Ask Conscious Girlfriend: My Girlfriend Has No Clue How To Apologize ~ Should I Break Up with Her?

Hey there, it's Ruth from the Conscious Girlfriend Academy with another Ask Conscious Girlfriend question. This questioner writes, I've been dating somebody for about 4 years. When I apologize, I actually state what I am apologizing for. When she apologizes, she will state that we both did something wrong. This upsets me. I asked her why can't she just say what she did without deflecting to me. Why can't she just give a straight apology? Her answer is, why should she have to? I told her a generic I'm sorry can feel hollow, like a quick fix to move on. I explained to her that telling me what you did is completely valid, and it's emotionally healthy to want that kind of apology. It provides clarity about what hurt, and Accountability from the person about what caused the hurt, and a sincere apology that reflects understanding, not just habit. She said I am being silly to want this, that I am being manipulative because I want her to speak to what she did. I don't see how. It's not about being petty or trying to shame her. It's about being seen, heard, and safe. I said to her, That to practice love means we're fostering growth and trust. Her response is, we have different perspectives, and she is set in her ways. Then she hits me with, you're like my parents. So I don't want to argue. I'm really not trying to argue, but anytime I bring up apologizing or even us growing together, it becomes an issue. Don't get me wrong, We have fun, but I want partnership, not just companionship. So what do I do? We all have red flags, but a part of me feels like my girlfriend just isn't ready, that she must not be my person because something so simple shouldn't be this hard. Okay, so there is a lot to unpack here, and the first thing I notice is that the person who wrote this letter wants to be seen, heard, and safe. I completely validate that. Of course you want to feel seen and heard and safe, and you should want that. Those are the right things to want. Now, on the other hand, I bet your girlfriend also wants to feel seen, heard, and safe, right? And she should want that. That's What everybody wants in a close relationship. So the challenge is how can you and she become more able to give that to each other? What I'm hearing is that you have like a straw issue right now. You're arguing for the kind of apology you want. She's arguing for the kind of apology she wants or feels more comfortable with, and you're both. Quickly getting polarized and kind of criticizing and blaming and attacking each other. So going back to your question, you said, um, I told them a generic— I told her a generic I'm sorry can feel hollow, like a quick fix to move on. I explained to her that telling me what you did is completely valid and emotionally healthy to want one. Okay, so basically what I hear is that you are telling her the kind of apology I want is completely valid and emotionally healthy. But there's a little implication there: the kind of apology you give, or the kind of apology you want to give, is not completely valid and not emotionally healthy. Now, how many of us in a close relationship are going to respond? respond positively to being told that the way we're doing things is not valid or emotionally healthy. Most of us are going to get a little bit, or a lot, prickly with that, right? We're gonna feel attacked. We are definitely not going to feel seen, heard, and safe. So her girlfriend did get prickly. Her girlfriend, according to this letter writer, said, You are being silly to want this. You are being manipulative. So now they're even further apart, right? Neither one of them is feeling seen, heard, and safe. And it's so easy for this to happen between 2 women that are just trying to love each other and be loved, right? That's what's so sad. These 2 people have been together for 4 years. They've got some significant history, but obviously when there's a trigger, they quickly are not able to see or hear each other, much less help each other to feel safe. So what I would want to see for these 2 people is a deep dive into empathy And curiosity for both of them. For the person who wrote the letter, you know, there is something that happens for your girlfriend in the way that you start trying to demand an apology, and not just an apology, but a certain kind of apology. Mm-hmm. And the way you start insisting that your kind of apology that you want is Is valid and emotionally healthy, where you're not empathizing with her. No, she is definitely not empathizing with you either, because she's calling you silly and manipulative. What a mess. But empathy and curiosity could help the two of you dive under the surface of this wave and Which is otherwise threatening to become a tsunami, which is going to destroy your relationship. Because the more time that either or both people spends feeling unseen, unheard, and unsafe, the less likely it is that your relationship is going to continue. And certainly the less likely it is your relationship is going to feel good if it continues. So What I would love to see is for both of you to be able to have a completely different kind of conversation. Preferably, or honestly, it needs to be when neither one of you is triggered. And then