I’ve been a relationship counselor for over nine years, and I’d be lying to you if I said my current relationship has never felt like it was falling apart.

Recently, it got terrible between my wife and me.

During this time, I thought if I got divorced for the 2nd time, I would lose all credibility in my profession – I might as well find something else to do.

The question I struggled with during this time was, “How can I help people fix their broken relationships when I can’t fix mine?”

I’m sharing this for two reasons.

The first is to empathize with you on how difficult relationships can be sometimes. Even as a couples therapist, I have to work at maintaining harmony and connection.

The second is to give you the first thing to do when your relationship is falling apart.

1. Put your ego aside.

During this time, my ego told me I was right and didn’t have to initiate repair. The problem was my wife also had that thought, so she didn’t initiate repair.

We were in icy withdrawal – not a fun place to be in.

A quote from my mentor, Terry Real, came to mind during this time:

“You can be right, or you can be married. Which one do you choose?”

I could keep digging my hole and choose to be right in my self-righteous withdrawal. But it was a lonely place – where my ego was winning, and my heart was losing.

The anger from my ego couldn’t offset the loneliness and the fact that our two young daughters were picking up on our distance.

We were setting a poor example for them and, at the same time, making us less effective as parents.

I knew I had to put my ego aside to initiate repair.

2. Can we talk?

This is the second step in the repair process – talking without our ego.

It’s also important to ask to talk at this point. Because what if it wasn’t a good time for my wife?

I needed my wife’s time and the emotional bandwidth for repair. Otherwise, I’m working uphill.

Say she was to say “No,” I must respect that and ask her when a good time is.

In this instance, she said, “Yes,” since I had put down my ego, I approached this conversation in the spirit of wanting to improve things. Not as trying to prove how right I was.

3. When having a repair conversation, share vulnerability.

I must give my wife something for her to hear. She can hear and, ideally, connect with vulnerability. Vulnerability is essentially sharing what is underneath my anger.

I first had to reflect on what was underneath it – what was I really upset about? I shared that I felt dismissed and unheard because of what happened.

She could hear that and understand my perspective, but that doesn’t mean she must agree with why I felt that way.

Now we were getting somewhere – moving past the icy withdrawal our daughters unfortunately noticed.

If I led with my anger, she wouldn’t be responding to my content but reacting to my energy.

We react to anger with defensiveness, more anger, or with withdrawal. It wouldn’t bode well for me or our relationship if she did that.

I can’t control how she responds. However, I can increase the likelihood of a productive repair conversation by being vulnerable.

4. Give understanding to receive understanding.

Since my wife gave me understanding, I was now open to hearing her perspective regarding our conflict.

The best way to give understanding is to really listen and then paraphrase the essence of what your partner said.

I need to do this even if I disagree with her perspective or why she reacted the way she did.

What could derail this is if I dismissed her by saying something like, “That’s not true!”

Or, more subtly, if I led with my intention first. This sounds like, “I didn’t mean to upset you like that…”

Sharing my intention is fine eventually, but I not giving her understanding by doing so. I’m shifting the focus to me and away from her upset and pain.

Nevertheless, because I put my ego aside, initiated a repair talk, shared my vulnerability, and gave understanding, we could move past the pain of icy withdrawal.

Then we started to heal. We started to be collaborative.

We came to the groundbreaking conclusion that instead of assuming the worst, reaching out to each other is best when we don’t know or need more information.

Re-read this next time you feel your relationship is falling apart.

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