The Heart Of Accountability

Another important Love Skill is accountability. Accountability simply means accepting responsibility for the impact your words and actions have on others. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done. Our willingness to take responsibility for the impact of our actions, eagerness to learn from our mistakes and determination to do better by our partner in the future is the mark of a healthy relationship.

The heart of accountability  

Accountability conversations start with empathy. Empathy is at the heart of accountability because it’s what connects us with our partner’s experience. Do you remember the last time you found out you hurt your partner’s feelings? It’s tough! Your mind probably flooded with thoughts like, “that not what I meant” or “you don’t understand” or “you are blowing this way out of proportion.” Before any of those reflexive responses slip out, try to focus on what your partner is saying so you can reflect their feelings back to them. Saying something like “I can see that you are upset and can understand why you are feeling sad and confused.” Occasionally, reflecting and empathizing is enough but, more often than not, you’ll need to have a conversation about what happened and work to repair the damage. 

Effective repair

Repair in this setting involves not only fixing any miscommunications but doing so while acknowledging the pain your partner is feeling. That second part is crucial, because it prevents your explanations from coming off as excuses. Fortunately, avoiding excuses is relatively easy: just wrap all your explanations in acknowledgement. It can be as simple as saying something like “I’m just sharing my perspective to try to clear things up, and I realize that, regardless of my intent, I hurt your feelings and for that I am very sorry.”

Once you’ve worked through the misunderstanding, you need to protect the great work you’ve done by making a plan for the future. How will you prevent a similar situation from happening again? The plan doesn’t need to be elaborate, just make sure there are actions that connect with the takeaways from your conversation. We’re always fine tuning our relationships and there are often several good answers to “what comes next”, so do your best to make it right and keep the lines of communication open!

Defensiveness

We can’t talk about accountability without talking about the most common reaction that stands in its way: defensiveness. 

Dr. John Gottman defines defensiveness as “any attempt to defend oneself from perceived attack” and his research found that defensiveness predicted lower marital satisfaction and increased risk of divorce. Defensiveness is a way of avoiding responsibility and defensive tactics can be broken down into two forms: shifting status and turning the tables.

Shifting Status:  Status brings with it unique assumptions and entitlements but, for our purposes, what matters is that status is relative. Using status as a lever for defensiveness, we can either raise ourself up or push our partner down. If we choose to raise our own status, we do so with the belief that elevated status entitles us to lesser scrutiny. This might sound like the statement “I made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, and you want to complain that I was short with you this evening?” If we choose the other direction and try to  lower the status of our partner, we do so with the thought that lowering their status reduces their credibility. In doing so, our goal is to reduce the validity or weight of their concern and reduces the amount of responsibility available to take. This might sound like statements such as “You didn’t make dinner or clean the kitchen tonight, and you want to complain that I was short with you this evening?”

Turning the Tables:  In healthy relationships, partners raise concerns with the intention to repair, not to be antagonistic. Yet, when we frame our partner’s legitimate concern as an unprovoked attack, we turn the tables—the topic of the conversation shifts from their hurt feelings to ours. Defending ourself by saying things like “everything is always my fault” or “nothing I do is ever good enough for you” casts us as the victim and sets in motion a reversal of accountability. Now our partner is in the position of responding to our pain. This type of defense mechanism can also take the form of counter-attacking, usually by blaming our partner using phrases like "I was short with you because you didn’t help me in the kitchen. You brought this on yourself.” This type of response is particularly insidious because it not only circumvents accountability while harming our partner in their moment of vulnerability but increases the threshold for introducing concerns like this in the future.

It makes sense that we try to relieve the discomfort of accountability by getting defensive but, in the end, it ends up being ineffective and actively harmful. So, what to do when we feel defensive? Slow down. Take a breath. Embrace the growing pain.

Growth is the goal

The ideal outcome of accountability is growth. We all have blind spots, and we all make mistakes. When your partner points out that you made a mistake, it does not mean they are attacking you, it means they are invested in improving your relationship through open communication. The fact that they are bringing it to your attention means they trust you’ll respect their concern and are hopeful that you’ll be able to grow from it together. It is in your relationship’s best interest to use this as an opportunity to build on that trust by being a good listener, accepting responsibility and making a plan to do better. 

