In work with couples—and in relationships generally—the same vulnerability appears repeatedly. The core difficulty is not conflict itself but the absence of repair. Partners can argue, misattune, or injure each other; what matters is whether they can re-establish a shared understanding of what happened.

Repair depends on forming a shared narrative. Not one shaped by the louder partner, the more psychologically fluent partner, or the one who has spent more time in therapy. A genuinely co-authored account that both can recognise.

This requires ownership from both sides. Not blame, and not the automatic apology some partners have learned to perform. Ownership is the ability to see how one’s tone, timing, or state contributed to the escalation. Most couples get stuck here, turning the interaction into an argument about accuracy or moral position instead of seeing how both partners shaped the moment.

In reality, two nervous systems meet under stress in the context of environmental pressures and the legacy of relational injuries. Repair requires stepping out of the adversarial frame and recognising that the interaction—not the partner—is the problem.

This is the space Rumi described as the field beyond right-doing and wrong-doing: the relational position from which repair becomes possible. It demands listening to the other’s internal experience without trying to verify or refute it, and taking ownership for one’s part while bringing one’s own experience into the conversation.

When both partners can do this, repair becomes possible. Without it, couples remain locked in cycles of justification and blame instead of finding their way back to each other.