you can say, let's just really look at this topic that has become so difficult between us about apologizing. Now, it's hard to do this, right? But it's transformational when either person is able to say, you know what? I have a perspective. I have triggers. I have feelings that come up. When that happens for me, I realize I start seeing you as wrong. I start seeing you as the bad guy. And I bet that must be really painful for you. And it's pretty understandable that you might respond to that by seeing me as wrong and seeing me as the bad guy. And then there we both are, pointing fingers at each other like 2 kids in a sandbox. Well, she threw sand at me first. Well, she kicked sand at me with her feet before I threw sand at her. You know, That's not love, but it's very human and it's very common, but it's not love. So what love is, is saying, wow, I'm feeling hurt. I'm not feeling seen. I'm not feeling heard. I'm not feeling safe. I bet you're not feeling seen or heard or safe. Either. I bet you're feeling hurt too. How can we both get out of this? How can we both access a more resourced, compassionate, adult, curious part of ourselves? And if we can't both do that at the same time, can either one of us do that? Because What happens in relationships is we set up domino effects. And that's what I hear in this letter, that, you know, the first person set up the dominoes where, you know, I'm emotionally healthy and valid to want things my way. I'm not making any effort to understand where you're coming from. I'm just implying that you're not emotionally healthy. Your way is not valid. Not too surprising that then you're going to come back with saying that I'm being silly and manipulative. What if I could just get curious and say, you know what, something seems to happen between us around this conversation about apologizing, and that's where you ended up saying I was just like your parents. It sounds like you had a painful experience with your parents that's getting replicated here, and because I love you, I want to understand better what that experience is. I don't want to get just hung up on I need the kind of apology I need, and it's emotionally healthy for me to need this. I want to understand you. What is it that you start feeling when we have these conversations? It sounds like maybe you start feeling attacked. I don't want to be attacking you. I want to help you feel safe. It sounds like there's something really important to you about The idea that we both did something wrong. Can you tell me more about that? You know, if this letter writer were able to say those kinds of things, that would be transformative, right? Yes. If, on the other hand, the girlfriend were able to say those kinds of things, that would also be transformative. So from her, it might be like, wow, I get that there is really something so important to you about being able to receive a certain kind of apology from me. And I am so sorry that I called you silly and manipulative, because obviously calling you names is not going to help us get close. It's not going to help either of us feel the safety and the love. That we both want to feel. So I apologize for that. And I would love to find out more from you in general about, you know, what is it that you really need when something feels hard? It sounds like what you're really wanting is just for me to get that whether I did it on purpose or not, whatever my intention was, it's not really about intention in this moment. It's about impact. Something felt really bad to you, and you want me to understand what that was. And you know what? Because I love you, I want to understand what that was. Can you imagine hearing those kinds of words from your girlfriend? It kind of melts the heart, right? So typically what happens though is that neither. Person is able to get to this place where they can really hear the other. And that's where we get to the, you know, 2 kids in the sandbox, all of the adults have left the room, we're finger-pointing, we're name-calling, we're feeling more and more distant from each other. Ouch. Does any of this sound familiar? If so, I want to let you know that there is an Amazing resource that can help you in the Conscious Girlfriend Academy. We are a global resource helping lesbians and queer women and adjacent queer people prevent heartbreak, date wisely, and love well. We have so many classes that are relevant to this letter, and we have skill-building labs every single week. We have a book that you can download the beginning of for free. Free on our website. It's our Amazon best-selling book, Conscious Lesbian Dating and Love. And beyond that, we have a whole community of open-hearted, growth-oriented lesbians and queer people that recognize, hey, if I'm having a painful experience in my relationship, rather than pointing the finger and saying she's not ready, how about if I turn that finger around And say, what might I be doing to contribute to this painful pattern? Now, honestly, we all know the truth. Some people are not ready, right? And some two people— sometimes two people might be ready, but they're just not a good fit with each other. That's true too. Just because we like each other or even love each other or are attracted to each other doesn't mean we're going to be compatible. So in the