Why “I’m Sorry” Isn’t Enough and What Accountability Really Looks Like

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Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go to guide for navigating relationships, boundaries in laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy, your guide to creating relationships that feel good. Hey, it's Dr. Tracy, and I'm so glad you are joining us here on the podcast. I'm sitting with my husband Greg, and today we are talking all about this universe soul struggle that people have in their relationships, and it's around taking accountability rather than getting stuck in that familiar space of blame. So, Greg, thank you for joining me here on the first episode of 2026.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy New Year.

I love this conversation because it scares.

Me a little bit.

I know, right? I kind of feel a bit nervous talking about it, too, because I think this is a hard spot for so many people that I work with, but I think just in general, it's a hard spot for anyone in their relationship.

Tell me more. Why? Why is that?

Okay, so I think what so many people look for is they want to say, like, well, I did take accountability and I did apologize and I did say this. And. And truthfully, I know I've even said those things to you. And yet so many times we kind of wrap up what we say and do in these, like, almost like PR bows. It's like, yeah, look, it looks so much better because I did say I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's a big word. Like, it. I think it holds a lot of weight and, like, you don't want to not be accountable. Like, it's a personal, like, slight. Right. So I think it's easy. I can speak for myself honestly. It's to your point, it's easy to kind of default to platitudes and like, what ought to be and I'm gonna do this and I, you know, versus maybe understanding what it truly is and maybe even the fact that truly being accountable with your partner is probably easier, more straightforward than all the PR spin that you're alluding to.

I think it is really easy when we move out of the noise and we bring so much noise into our partnerships and that's what then keeps us stuck, the noise. What I mean is, you know, recently I was talking about myths we tell ourselves about relationships that, oh, a good relationship is an easy one. You shouldn't have to work on your relationship. You never make mistakes in your relationship.

Yeah, good. You don't fight in a good relationship.

You don't fight. You never go to bed angry, you never blame, you never get defensive. Kind of these like, always never statements around how we actually define relationships. And so I also think, and you and I spend a lot of time on this because of the work we're doing because you're here in the podcast with me. But I find a lot of the social media messaging as well around relationships kind of skews how we feel and how we think things should be in partnerships.

Oh, isn't that interesting? Like, what do you mean by that? Like, there's just too much of it. So we, like, should be doing all.

These things constantly bombarded by viewing other relationships rather than actually being in our partnership. Sorry I cut you off there because.

No, no, it's popped into me.

No, it's good.

Yeah.

Just in the sense of like, you know, I can sit beside you on the couch and I could scroll on my phone and have these five different relational concepts thrown at me. Accountability, defensiveness, shame, most generous interpretation. Like, cool. Love that.

Yeah.

Except I'm not sitting beside you doing the thing with you and having my nervous system be in the presence of your nervous system because we're distracted by so much else.

So true. I think it's important too for us to say, like, we are self aware people. I think it's not lost on us.

That I'm not perfect though.

No, I know, but what I'm getting at is like, we also, you mainly put also a lot of this content into the world. So in a way we're kind of part of the problem. There's still tons of upside to it, but I think I like to kind of flag that because it's like, we get it, so we're there doing it, but we're also there as kind of consumers too, thinking, wow. So it's something we think about too around how can we communicate more clearly and through some of the noise?

Absolutely. How do we actually get out the noise and get into how we actually put this into change? I think that is such an important piece for our listeners to understand that they can do that with me every single week through my weekly intention. It's called your weekly intention. It is one of the smallest bite sized pieces of work that you can do with me. Once a week you get a short video and it's for you to just have one intention moving forward. And it's not just all of the insights and awareness that we get from podcasts and books and maybe from scrolling, but it is that I want you to make this action this week. And so if people are saying, okay, I'm busy, but I want something small to do. Your weekly intention is one of my favorite things that I've actually been doing for a really long time.

Yeah. So just for people to know, it's something you've been doing for over six years. And it's just something we're kind of pulling out of one of our other products to offer as like a. A small thing that people can do. It's very accessible and frankly, cheap.

It's inexpensive.

Inexpensive.

But I think the biggest part of it is.

Terrible word.

No, no, it's okay. It's less than a cup of coffee. But I think the piece that I love about it though is that it's action based. And you're going to hold that in your mind all week and you're going to look for the moment. And that moment then is when you do the thing. Right. And it's the doing, it's the being, it's the coexisting that gives us those experiences. Okay. We always get to rel at the beginning of our episode. So why we're doing this episode, we're going to talk about blame versus accountability. We're going to talk about what blame actually sounds like, why it shows up. Like in our cycle, you and I are going to do a little mini skit. I know you, we like, we work this.

