do something different.
These are tiny corrective experiences. Small on their own, but powerful when repeated.
Remember, Accumulation works both ways. Repeated painful interactions eventually teach our nervous systems that our partner isn't emotionally safe. Repeated corrective experiences can slowly teach us something new. Maybe instead of, “Here we bloody go again”, your nervous system eventually starts wondering, “Maybe I don't know how this conversation ends anymore”.
The pattern is the enemy—not each other
This sounds lovely in theory. It's much harder when your partner has just stomped directly onto one of your biggest emotional tripwires. Because once we're triggered, we can start filtering our partner down into a core negative image.
He's selfish.
She's controlling.
He doesn't care.
She's impossible to please.
He's lazy!
She's crazy!
And suddenly everything they do becomes further evidence that our story about them is correct. This is one reason I find understanding our schemas so useful. When we know our own patterns—and how they interact with our partner's—we can begin recognising the dance, instead of criticising our partner. Recognise, don’t criticise.
Maybe when you feel unheard, you pursue harder.
Your partner experiences your pursuit as criticism, so they withdraw.
Their withdrawal hits your I'm not important tripwire.
So you pursue even harder.
They feel even more criticised.
They withdraw further.
And round and round you go, believing the other is the problem.
Neither of you is the problem. The pattern is the problem.
Try completing this together:
When I ______, you tend to ______. Then I ______, which makes you ______.
And once you've identified it, go underneath:
What's my trip wire?
What am I actually feeling?
What protective version of me shows up?
What does that trigger in you?
What do you do to protect yourself?
And how does that reinforce the thing I was frightened of in the first place?
There you are, bloody pattern. We see you! Now instead of fighting each other, you can start learning how to interrupt it together. It’s us versus the pattern.
Compassion and accountability can exist in the same sentence
This has been a big lesson in my own relationship. Recently, Jason came home overwhelmed because he'd left organising something important until the last minute. I made a fairly practical observation about “Oh, so you didn’t call them directly?”.
His response? “Fine! It's all my fault!”
Now, I could see he was overwhelmed. I could have had compassion for that. I understand that my comment probably landed directly on a tripwire around feeling criticised or like he'd stuffed up. The truth was, he had. He knew that. AND I didn't need to jump in and hold him accountable straight off the bat. I could have expressed compassion AND still held him accountable.
I could have said “I can see how overwhelmed you are. It sucks when we get so busy and distracted we forget important things. So, I take it you didn’t call them directly?”
I can show compassion and hold accountability.
I can take responsibility for how I speak to you, without taking responsibility for regulating every reaction you have to what I say.
I can be loving, without rescuing.
I can tell the truth, without being cruel.
I can hold a boundary, without making you the enemy.
Understanding why someone behaves the way they do doesn't mean harmful behaviour suddenly becomes acceptable.
Compassion without accountability becomes enabling. Please read that again. But accountability without compassion can quickly become punishment. Re-read that also. Healthy relationships need both.
After the fight, become relationship detectives
One of the biggest missed opportunities I see in relationships is what happens after conflict.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Everyone calms down.
Someone makes a cup of tea.
Netflix goes on.
Eventually somebody asks what we're having for dinner.
And everyone quietly agrees never to speak of The Incident again.
Until the exact same pattern happens three weeks later.
And if you saw Encanto, we all know what happens when we don’t talk about Bruno. You need to talk about Bruno. Instead of sweeping conflict under the carpet, what if you treated it as data?
Not while you're both still furious, of course. Please don't pull out this blog mid-argument and announce that “Verity says you need to join AA!”, (Apologies Anonymous, not the other AA!). I will accept no responsibility for what happens next. 😂 Instead, come back when your nervous systems have settled. And ask: “What happened to us there?”
Not, Who started it? Not, Who was right? Try:
What was my trip wire?
What protective version of me showed up?
What happened for you when I did that?
What happened inside me when you responded?
Where did our pattern accelerate?
Was there a moment either of us could have interrupted it?
What could we try differently next time?
Allow conflict to become something you can learn from, rather than simply something you’re trying to survive.
Questions worth asking about your relationship
You don't need to answer all of these over one romantic dinner unless you'd particularly like your partner to fake a medical emergency.
Pick one or two, and get curious.
When we misunderstand each other, do we become curious or defensive?
Can I tell my partner how something affected me without having to prove they intended it?
When my partner is upset, do I immediately feel responsible for making their feelings go away?
Can my partner be disappointed, frustrated or moody without me deciding something is wrong with our relationship?
When I hurt my partner, do I become curious about their experience—or rush to explain my intention?
When we argue, are we trying to understand each other or establish whose version of events is correct?
What is one of my relationship trip wires? What do I tend to do when it's hit?
What protective version of me tends to appear during conflict—and what's underneath it?
What does my partner see when I'm protecting myself, and what am I actually feeling?
After conflict, do we repair and learn from what happened—or simply wait until things feel normal again?
Are my apologies followed by different behaviour?
(And perhaps my favourite) What could I do differently next time that would create a new ending?
Notice that question isn't, “How do I make my partner change?”. That's deliberate.
Please don't weaponise this stuff
There is one small occupational hazard to learning relationship psychology; You can become really bloody good at diagnosing your partner.
“THERE'S YOUR DETACHED PROTECTOR!”
“You're triggered.”
“That's your childhood talking.”
“Your abandonment schema is showing.”
Congratulations. You've weaponised Schema Therapy. Psychological insight used to prove why you're right and your partner is defective is just another protective strategy. This work isn't about collecting better ammunition. It's about becoming more honest with ourselves. Notice the I:
What am I doing right now?
What am I protecting?
What am I frightened of?
What impact am I having?
What responsibility belongs to me?
How can I help us turn towards each other instead of away?
While your partner needs to be willing to do that work too, you can only ever start with your side of the dance.
The happiest couples aren't the ones without problems
One of my favourite findings from Gottman's relationship research is that around 69% of relationship conflict involves perpetual problems—ongoing differences that couples return to again and again.
OMG! Should we all just give up?
No. 😂
It means we're different people.
Different personalities.
Different histories.
Different values.
Different sensitivities.
Different ways of seeing the world.
The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate every difference. It's learning how to keep talking about those differences without becoming gridlocked in criticism, defensiveness, contempt or withdrawal.
Perhaps a healthy relationship isn't one where we've finally eliminated every disagreement. Maybe it's one where we've learned, We can disagree without making each other the enemy.
I can tolerate you having feelings I don't like.
I can acknowledge my impact without believing I'm a terrible person.
I can recognise my protector without letting it run the relationship.
I can apologise and change my behaviour.
We can repair.
The goal isn't a relationship where neither person ever gets hurt, triggered, moody, defensive or misunderstood. We don't need our partners to become perfect. And they don't need us to be perfect either. What we need is patience.
Curiosity.
Compassion.
Accountability.
A willingness to look honestly at ourselves.
And a willingness to value the relationship more than the temporary satisfaction of proving we're right. Because emotional safety isn't knowing your partner will never get it wrong.
It's knowing that when you inevitably misunderstand, trigger or hurt each other, you're both willing to become curious about what happened, take responsibility for your part, repair what needs repairing and turn towards each other again.
The goal isn't perfection. It's creating enough new endings where eventually, you shift from feeling like you constantly get each other wrong to feeling the love for each other again.
If you feel you need support in navigating conflict in your relationship, or a safe space to unravel the dance going on between you or to talk about Bruno, you can reach out to connect with me and book a free 30 minute consult to see how I can help.