Academy, we also talk a lot about compatibility. But from this letter, I don't necessarily hear that these 2 people are not compatible. What I hear is that they're just getting snagged on a really common type of relationship issue where neither person is able to extend empathy and curiosity to the other. So one of the classes I would recommend For both of these people is our Lesbian Communication Intensive. Um, there is so much to understand about communication when we're in an intimate relationship, because when we are showing up with our tender, vulnerable selves, hoping and trying to love and be loved, we're bringing all of our triggers too. It's inevitable. We can't, we can't not be doing that, right? And when we're bringing all of our triggers, many of us, almost all of us, will tend to go to defensiveness and blaming rather than going to curiosity and empathy. And so working with our thought patterns and working with our nervous system to be able to actually build that ability to show up with compassion and curiosity and empathy is a game changer. It is an absolute game changer. Because until we can do that, nobody's going to be ready. Nobody's going to be the right person. You're not going to be truly compatible with anybody. You might find somebody who's willing to kind of knuckle under and Okay, baby. I give you the kind of apology you want because you insist on it, and I don't want to make trouble. But inside, she's not going to be feeling seen and heard and safe, and so she's going to be pulling away from you, and that's not going to get you the kind of closeness that you actually want. So there's really no way around the importance. Of developing the compassion, the empathy, the curiosity, the non-defensiveness. Defensiveness, according to the Gottmans, who are amazing relationship researchers— defensiveness is one of the Four Horsemen of the Relationship Apocalypse. In other words, the more defensiveness starts galloping into your relationship, the more likely it is that that relationship Relationship is going to end. And yet, for most of us, defensiveness is one of our go-tos. It's one of the quickest places, one of our biggest defense mechanisms, is to get defensive. And it robs us from the experience we're actually yearning to have of feeling seen, heard, and safe. So we have classes in the Academy, in the archives, specifically on defensiveness and dismantling defensiveness. But beyond that class, what I would really recommend to both of these people if they want to save their relationship is come to the Academy, sign up as a member, take lots of our classes so that your heart can start thawing. We don't want your heart to thaw into a puddle, but we want your heart to thaw into a place of being able to be open and discerning. So you can tell if somebody's really not right for you, because if you're showing up with compassion and empathy and curiosity truly, repeatedly, and they can't meet you there, the relationship doesn't have a chance. But if you're not showing up with compassion and empathy and open-heartedness and curiosity, the relationship is definitely not going to have a chance. And oftentimes, if one person can show up that way first, the second person will meet them there. Obviously, best-case scenario, both people can show up that way more and more and more of the time. So I love it when couples come to the Academy together. Or sometimes couples even meet in the Academy and have some of these tools and some of this vocabulary from the very beginning of their relationship, which is a big assist. But even if you are currently in a relationship, if you start learning some of these tools, it will make a huge difference. And if you are currently single, it will make an even bigger difference because when you're dating, then you can assess, okay, if I show up with curiosity and empathy and compassion before I've gone too deep with this person, I get to see, does she show up in that way in return? And if she doesn't and you go through it a few times, It's a good bet you shouldn't go further with her. But if she does, you've done it first, right? This is the opposite of well she threw sand at me first, but she kicked sand at me. You know, it's more like okay, I showed up as loving in the way that I want to love and be loved. I showed up in in with the way of helping the other person feel. Seen and heard and safe. Oftentimes the other person will then— their heart will thaw, and then they will be able to show up in the way that also makes you feel seen and heard and safe. Because when we feel safe, we have a natural generosity and tenderness that emerges, and that's the kind of momentum we really want to build in our most precious relationships. So if this makes sense to you, come check out our resources and our classes and our membership at the Conscious Girlfriend Academy. Come sign up and get the first 4 chapters of our Amazon bestselling book, Conscious Lesbian Dating and Love, for free. And your relationship life is going to start to change in all the ways you most want. We can do this. We really can. And as lesbians and queer women, we deserve to prevent heartbreak, date wisely, and love well. That's what the Academy is all about. That's why we exist, to help our community do that. So hope to see you there.