Not my wheelhouse, but I'll do my best.

That's okay. And then we're going to actually talk about what accountability looks like. So let's first sink into this. Why are we blaming? And I think the first thing is because when your partner is coming at you with information, it can feel like an attack.

It's personal.

Sure. Right. And. And it's tricky because I think one of the things I'm coming to realize as a couple's therapist, as a psychologist is a lot of time I've thought about, you get to control how you communicate something. So I've taught people for almost 20 years how to communicate the thing. And that is almost arguably not the most important thing. The most important thing is what you hear and what's coming into you. And if you take this position, and this could be from your current relationship, past relationships, your childhood for sure, if you have constantly felt like it's your fault, you are going to go into self protection mode. And the challenge though is blame actually escalates things and it breaks connection. So I want people who are listening to really start understanding some of the things that they do in their relationship. As a bridge connection breaker, you and your partner live on different sides of the bridge. Our goal is to cross the bridge and understand each other and be in each other's worlds. And there's all these things that break the bridge. Blame is one of them. But accountability on the other side is something that builds in. It restores the sense of safety and connection. And it's all connected to emotional closeness, to intimacy, to physical closeness. So what I often hear people say is they'll say things like, oh, I didn't mean it that way or and maybe Greg, not to throw you under the bus, but maybe these sound a little bit familiar. That's not what I intended. I say these things too. I'm not trying to throw you under the bus. I'm watching your face.

No, it's fine. I'm an open book for sure.

I appreciate that about you. And I think it's so tough though, right? Because it's so easy for us. And when I'm working with clients, this one couple, I have a really good alliance with them. You know, I'll talk about like, oh, these are your teenager parts coming out because what does a teenager do? Or what does like a 10 year old do? That's not what I did.

Yes.

Or I didn't leave the shoes there.

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

Right. And so one of the things that people struggle with when it comes to this accountability piece is they think that if I'm taking accountability then it means.

It'S all my fault or that I was wrong. I think as a dude, that's one thing. Like I didn't mean it that way. I didn't intend to do that. I think we over index our intentions so very much, particularly as men, because it's so wrapped up in kind of like our ego and our Persona and our adequacy, our value. So it's like I really have to.

Let that land because it's really powerful. We over index our intent totally. Where do you think that comes from?

Oh, now you're really putting me on the spot. I don't know. It could be just. I mean, the default answer would be partly socialization, how we're raised.

What's that experience?

I think it's just inherent.

Yeah.

Because we want to do the right thing. We want to be a caregiver, we want to be providers.

Do you think that's the main piece of it? Because for me, I will admit fault too much. And I think.

Sorry, excuse me.

I think it's because I feel like I was taught to overtake responsibility and to always be responsible for everything, to not make mistakes. And so I think I really learned to sit into that a lot.

Yeah. I think, I mean, based on my age too, I think there's just a generalization around parenting and teaching in kind of the era I grew up, like there was a lot of focus on what we intended to do. Like if you think about like, like, I don't know, like, I'm thinking growing up as a kid, like the kid who did the thing got more attention than the kid who was. Was harmed. So like there was so much focus on the intent of child A. I don't know, maybe I'm grasping at straws. I'm trying to, trying to answer your question.

Yeah. I'm trying to rack my brain in some of these examples because I think that that's an interesting one. Let, let me think about it a little bit more. But it is interesting though, because accountability in a relationship is acknowledging your impact on someone else. And instead it's like we've gone into this like over justifying, over explaining of our intentions to be viewed as the good kid.

Sure.

And I think the other thing too is like, why do we get so stuck around accountability? Because people, I think, believe that accountability means. I completely agree with everything that you're.

Saying, a hundred percent. I am so guilty of that. Yeah.

And inherent to that though is that then the message is you're right and I'm wrong.

Yeah.

And nobody wants to feel that.

But don't you think it takes like a lot of like self awareness or self confidence to be able to sit and hear feedback and go, I can see what I did, how it impacted you, but. And I'm just gonna totally like bypass my intent, like That's a heavy lift. No wonder people struggle with it. Right.

I'm going to encourage people to really sit to this. We're not bypassing your intent. It is in there. But you can't burst through the door with intent.

Yeah. We're over indexing it.

Over indexing it. So I wonder if there's this image that lands. It's almost like I'm saying to you, I'm hurt. And you throw open the door and you're like, look at my intent. Or you, like, pull open the filing cabinet and you're like, look at all the intent. And you're, like, going through all, like, the files.

