I Hurt My Friend's Feelings, What Do I Do Now?

Hurt feelings are never an easy thing to navigate in a relationship, especially in an intimate relationship of any kind–whether that’s a romantic relationship, a sibling, a close friend, etc. And while we’ve touched on how to let someone know they’ve hurt your feelings, we haven’t yet explored what you should do if you’re the one who hurt your loved ones feelings. 

As you navigate your response, try to keep a few things in mind: 

All relationships have conflict. 

We can only avoid conflict by avoiding our true feelings in a relationship, so it’s not necessarily a sign that the relationship is a bad one. And hurting someone’s feelings doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. We’re all wounded and trying our best, and sometimes we misstep. 

It was brave for your loved one to tell you that their feelings were hurt. 

While it’s completely understandable for your own feelings to smart when you hear they’ve felt hurt by you, try to remember they’re being vulnerable with you because they trust the relationship can survive the conflict. Which brings us to the third reminder…

Taking time to talk to you about their hurt feelings is a sign that your relationship means a lot to your friend or loved one, not the other way around. 

If they didn’t care about your relationship, working toward repair for a stronger relationship wouldn’t matter. While it can feel like they’re upset at you when you’re getting through this, hold that security close when you feel vulnerable, and remind yourself that working through this is the goal for both of you. 

With those reminders in mind, here are three things you can do when you’ve hurt a loved ones feelings: 

Work to understand before saying your piece: 

Give your loved one space to explain why their feelings are hurt. What was it that you said or did that hurt them? What was happening in that moment for them? Rather than jumping right into what it was you intended, let them share with you how they experienced the situation. When you understand what was happening for them, you can more clearly understand the impact of your own behavior. Remember, they’re being very vulnerable with you. Give them space to say what they need and really try to hear them before saying your piece. 

When it is your turn, explain don’t defend: 

Everyone accidentally hurts their friend’s or loved ones from time to time. We’re all working through our own wounds and communication blocks, so misunderstandings are common–especially in close relationships where your most vulnerable insecurities are more prone to be triggered. 

Instead of getting defensive over the intention of your words, trust that your friend knows you didn’t intend to hurt them–they probably wouldn’t be vulnerable enough to share their feelings with someone they thought wanted to hurt them. It’s fine to explain how you were experiencing the situation simply, without blaming them for misunderstanding, but understand that your intentions for an interaction might not match the impact of your behavior within that interaction. It’s important to apologize for how your words or behavior were actually received if it didn’t line up with how you intended them.  

Figure out what to do if something like this comes up again: 

What makes you feel safe being vulnerable with one another? What was it exactly that brought this conflict up? How can you be mindful of what you’ve learned about one another as you go forward in your relationship? Present conflicts often dig at old wounds, so if you can work together to understand where the root of the pain is coming from, you can work together to avoid this sort of conflict or hurt feelings in the future. 

Do you struggle to communicate when someone lets you know that you’ve hurt their feelings? We can help support you. Reach out today to get in touch with one of our clinicians! 

3 Tips for Telling Your Therapist They Upset You

Telling someone that they’ve done something to hurt your feelings is never easy. 

It’s vulnerable–you’re exposing yourself as someone who isn’t infallible. It’s opening yourself up to the risk that the person you’re trying to communicate with will misunderstand you. And while sometimes this sort of communication is exactly what we’re working on in therapy, it can still happen that your therapist says something to upset you in session. 

Maybe they poke at an old wound, maybe they misunderstand something difficult you’re struggling to communicate, maybe they’re reactivating old dynamics that hurt you in the past. No matter how it comes about, it’s possible–and in fact normal–that at some point, your therapist will say something that upsets you, rubs you the wrong way, or just generally hurts your feelings.

But, isn’t therapy supposed to be a safe space?

Yes! But your idea of a safe space might be different than what that safe space actually needs to be. Feeling safe and being safe–while both important!–are two different things. Things that make us feel safe might not actually be things that keep us safe in every context. If you grew up in a dysfunctional home, avoiding conflict may have literally kept you safe. Now however, in a different context, that avoidance can create more problems and be a hindrance to your emotional safety. 