It sounds simple enough, and of course it’s challenging in practice, but here’s the thing: accountability becomes easier the more we practice. Not easy, but easier. Instead of a thirty-minute fight that ends with a half-hearted apology, we have more connected conversations that start and end with empathy and responsibility. When we take responsibility for ourselves, we’re free to use our energy to solve the problem at hand rather than denying that there is one. 

Two types of apologies

There are two types of apologies. The first is a proactive apology. This is when you take the initiative to make amends with your partner after you realize that you’ve made a mistake. The second is a responsive apology. This is when your partner raises a concern and you respond with an apology. 

The first type of apology sounds like: “When you walked into the room earlier, I’d just gotten a frustrating work email and was feeling overwhelmed. Instead of letting you know what was going on, I was dismissive. I am sorry for that, and I’ll do a better job next time to keep my frustration with work out of our relationship.”

The second type of apology might begin with your partner expressing something like “I came over to connect with you after work and you totally brushed me off. It made me feel like I annoyed you just by walking in the room.” At this point, with the mistake brought to your attention, accountability might look like “Thank you for letting me know. That was probably especially uncomfortable because you were making the effort to do something nice for me. I’m sorry that my inattention made you feel like I didn’t value you. What can we do right now to help you feel better?”

Apology Don’ts

When your partner raises a concern, steer clear of the following:

Don’t roll your eyes— Dr. John Gottman found that eye-rolling correlates with a higher divorce rate, and no wonder! Rolling your eyes communicates contempt. It is a non-verbal cue that you are dismissing what your partner just said. 

Don’t go tit for tat—If your partner shares a concern with you, don’t use that as an opportunity to point the finger back at them. Slow down and look for your part in the concern they’ve raised. In many cases, both parties have been hurt and are in some way deserving of an apology. That said, an apology is a one-directional act. You need to convey to them that you understand how they feel and know how to prevent it from happening again.

“I’m sorry you feel that way” is not an apology and will likely lead to an escalation in the fight. It betrays that you believe your partner’s feelings are an overreaction and thus not something you need to take seriously.

The "but..." in "I'm sorry, but..." nullifies the apology. If you find yourself wanting to add context after the apology, use "I'm sorry, and..." instead. This allows you to introduce context while moving toward accountability.

Don’t ask for forgiveness immediately. The time between an apology and forgiveness is uncomfortable for both of you, but real forgiveness is more than the phrase "I forgive you". Let them get there in their own time.

Set your partner up for success

If you are the one asking for accountability from your partner, it is in your relationship’s best interest if you bring your concerns to your partner skillfully so they can respond skillfully. We know from the research that how a conversation begins is highly predictive of how it is going to end. If you raise a concern with a harsh tone or critical approach, it will be harder for your partner to respond well, and the conversation is likely to take a tumble. 

Setting your partner up for success means that when you bring your concerns to them, you do so gently. It’s helpful to skip phrases like “you always” and “you never” and share how you’re feeling about a particular situation. Finish with a positively stated need instead of saying what you don’t want. Finally, if upon reflection you see that you’ve contributed to the misunderstanding or poor outcome in some way, it is helpful to acknowledge your part. 

Forgiveness 

Researchers have found that forgiveness has many important relational benefits, notably, that couples who practice forgiveness are more likely to enjoy longer, more satisfying romantic relationships and even to live longer. Studies also show that forgiving yourself is as important as forgiving your partner, not only because it reduces the likelihood you will repeat your mistakes, but because it offers the possibility of restorative outcomes. One study found that “effort to work through one’s offense, responsibility taking, and self-acceptance while acknowledging failure, is associated with positive restorative outcomes for both parties.” Accountability and forgiveness go hand in hand to help us move forward together. 

Takeaways

The poet Alexander Pope wrote, “to err is human, to forgive is divine”. Both taking accountability and granting forgiveness in your relationship is a reliable way to grow with your partner. When we reframe our errors as opportunities, we turn mistakes into meaningful connection. We hope you’ll take these tools, make them your own, and work together to build a relationship that gets better every day. 

Kristin Thieme is a Gottman Method couples therapist practicing at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. Ms. Thieme earned a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Lewis & Clark College. After graduating with honors (summa cum laude), she pursued additional education and certification in the Gottman Method while training directly with John and Julie Gottman in Seattle. Ms. Thieme joined The Family Institute as a therapist in 2019.