Yeah.

And I'm. And I'm, like, hurting. I don't know. There's another image in here.

Or it's like the Kool Aid guy coming through the wall. Maybe you're too young for that.

I remember the Kool Aid guy. I'm not for that one.

Burst through the wall.

Right. And you're like, look at my intent. See my intent. And like, the tough thing about that, too. Oh, I love the Kool Aid guy. As an analogy, because when you go into blame, like, shift it back to the other person, you're actually keeping your nervous system on fire. Right. Because if you're perceiving me coming to you and saying, ouch, this hurt, that's. You're taking it as a threat.

Yeah. You're just escalating.

Right. Which takes so much more energy. And instead, if we start reframing accountability as the connector, as the thing that brings us together and that is soothing, that feels better.

Well, it's kind of what I was getting at earlier. It's. I think it's. Underneath all this is. It is, frankly, just easier to slow down, take the accountability, which, to reiterate, does not mean agreeing. I think that's really key for the dudes who might hear this to remember.

Okay, I'm going to offer this reframe. Blame asks who's wrong. Accountability asks what happened between us and how do we repair it.

Yeah, I read that. That's good.

So what does blame sound like? I think we should really label this because blame is not always aggressive. I think we think of it as the Kool Aid guy busting through the. Through the.

Can be more insidious than that, can it?

Absolutely. So I've got a few that come up that are common with my clients. It sounds like I wouldn't have reacted that way if you hadn't. Or you're so sensitive. I already said sorry. What else do you want. That's not what I meant. You know, I wouldn't do that. I was just looking at my phone. You came to me at a wrong time. I guess I'm just the bad guy. Then that right there is.

You came at the wrong time.

That's, that's the, the. But the, the one that says, I guess I'm just the bad guy. This was a huge light bulb moment for me and my clinical work. And it also really helped us because I remember learning this clinically is that I remember this one client, that anytime she would bring up the I'm hurt, I miss you, I long for you. I want us to move forward. He would go into this self flagellation and it was like he would just roll into shame. And then anytime we would try to talk about moving forward, he was like this little puppy or a little child in the corner, like, I'm so bad. I'm so bad. And like, that's like, you know, you're not attractive, Bridge. It's not attractive. But it's not even like building connection though. Right?

Like it's a retreat.

Right. So I think we then sink into this. You're over explaining, you're over indexing. I love that image here. And it sounds like if I just explain a little bit more, then it'll be fine. But I think people need to recognize this isn't about tone or words. It's about where responsibility is placed.

Tell me more.

Because when we get into that blame and we're focusing on intention, I'm trying to put that responsibility back on you. And, and the thing too. And this is why relationships are so nuanced and couple dynamics are important to look at. We have to look at the dynamic. When I come to you and say I'm hurt, that doesn't mean you don't get an experience. You do get one. Not in that moment, because that's the moment I ask you to cross my bridge.

Yeah, you're just looking for some space. Right?

Right. But so often what people do is they hear you. So I come to you, I say, I'm hurt. Then you're like, well, my intention was good.

Yeah, they're stepping into that vacuum almost. Right. Instead of standing back and letting you have the experience.

Totally.

And that's really interesting. I think that's important for people to hear. They still get to have the experience. They don't have to agree that it's with the other person saying necessarily or that they did anything wrong. Maybe they did. But it's like said another way. It's almost like they're still allowed to have their own thoughts and feelings and opinions, their experience at the appropriate time. Is that fair to say?

You know where I didn't take accountability with you. This is a. This is a really interesting one.

Oh, please tell me.

You came to me and I remember because we were down here in the basement. That's where our studio recording is. And Greg said to me, like, looked me right in the eyes, and so I knew he needed me to focus. He's like, I just need you to listen. So I did. I just listened. And you said it really well. Although I didn't agree with the facts. You said, I'm really upset.

Pause. Isn't that interesting? We don't have to agree with the facts. Continue.

You said, I'm really upset about our daughter's jacket.

Oh, yeah. Still am.

And. And. And it's fair because in rel. In life, we all have our things. And I. I admittedly, I think I have more things, and I think you have less things, and the jacket is one of your things, and I really appreciate that because, you know, Greg is the one who makes skiing happen for our family, and I'm so grateful for it. I'm grateful that he's like my ski buddy. He's pushed me outside my comfort zone. He's taking me down blacks. We promised that he was taking me down a blue. Like, you know, it's all the good things. The jacket was one of your things. And I just. I don't feel the same way about the jacket. Yeah, it's one. It's. It's like a lower priority, but I know it's a top priority for you. Like, on a scale of 0 to 10, it's more important to you. And if it's more important to you, then I'm going to let you own it. And I'm also going to witness that for you. Now, here's the thing where I didn't take accountability for it. I just validated you. I don't know if you needed me to take accountability for you for it in that moment.