A safe space isn’t a space where you will never face discomfort or conflict, it is a place that provides safety to you while you navigate those things. 

In that way, going through the experience of telling your therapist that they’ve hurt your feelings can be an extremely valuable tool in the healing process. Part of how therapy works is through relational healing–your therapist is someone who is there to hear you without judgment, who won’t be mad at you for expressing something unpleasant, and who will demonstrate healthy ways to navigate those moments with you, so you have a model for how it looks outside of therapy. 

Basically, therapy helps us to heal wounds we’ve gotten in other relationships by giving us a relationship where conflict is managed safely. 

So when you tell your therapist that something they’ve done has hurt your feelings, you’re giving yourself an opportunity to write a new script about what happens when you do that. When before it may have gotten you yelled at or berated, your therapist is there to listen to what you’re saying to them, to hear what you’re trying to communicate. When you do this more and more, you’re learning that conflict doesn’t just mean danger–it can also mean an opportunity for deeper understanding, stronger communication, and an emotionally safe relationship. 

That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do! We know it’s hard. If you’re trying to figure out how to let your therapist know they’ve said something that upset you, here are three tips: 

Acknowledge the difficulty of the situation: 

Starting the conversation is hard. But in therapy, you’re in a very unique position where the person you’re talking to you knows a lot about your emotional world, the history you have, and the general bravery it takes to be vulnerable in this way. It’s okay to start with “I’m struggling a lot with how to say this,” or “I’m nervous about bringing this up.” That’s actually helpful information for your therapist to have–they can help address the root of those fears as well as the specific issue you’re hoping to talk about. 

Tell them what you’re worried about: 

Are you worried they’ll be mad at you? That you’ll get kicked out of their office? That they’ll yell at you? Tell you your feelings don’t matter? There are so many reasons we avoid conflict, and they’re often informed by how we’ve experienced conflict in the past. It’s okay to call those fears out, right away. No matter how outlandish that fear may seem in comparison to the conflict, your therapist is there to hold space for those feelings, not judge them. And sometimes, just voicing what you’re afraid of lessens the feeling of fear!

Focus on the feelings it brought up in you: 

When someone says something that hurts our feelings, it’s often about something we’re a little sensitive about anyway. When your therapist says something that hurts your feelings, before you bring it up in session, reflect on what feelings that hurt brought up in you. Did it bring you back to a moment where you’d been hurt before? It’s okay if they seem totally unrelated–brains are funny little things and sometimes they latch onto moments that don’t make any sense to us. If you can let your therapist know not just what hurt your feelings, but how you experienced those hurt feelings, they can help address both the moment in your own relationship, and the history it brought up. 

Do you struggle to communicate when someone has hurt your feelings? We can help support you. Reach out today to get in touch with one of our clinicians! 

Managing Conflict in Friendships

We’ve said before that conflict exists in every type of relationship. 

In all long term relationships, conflict is normal and expected and nothing to feel shame or fear about. However, that doesn’t make it easy to manage! It can feel scary when conflict comes up–no matter what type of relationship you have. 

However, when we think of navigating conflict in relationships, it’s often through the lens of romantic relationships. The stakes can feel extremely high with romantic partners, especially if it’s a long term partner who you intend to build a future with. Within friendships, conflicts may not feel so extreme because you may not consider your friend to be your “life partner” but that doesn’t mean the emotions they bring up are any less important than the feelings brought up in romantic conflicts. 

It can feel like more of a shock when big conflict comes up within platonic relationships too. 

Not small things like disagreeing over where to meet for coffee or something like that, but big true conflict where you don’t feel as if you’re being seen or heard by the other person. This is something we expect to a certain degree within romantic relationships–because we expect to have a certain degree of intimacy with our romantic partners, there are more opportunities for vulnerability, and therefore more opportunities for raw feelings to come up and make conflict. 

We often see our friendships as an escape from that sort of seriousness. We go to our friends to get support when we’re in conflict with our partners or with other frustrations in our life, so it’s often a space in our life we see as being free of conflict. But this also means that some of our friends have seen the most honest and most vulnerable versions of ourselves. Just as this can lead to increased intimacy, it can also mean we’re risking moments of our true selves and our vulnerability not being witnessed the way we hope it will be, which opens the door for conflict. 

So just like any close relationship, there’s an inevitability of conflict in intimate friendships, so it’s crucial to find a way to navigate it. 

We’ve talked a bit before about ending friendships (why you might, what it means to break up with a friend, and how to deal with a friend breakup when it happens) but what about before the breakup? Just like in romantic relationships, ending the relationship isn’t where we want to jump to. If we’re willing to do a bit of uncomfortable work, we can find ways to repair the relationship, and likely make it stronger as well. 

So how can you handle conflict in friendships?

Take time to figure out what it is that needs attention and repair: 

Sometimes we know there’s something off or frustrating within a friendship, but we aren’t sure exactly what the root of it is or how to articulate it. Before coming to your friend with a series of grievances you’ve let stack up, take some time to reflect on why these things are bothering you. 

What is the common thread? Are you not feeling listened to? Are your needs being ignored? Do you never feel prioritized the way you prioritize your friend? Are you nervous about being judged by them? 

Taking some time to reflect on all those little moments that bothered you can give you more insight into what actually is off balance in your relationship, which will help you communicate it more effectively, rather than just listing moments your friend has upset you and waiting for them to apologize (though, if you need an apology or a recognition of hurt, that’s okay! You can ask for that too.) If you need some help reflecting on what it is you’re feeling about certain relationships, try these journal prompts to help you examine how you’re feeling in different relationships! 

Let them know you need to talk: 

…but try to be more considerate than a quick “We need to talk” text, which sounds vague and ominous and will probably just make your friend anxious and come into the conversation on the defensive. Instead, be transparent. You’ve had time to think about what is upsetting you, let them know you’re upset so that they’re not blindsided. A short, but clear “I’ve been feeling upset about X and I was hoping we could make time to talk through it?” helps to let them know what you’re feeling, what it’s about, and that you want to work it out with them. Of course, no one likes to hear that they’ve upset or hurt their friend, so they may still feel uncomfortable or anxious about it, but those are their feelings to manage so long as you’ve done your part to be clear and considerate. 

(And consider when you let them know you need to talk. Are you texting them right as they head into work, where they won’t be able to answer you? Will they then be stressed and upset about it all day? If you have a general idea of their schedule, try to let them know at a time they’d be home or available to talk. 

Depending on the geography of your friendship, talking in person may not be possible, but when it comes to conflict, it’s best handled directly person to person. Meaning and tone can easily get lost or mistranslated in text, which can add even more tension to an existing conflict. If talking in person isn’t possible, talk to them on the phone at a time that works for both of you. 

Assume the goal is the same for both people

When you need to address conflict it can feel scary! Sometimes you may feel the compulsion to defend yourself rather than explain what you’re feeling. That may be wounds or expectations from a past relationship showing up in your relationships now. Try to go into conversations about conflict with friends assuming you both want the same thing: to find ways to repair the friendship where both people feel seen and understood. Remember this person is your friend for a reason, they’ve been in your life caring about you for a reason–they will want to know if they’re hurting you, even if it’s uncomfortable. 

And remember to make space for their experience too. Let them respond without getting defensive or trying to prove them wrong. Just like in romantic relationships, the goal isn’t to win, but to make space for one another and solve the problem together. Even if it’s uncomfortable to hear what they have to say, it can bring you closer by allowing for more honesty and vulnerability within your friendship. And remember to make use of healthy conflict tools like repair attempts and to remember that not every problem can be solved in a single conversation. 

