One More Perspective

My office chair at work is the RESPAWN brand.  I thought it was an odd name, until I learned it was a video-gaming chair, actually.  Then I had to look up if the word meant what I think it meant, because I have not played video games, even when I could have.  So it turns out, according to dictionary.com, respawn means “to reenter an existing game environment at a fixed point after having been defeated or otherwise removed from play.”  Fascinating.  Since I feel like I have an advanced degree in Imago Relationship Therapy, to respawn, immediately reminds me of the emotional mechanisms by which some people attempt to recover from conflict.  Not by seeking to understand it and bridging the gaps, but by allowing a length of time to go by following the conflict, then reappearing and behaving as if nothing happened.  This is much like a respawn or a reset.  A reset does not work for those who must have repair of the connection before proceeding. 

Let’s come at this in other terms.  The difference between a repair and a reset is the difference between fixing a leak and mopping up the floor.  Both get the water off the tile for now, but only one prevents the house from rotting.

The Reset:  Hitting the Refresh Button
A reset in a relationship is what happens when a couple experiences conflict, and then one of them says, “Look, let’s just stop fighting and have a good weekend,” or they both just start acting normal again the next morning without talking about what happened.  This can feel like a huge relief; the tension breaks, and both can finally breathe.  They prioritize getting back to peace, therefore ignoring the issue is seen as more rewarding.  Resetting is so seductive; it offers that immediate hit of dopamine that feels like healing, but it’s actually just debt being kicked down the road.

The problem is that nothing actually changed.  The conflict root cause that led to the situation in the first place is still there.  The couple may have decided not to glance toward their kitchen sink, but they also haven’t washed the dirty dishes.  The hurt of their conflicts stays in their mental bank.  Over years, resets lead to the pile.  The couple start to feel like they are walking on eggshells because there are so many off-limits topics that never got resolved.  In relationships then, respawning is actually worse than in a game, because while the game resets to a fixed point, the relationship carries the weight of the previous defeat into the new round.  Eventually, the couple stop feeling like a team and start feeling like roommates who are just trying not to annoy each other.

The Repair:  Doing the Structural Work
A repair is when the couple sits down (timely following the heat of the conflict), and actually look at the damage, together.  They talk about what happened, why it hurt, and what they both can do differently next time.  It’s uncomfortable and takes consistent effort.  It feels heavy and requires vulnerability.  It requires both to be honest about their own shit instead of just blaming the other person.  …but this is the investment.  This is actually where they have the opportunity to learn something.  They find out that when one said X, the other heard Y because of a past experience they had.  The hurt is processed together and thereby let go.  This ultimately patches the hole or the root cause of the conflict, or as I like to say:  the couple washes their dirty dishes together.  Over time, this builds deep trust.  They aren’t afraid of conflict anymore because they know they have the tools to fix it.  Eventually, they actually fight less because they have resolved the root causes of the old arguments.

The Sludge Factor
Think of any relationship, friendships included, like a clear lake.  Every time two people have a conflict and just reset, they are throwing a bucket of mud into the water.  For a while, the lake looks fine on the surface, but the bottom is getting murky.  The act of repair is the filtration system.  It keeps the water clear so that even when a storm hits, the bottom is still visible.

Reset and Repair as a Couple

Now for the combination couple or friend who employ opposing instincts around conflict.  One defaults to the reset and the other values repair.  For the person who resets, the repair feels like a dangerous reopening of a wound, while for the person seeking repair, the reset feels like being abandoned in the dark.  This difference will ultimately add significant stress to their relationship as they each push their own brand of conclusion to the conflict, most frequently without perspective and terminology around their dynamic. 

They create a cycle where one partner feels ignored and the other feels chased.  A reset can feel like being gaslit or abandoned; the one who seeks repair is standing there with the dirty dishes, and the reset person is acting like the kitchen is spotless.  On the flip side, for the reset person, a repair can feel like an interrogation or an onslaught.  To them, the reset isn’t an act of avoidance; it’s an act of mercy.  They think, “If we just stop talking about this, the fire will go out and we’ll be safe again.”
The real magic happens when the couple realizes they are both trying to save the relationship, just using opposite maps.  …but without a shared language, like understanding the difference between a reset and a repair, they aren’t just fighting about the dishes; they are fighting about how to fight.  One is trying to save the relationship by seeking peace; the other is trying to save it by seeking truth.  Both are right, but only one is sustainable.

Choose your hard:  Washing the dishes together, or living in a house that’s slowly rotting.