I think so. I think I was looking for you to maybe agree with me that around the value of it and around the. I think we're trying to teach our kids that there is a level of respect with items and, like, how we treat things and, like, stuff is not cheap anymore. Like, everything is so expensive. Right. I'm not saying we have to walk on eggshells about it, but I think what frustrated me was there was an alternate solution. Which was just swept under the rug, and we kind of deferred too much to the kid in this instance.

This is where you and I have different opinions of this.

Isn't this beautiful?

Because in my world, if this doesn't matter as highly to me, then I feel that you should be upholding that boundary with the kids. And I think sometimes you default. My experience is that you default. You default to me, setting and holding those boundaries. And I appreciate that. I know that I'm the boundary holder, and I get it. And so when you came to me, that was where my frustration was. Because my experience is, if this was so important to you, then why didn't you implement it that way?

See, here's the thing. Oh, I love that you wanted me to feel the natural consequences. So that's why you didn't. That's what I think. You. You were okay with it happening. Yeah, because he was like, I'm going to teach him a lesson. He has to hold that boundary. He's stronger with the kiddo if he wants.

I don't think that's conscious. It wasn't that conscious. But, I mean, maybe subconsciously I thought, well, if this is important to you, then you'll communicate it to them. And you didn't. And I think that's where my frustration came in is when you came to me with your facts, I didn't agree with it because I had a completely different experience at that.

But isn't that the point?

It is. But what I want to come back and circle back to here is I don't think I offered you accountability. And I'm wondering maybe what that would have sounded like for you if I were to be accountable in that moment. I know I validated you. I heard your frustration. I didn't argue the facts with him in that moment. I knew you needed me to just acknowledge it. But I do wonder if you needed me to offer something around accountability.

Yeah. Yeah. Potentially. I. You asked me what that would have sounded like.

Or maybe this isn't even one of those moments. Maybe there is no accountability in here.

So we just did all that for nothing?

No. Everyone got to hear what our cycle sounds like. Okay, I'll. I'll move on. But I think what's really interesting is that when we do get into blame, we'll. We'll kind of wrap this up here. When you are defending yourself or you're correcting your partner's experience, accountability has completely left the room. It's left the conversation. It's broken the bridge and blame it often Sounds calm and logical and reasonable. But what it does is it redirects responsibility away from the impact. Right. And it's the impact that is really important. Okay. The other piece I wanted to navigate a little bit in here, and I think we've done it in some ways is really how does this so quickly show up in our cycle and the cycle for people who are inside be connected with me. They know that this is lesson three. Well, lessons one through three, it's the core teachings that I teach people. I want you to be able to identify what your negative cycle is because you have to be able to get out of it before you can actually solve problems. And so I think what. When blame shows up, and I think the question was, is why don't people take accountability? It's because blame is there, but there's stuff underneath the blame, and that is the cycle piece. So what's underneath it? People often feel shame, they feel inadequate, they feel less than. This could even be a place where old attachment wounds are activated and that's where they go into. I think what's really helpful here instead is to actually identify what that cycle looks like. So here's how it tends to sound. One partner expresses hurt. So let's use me, for example. I go to you. I feel hurt. You hear an accusation. That's right, your perception, it's the story you tell yourself. Then, because you feel accused and hurt deeper down inside, you don't work through that piece. You get defensive and that shows up as blame. So that's the Kool Aid person coming through the. The door.

Yeah.

And then that escalates because my hurt isn't seen. And then I'm either going to escalate more or I'm going to shut down and move away. And that's the distance.

Yeah.

So for people who are listening, here's something for you to think about. Where do you notice blame showing up for you? What does it actually look like? Is it in moments around parenting conversations with your partner? Is it around moments where you're talking about your relationship or your in laws or just day to day moments? Is it something emotionally based or relationally based? Just I want you to kind of get this sense of where does that show up?

And I wonder too, for people to think about too, Is it loud, is it the overt or is it the quieter, subtler, mumbling under the breath as he walks away kind of stuff? Because I'm sure for ev shows up differently.

For sure. Okay, let's do a little skit here so that people can hear what it sounds like. So this is blame, but it's disguised a little bit as accountability.