Are you experiencing conflicts in your friendships? Working with a therapist can help you find healthy ways to navigate and manage conflict within your relationships. Get in touch with our office today to get started with couples therapy! 

What Are Repair Attempts in Conflict (and How to Use Them)

What Are Repair Attempts in Conflict (and How to Use Them)

Relationship conflict is normal. Everyone is different and no two people will see eye to eye on everything all the time. People grow and change and that can be difficult in relationships when you don’t grow at the same rate. Since all relationships have conflict, learning how to manage conflict in a healthy way is important in adult relationships. Having a fight is not the end of the world. What really matters is how you attempt to repair from that fight, or what kind of repair attempts you and your partner make. 

It’s easy to get so caught up in an argument that you don't realize you’re not able to respond in a productive way until it's far too late. During conflicts, couples often become so flooded with emotion that they can’t work together to find a solution or come to an agreement. Repair attempts can also be useful in interrupting conflicts before partners get to the point where they’re emotionally flooded and can’t move forward. 

Healthy vs unhealthy conflict in relationships

There are different types of conflict in relationships, and conflict can be healthy or unhealthy to the connection of the relationship. It might sound surprising, but lots of arguments that happen in relationships can’t be solved.

Solvable conflicts are disagreements where you can reach a solution, but most conflicts in a relationship are perpetual, meaning they can’t be solved. A big part of relationships is learning how to respectfully live with and love someone who you don’t always agree with. Even when an argument is perpetual, conflict can still happen in a healthy or unhealthy way. 

Signs of unhealthy conflict in relationships:

• The “4 Horsemen” of relationship conflict are known as such because their presence indicates serious peril for couples:

• Contempt

• Stonewalling

• Criticism

• Defensiveness

• Isolation

• Manipulation

• Dishonesty

• Control

• Aggression

• Fear

• A winner or loser 

Signs of healthy conflict in relationships: 

• Repair attempts

• Being gentle with each other

• Considering triggers 

• Meaning making as a unit

• Recognizing the difference between solvable and perpetual conflicts

• Accountability + apologies where necessary 

• Mutual respect 

• Trust 

• No winners or losers

What are repair attempts?

According to The Gottman Institute, which specializes in relationships, repair attempts are “any statement or action — verbal, physical, or otherwise — meant to diffuse negativity and keep a conflict from escalating out of control. Repair attempts can be humorous or more serious. 

The repair attempts that work for your relationship might look different to what works for a friend or family member, and that’s okay. Every relationship is different. You each bring your own experiences, feelings, attachment styles, and histories to the table, which means it’s up to you both to figure out what works best for you. 

Why repair attempts work during conflict 

When you use a repair attempt during a conflict, it shows your partner that you’re committed to resolving the underlying issue instead of getting caught up in the emotion of the argument. It’s like a signal between the two of you that you’re on the same team, even when you don’t always agree. It’s helpful to be reminded that our partners are on our side, especially when we’re at risk of getting carried away with our emotions. 

Some relationship experts describe repair attempts as a pause or reset button. “When they work, repair attempts are like hitting the reset button. The argument may not be over but the hostility and aggression disappear even though the conflict remains.”

How to make repair attempts during a conflict

So, when you’re experiencing conflict in your relationship, how can you make a repair attempt? There are several ways to go about repair attempts, depending on what your goal is at the moment. 

You may be trying to defuse the tension, let your partner know how you feel about what is being said, interrupt before you get carried away, work toward compromise, apologize, express appreciation for your partner, or something else entirely. 

A repair attempt doesn’t always have to be verbal, either. Since a repair attempt is supposed to be a signal to both parties to pause, it can be as simple as a loving touch on their hand. Some couples even agree that their go-to repair attempt is making a funny face at their partner, as a signal that the conflict has spiraled out of hand and to reel it back in. Others pick a word to say so their partner will know they’re emotionally flooded and need to hit pause. 

Some other examples of repair attempts are: 

• “Can we hit pause on this and come back when we’re calmed down?”

• “I’m overwhelmed and need a break.”

