You Can Either Be Right or Be Happy: With Adriel Roldan

Repairing a relationship can get complicated. That’s true of romantic relationships, family relationships, workplace relationships… every type of relationship can become difficult when a slight from either party occurs. And once that slight has happened? Walking back from the edge of the “falling out” cliff can sometimes feel impossible. 

So, what do you do when you genuinely want to fix a damaged relationship? Let’s discuss the best way to go about repairing a relationship by listening, acknowledging someone’s feelings and really encapsulating what they’re going through. 

Repairing a relationship

I recently had a podcast guest whose mother nearly ended their relationship over what he perceived to be a minor event. He had booked an engagement photo shoot on the day of his mother’s dance studio showcase, and his mother grew upset with him. She told him because he wasn’t there to support her for her event, she wouldn’t support him at his event… 

That’s right: she said she wasn’t going to attend her son’s wedding over a missed dance recital. To many readers, that might sound like a major overreaction on the mother’s part. It certainly seemed like an overreaction to her son, who tried to explain that he’d booked the engagement photos well in advance of the dance showcase, and couldn’t simply reschedule the shoot.

Still, that didn’t matter to the mother. She wished him “good luck” at his wedding, and then refused to spend the following winter holidays with him. He was especially distraught at spending Christmas alone… and while his mother responded to numerous texts offering well-wishes, she still wasn’t opening the channels of communication required to repair the relationship.

What do you do in a situation like this, he wondered? My answer was simple: he could either be right about the fact that his mom was overreacting, or happy at the prospect of repairing their relationship down the road. Not both, and most certainly not both at the same time. 

Let’s slow this down a little bit. When it comes to significant arguments with the people who matter to us, sometimes we feel the need to be “right” or the need to “win” a dispute. Doing so makes us feel like our feelings are valid and justified. 

At the same time, winning arguments is a great way to destroy a relationship. That’s because the point of an argument isn’t to win. It’s to solve a problem, or come to an understanding. 

For these reasons, instead of being right about the fact that his mother was overreacting about his attendance at her dance recital, he needed to fix the relationship and be happy that his mother would come to his wedding. 

But that didn’t mean he needed to apologize for being wrong. Instead, he needed to apologize and say, “I’m so sorry I made you feel abandoned.” In validating her feelings, he could genuinely admit to causing his mother pain without putting himself down for making a reasonable choice regarding his wedding. 

For what it’s worth, his mom was feeling hurt, left out and betrayed. And he needed to mend that rift in their relationship before it became too late by saying, “I understand what you’re going through. That’s really hard, and it’s sad that you’re feeling that way.”

We call this encapsulation. Encapsulation means being able to express to someone that you’re capturing, or “encapsulating,” their feelings and emotional state. Doing so is one of the few ways to put a rocky relationship back on track. 

This concept — the concept of encapsulation — is so incredibly powerful, potent and valuable in bridging the gap between you and anyone else. When you take a moment to truly express understanding for how someone else feels, you’re making an effort to connect with them. 

That moment of connection creates a platform for solutions to happen. Without that, making headway in a frayed relationship is tough, hard, strenuous and choppy. With that, relationships have the opportunity to grow and thrive. 

Repairing a relationship by being happy, not right

When it comes to repairing a relationship, forget being right. The goal is always to be happy — it’s that, or come to peace with the fact that the relationship might be permanently damaged. 

If you want to talk to me about encapsulation, relationship repair or any of the other topics discussed in this blog today, I’d love to chat with you. Feel free to book a consultation or listen to our podcast episode on this very same topic to learn more about how relationships work, and how to make them work for you.