I already said I was sorry. I don't know what else you want for me.

I'm not asking for more. I'm just trying to explain why it's still.

Well, that wasn't my intention. You're taking it all the wrong way.

So, what, my feelings are wrong now?

No, no, I'm just saying I can't keep apologizing for something I didn't mean to do.

Ooh, just notice that for a moment there was an apology. So the apology is there, but there's actually no accountability. And it wasn't focused on impact at all. It was all focused on an intention. And it went from understanding to defending. And so that original hurt never got addressed.

It's very fast too, eh?

Oh, it's so fast. Right, so like you say, I already said I'm sorry. I don't know what else you want from me. And I think people. People can really relate to that. Like, I've said sorry. How many times do you want me to say it?

Yeah, just keep beating the drum. And.

But for me, when I hear that, then I go to my shame of, like, why can't I just accept the story? Why isn't this landing for me? Like, what's wrong with me that I can't let this just land? And it's often because there isn't the accountability and steps taken to move forward. It's missing it. Which we're going to do next. Okay, let's do now a little mini scene here. Accountability, even when it's uncomfortable. So, hey, Greg, when you said that, it felt dismissive, like my feelings didn't matter. Hmm.

Okay. I wanna understand that.

Well, I just needed you to slow down and just to hear me.

I can see how I moved too quickly there to fix it and how that felt like I was just brushing you off for sure.

Yeah, I think that's it. I think I just felt a little bit brushed off.

That wasn't my intention, but I definitely see the impact now. I'm sorry. I want to do that differently next time.

I think that right there is so powerful because, like, you're allowed to say, that wasn't my intention, right? Yeah, you're allowed to acknowledge, like, I'm not trying to brush you off, but I can see how that affected you. I see how that's the key piece. Totally. And then also, there's always this statement of moving forward next time. And also, I think in this conversation, too, it's not wrong for you to be able to say, I do that sometimes, don't I? Like, I'm so quick to rush it and I don't slow down and, and then I always love the other perspective. If there's one thing that you could take from today's conversation, aside from Greg's Snowsuit preferences, Clean snowsuit continue. It would be to shift into the other person's experience. That is such a relational skill builder.

Yeah, because as you're saying that, I'm just saying maybe I'm thinking this more from the guy's perspective, but it's like you're allowed to have your intention.

Yeah.

Like that's key. But if you're going to be allowed to have your intention, you also have to be open and allowed to hear the impact on her. Right.

Huge.

But you're still allowed to have good, bad and different intentions. You're still allowed to have it, but you can't control the result of it.

I think of the number of men that I work with that need to hear that they're good. There's so many men that just really need to hear that, like, hey, you're good.

Yeah.

I know. And if you're listening and you know, maybe you send this to your partner, but just they need to hear that too. And I think it is really easy for us to get caught in the day to day things that aren't happening, things that didn't happen. You know, like, yeah, we all get there. And then also too, can your partner sit in that feeling like, I'm actually a good person. I really am. Okay, so remember this accountability does not erase your experience. It makes room for your partners. You do not have to go and do all of the indexing in there. Okay, so let's just clearly do this. Accountability is about owning your impact even when your intent was good. It's about being present with your partner's experience. It's about naming your part without self attack. And it's also about being willing to repair and not just explain things going forward. So some shortcuts for accountability. If you wanted to take a phrase from today's episode, it would sound like, I can see how that landed or I understand why that hurt. Here's my part in this or this is what I'd like to do differently moving forward.

It's not complicated to say, I know.

But like I said, there's so much noise. There's so much noise to move through to get through to it. So how can I take accountability without feeling like everything is My fault. I think the first thing you need to understand is to catch the moment where you get, for lack of a better word, triggered when the heat rises in your body, when you want, when you feel like you're gonna self protect. Yeah.

You know, it's like you can't.

You want to correct them, you want to explain yourself, you wanna justify. I remember the one reel I posted where I had said, my husband said, I just. And now our whole day is ruined.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's funny, that one made me laugh because it's the. I just, I was just trying to. Which is totally your. Your intent index, five letters to ruin your day, I think. Then the other piece here is. Okay, so if we're to kind of do step, Step one, slow it down. This is the great therapist pause that we're always talking about. You have to be aware of when you go into that blame mode. When you want to get defensive, when you feel self protective, when you want to say, I just, just slow it down. Give yourself a beat. Step two would be to name the impact before going into the intention. Okay, so now if you want image your filing cabinet closed a little bit longer.