• “What you’re saying makes sense.”

• “I love you.”

• “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

• “Please let me finish what I was saying.”

• “We’re getting off track here.”

• “I feel criticized. Could you say that differently?”

• “I reacted inappropriately. I’m sorry.”

• “Let me try again.”

• “What you just said hurt my feelings.”

• “Can we agree to disagree on this?”

• “We can figure this out together.”

When you’re stuck on what to do as a repair attempt, remember that everyone likes to feel validated. How can you let your partner know that you are actively listening and empathize with their emotions? Keeping that in mind during conflicts can help you figure out how to approach your partner to repair. 

Are you experiencing conflicts in your relationship? Learning how to use repair attempts during arguments can be a game-changer. Working with a couples therapist can help you and your partner find ways to hit pause during conflicts that work for you and your circumstances so you continue to feel like you’re on the same team instead of working against each other. Get in touch with our office today to get started with couples therapy! 

6 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations with Your Partner

Every relationship has ups and downs.

No lasting relationship exists without conflict, so knowing how to address it in a healthy way is crucial for a healthy, lasting relationship. It requires a deep vulnerability and a commitment to be honest, which can be very scary! The more vulnerable and honest we are, the more we feel others have the power to hurt us, even unintentionally. And it can be hard to go to your partner and tell them you’re unhappy about something in your relationship. 

But the truth is, if you didn’t care about the relationship, you wouldn't say anything at all! You would probably just go your own way, and the relationship would be over. It shows how important a relationship is when you’re willing to take that risk to be vulnerable in an attempt to be seen and understood–and hopefully it will allow you and your partner to grow closer.

However, we know that it does feel scary to broach a difficult conversation with a partner.

So to help you, we’ve put together 6 tips for having difficult conversations with your partner: 

Remember your partner is human: 

Even if they have done something that upset you, it’s likely their intention was not to cause you any harm. Remind yourself of a time when you let someone down without intending to, and consider how you wish they had engaged with you. This doesn’t mean to excuse behavior that is a problem, just to go into the conversation with the assumption your partner didn’t mean to hurt you, that they want to learn to be the best partner they can be, but that they will sometimes mess up. 

Understand your own feelings first: 

Take a moment to make sure you understand why you’re upset. Are you upset because your partner is on their phone anytime you watch TV together, or are you upset because it feels like there is very little time where the two of you feel present together? When you figure out what it is you’re actually having an emotional response to, you can communicate your needs much more clearly. And it helps to make sure you’re having a conversation about what actually matters–in this case, it’s not so much about phone usage, but feeling disconnected from one another. So the solution might be to put your phone away at certain times, but it might be something different. Focus on the root of the issue, not just the incident that felt like the tipping point. 

Understand your intention with the conversation: 

What is it you want to happen when you open up to your partner like this? Are you looking for them to just hear your feelings, or do you want them to help “solve” the problem? Sometimes, things are small one-time occurrences, and we might feel that all we need to do is point out what upset us and trust our partner to hear us. But sometimes, the issue is larger or more ongoing. In that case, if your intention is problem solving, remember that you and your partner are a team, and it’s the pair of you vs the problem, not you vs them. 

Be intentional about when you talk: 

When you need to have a serious conversation, you don’t want to feel like you’re just barely squeezing it in. You also don’t want you or your partner to be distracted or pulled away while in the middle of the conversation. So find a time that you are both free to sit and talk for a long time, so you can really focus on one another and not feel rushed or like you weren’t able to really get into it. 

Commit to understanding their side: 

Just as you want them to hear and understand you, give them space to talk so you can do the same. And don’t just listen to respond–really sit and actively listen. What are they saying? What are they hoping you’ll understand? Was this something you knew before? 

Fight fair:

Don’t bring up little annoyances you’ve let slide under the rug. Don’t dredge up an old argument to help “prove your point.” If you feel things getting too heated, suggest a break so that you can both take time to cool off and come back when you’re ready to hear one another.  

If you need some extra support in having difficult conversations with your partner, we can help. Contact us today! 

Why Conflict In Your Relationship Can Be A Good Thing

How do you handle conflict with your partner? 

Every relationship deals with conflict at some point or another. Both parties might not always be aware of the conflict, but conflict is there all the same. It seems wild that conflict can actually have a positive effect on a relationship, but in truth, conflict is an opportunity.  

Have you ever been upset with someone, and kept it to yourself, for whatever reason? It probably makes sense in your head - getting your feelings out in the open might hurt the other person’s feelings, leading to a conflict that you don’t feel emotionally or physically prepared for. Avoiding conflict then seems to make sense. Instead of rocking the boat and saying how you really feel, you can just keep it all inside and hope it goes away. 

That doesn’t sound like a great plan, does it? Avoiding conflict by burying your feelings isn’t actually helpful long term. Constantly swallowing your feelings for the sake of the other person is a recipe for resentment after a while. Resentment is really an emotional distance between you and your partner, so avoiding conflict for the sake of the relationship is counterintuitive, anyway. The tradeoff is basically this: have an awkward, uncomfortable, probably emotional conversation or keep it to yourself and create distance in the relationship. It’s up to you to decide if the relationship is worth the conflict to you. 

Sometimes, the conflict won’t be worth it. There’s the old saying about knowing when to pick your battles, and it applies to relationships, too. Not everything is worth an argument, but make sure you’re choosing to avoid an argument for the right reasons, instead of just to avoid the conflict. 

Conflict is inevitable, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, conflict can just be a sign that there is a need for more communication. Here are some of the reasons why conflict is actually a good thing in relationships: 

Conflict leads to change

Instead of framing conflict as a fight with your partner, think about it as a tool to facilitate change in your relationship. Nothing can stay the same forever, and when you and your partner butt heads, it’s probably a sign that something needs to change. It’s a great opportunity to open up the lines of communication and see what can be improved. 

 Conflict can let you feel closer to your partner

Instead of a “me versus you” mentality, think about it as “us versus the problem”. It can feel really liberating to communicate freely with your partner, even when you know it might lead to conflict, especially if you know that conflict isn’t the end of a relationship. When you feel seen and heard by your partner, you may start to feel closer to them. 

Get to know your partner better 

One key to successful conflict is empathy. If you can empathize with your partner and try to see where they’re coming from, it might be easier to see why they do and say the things they do. Conflict also lets you see if you and your partner draw the same conclusions about a situation. Remember, just because you think it or feel it, doesn’t mean it’s true.  You might think you know the root cause of their behavior, but the truth might surprise you. 

Conflict tells us what’s really important to us

What gets you upset? That’s a quick way to figure out what’s important to you. You’ll probably have to do some self-reflection on this, but when you are in conflict with someone, try to get to the root cause. Are you mad that your partner bailed on your plans? Or are you worried they don’t value spending time with you? See if you can investigate your feelings to find out what the cause of your upset is.  

Conflict lets you practice communication

One thing that is pretty universal is that we’re not as good at communicating as we think we are. A lot of times, we expect people to read our minds somehow instead of being up front about what we need. When you experience conflict with a partner, it’s a chance to level up your communication. You can figure out how to make each other feel seen, how to apologize to and comfort one another, and you can figure out the nuances of each communication style. Once you figure out how to effectively communicate with your partner, you will probably feel safer talking to them about serious or emotional topics. 

Are you ready to experience successful conflict with your partner? Get in touch with us today to find support as you and your partner go on this journey together. 

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Hope+Wellness is a therapy practice serving the Falls Church, McLean, Great Falls, Vienna, Arlington, Alexandria, and the greater Washington DC region. We provide compassionate care to children, teens, and adults with stress, anxiety, and depression. Our practice is in-network with BCBS and provides Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness and acceptance based therapies, and other top, premier evidence-based treatments. Call, email, or schedule an appointment with us online today. We’re happy to help!