Yeah.

And go look at your partner's filing cabinet, calm the Kool Aid person outside the door and instead pour some water for your partner. So name the impact before intention. I also for people listening, if you don't know, I love analogies and imagery and metaphors when I'm working with clients. Okay, step three, own your slice. This is not the whole pie. You are not going into self flagellation. You're not rolling into shame and saying, I'm such a bad partner, this is all my fault. I can get it right. That is the antidote to connection. You break connection in that moment, but instead own a small piece of it, which sounds like, yeah, here's my part, or here's what I wish I had done differently, or you know, I really see now how that could have felt to be you in that moment. Step four would be the last piece that I want you to consider and that's about linking this to repair and how you plan to move forward. Remember the person who says sorry all the time but never changes.

Yeah, it's the next step.

And that doesn't feel good. But this really is about, how can I do this differently? And I think truthfully, in order to do differently, you have to let yourself feel the impact of your actions on the other person.

How do they do that? Like in the moment, it could be the moment.

Maybe you go for a Walk after and think about it. Maybe you do some journaling, reflect on it, but let yourself feel the sadness of what it would mean. I love perspective. Taking that. That to me is really helpful. I think this is such a common thing that I hear from couples is partners often have more empathy, grace, compassion for their kids compared to a partner.

Yeah.

And so for me, a perspective shift would be imagining my son receiving that kind of information.

Yeah.

You know, if you imagine our daughter, like, yeah, right. You imagine that younger part. And that. That's not. I've heard some controversial pieces around that one of someone had said, like what you need an image your wife as a younger version of herself so you can be compassionate to her. No, it's just our adult brains, we.

Hold such high, kind of a reductive way to think of it. Like it's more nuanced than that.

But it's. It's because we hold such high expectations of the adult other rather than seeing that we are all walking around with these wounds and our nervous systems are some old version of ourselves that we're still trying to heal and move forward. So some repair language for those listening you can hold on to for next time. Next time I want to. What would help you feel safe here? Ask your partner. And that's the. That's the best thing when I'm doing couples therapy is I can say, can you ask your partner right here what would help them next time and give them the voice to do that? Or maybe even asking, can we talk about how to handle this differently? And I think this can just really change the whole direction of your conversation. I'm going to put one more handout in the show notes, which is how to respond to a bad apology. We've got that one there in the show notes. I really like that one because there's just a few handles in there to help move people through rather than escalating up into. Into conflict.

Great.

All right. And if you are getting stuck in your disagreements, check out my after the fight workshop. It's one of my favorite ones because I love talking about the repair. And the goal of the workshop is to actually help you feel close again. So many coup to my therapy room saying they haven't spoken for four days or they feel so distant and, you know, our life shouldn't be riddled by that, but instead to feel closer sooner. And so I teach that in that workshop. It's one of my favorite ones. Okay, should we wrap up there?

Let's be accountable.

Yes.

To the time we've set out yes.

Any last words about accountability?

Yeah, I mean, I think the takeaway for me is, is just this piece around, you know, allowing yourself the intention, but really owning the impact. Like, it's okay if you had certain intentions, but ultimately that's not what matters. I think that's a way particular for guys to like by bypass is the wrong word, but, like, it's a both and right and not get stuck because we're over indexing so much. I think reframing it that way allows, like, maybe I'm speaking more for myself, but allows me to like, okay, that was what it was. Here's the result. And my partner's hurt. What am I going to do about it next? I'm going to repair. I'm going to have a next step for next time. Yeah.

And if you're not able to do it in that exact moment, have one thing ready to say and then make sure you come back to it. Which would be something like, I'm really glad you shared this with me. I need to think about it and I'll come back to you. And you have to hold yourself to come back.

You have to come back. But yeah, yeah.

I'm thinking about the snow suit and I'm really sorry that we had different views on the snowsuit and that we didn't communicate clearly with the kids. And I think next year you and I could maybe find a different approach to manage those expensive ski suits.

Yes, we'll do that. Learning moment. All right, here's Even the experts need to learn.

Here's what I want you to hold in mind. Blame Ask asks who's at fault. And it protects the self in the short term. It's really about short term protection. But accountability asks, how do we come back from this together? And accountability is all about protecting the relationship in the long run. And that shift from being right to being connected is where real change happens. All right, thanks for clicking Play today. And if today resonated, be sure to share it with someone who you love, hopefully your partner. That's a great idea.

Send it to your husband.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that one. All right, until next time, I have to remind you at the end of every podcast episode that this information is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider.