Relationships that Outlast Mistakes

A missed deadline. A difficult conversation. A mistake you wish hadn't happened.

Most of us spend our energy focused on the immediate problem. But what if the real question isn't how to solve the problem—it's how to protect the relationship while moving through it?

In this episode of The Remembrance Codes, I explore a recent experience that challenged me to look beyond the content of a situation and focus on the container holding it. We talk about emotional safety, accountability without shame, trust, parenting, marriage, leadership, and why the strongest relationships are often not the ones that avoid mistakes—but the ones that learn how to move through them together.

If you've ever struggled with conflict, disappointment, communication, or the desire to be understood, this conversation offers a different lens:

What if the relationship matters more than the moment?

Topics explored:
• Relationships that outlast mistakes
• Trust and emotional safety
• Accountability without shame
• Parenting and guidance
• Marriage and communication
• Leadership and psychological safety
• Building stronger connections through difficult moments

#Relationships #Parenting #Communication #Trust #EmotionalSafety #PersonalGrowth #Leadership #Marriage #TheRemembranceCodes

Transcript

Returning After An Unplanned Pause

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Hello, my friends. I'm back. I had a temporary break. I am about to have an extended summer break, but the past couple of weeks wasn't even a planned hiatus. But I want to share something about that because it ended up being very valuable for me. I experienced May in all of the ceremony and celebrations that graduation has to offer. And I allow myself to feel all of the feels. When people are like, Susan, just be excited. I am. Susan, you could just think of it this way. I do. But also I feel sadness. I feel nostalgia. I feel all of the feelings. I feel pride. And I allow myself to feel all of that. And in doing so, days could be exhausting. Like I went from happy to sad to happy to all of the things so many days in a row. And it was a lot. And I didn't feel like I could bring into this space the kind of energy I would like to offer you without not being fully present in what I was doing. So I actually felt like I was taking my own advice. And if I couldn't be there for something energetically in a way that I wanted to not do it, to choose space. And this is probably the first time that I have done something like that and also not felt guilty about it. And that felt like a level up that I gave myself grace and um and didn't have guilt around it. It felt like I was choosing me and that that was the right choice. So that feels big, y'all. So anyway, I did a little tease and told you we had a situation that I hope to be able to talk about with you. And I'm going to because my son graduated on May 22nd. He walks across that stage, which means we got through the situation. So let me tell you about it because what we're talking about today is how to hold relationships and the importance of focusing on the container and not the content.

The Email That Threatened Graduation

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On the day after the academic awards, in which my my daughter, I'm telling you the timing of this because if you're a parent or a person, you know that this is how life be life, that you have this expansive, positive, wow, we're crushing life over here moment. And then BAM! So the next day after those awards, I received an email from the college counselor. It was too Dashell and it copied me and it said, Dashell, you are still failing your Gaston College class. If you do not pass this class, you will not graduate. Now again, this is the day after the academic awards because that is how life lives. So I waited till he got home and I'm like, Dash Hill, what's going on? Because this year he has actually really focused. He has called me to tell me about his grades. Like, I got a 93 on my mouth test. He has been excited and engaged and following up and far more diligent than he has ever been. So how in the world are we in this position? And he told me what happened. When we went to Switzerland on spring break, he had to take his computer with him because while it was his high school spring break, it was not his Gaston College spring break. So he had to take his computer with him. And he logged in on March 18th to do his midterm. And when he logged in, and he knew the midterm date was March 18th, but it told him it's not due until the 19th. And so he did what a 17-year-old would do is he went back to vacation and was like, I'll deal with that nonsense tomorrow. And so the next day when he logged in, it was expired. The test was not there. Was only saying that because you're six hours ahead and you have six hours left to get it done before it is midnight at home and the test expires. So he got a zero on his midterm. Now, you guys, time zones will get you. I recall sitting in a restaurant in Salt Lake City and we were all packed up and out of our Airbnb, and we were having dinner before going to the airport for our red eye home. And Mark checks us in on his phone. He's messing with his phone to get our seats or whatever. And he gets up from the table and he walks outside. And while he's outside, our food is delivered. We're sitting there. We've finished our meal before he comes back inside. Because what he realized when he was sitting there was our flight was at 12.03, which meant it left the night before. And now five of us are in Salt Lake City and we have missed our flights and have no flight home. So he was outside getting that very expensive situation taken care of. So I get that time zones will get you that these dates, these mistakes happen. The problem is that was weeks beforehand. We are now in mid-April. And what hurt my heart is that he had carried this alone. He knew the mistake that he made. And he didn't feel comfortable coming to me to talk to me about it. And he had been stressed out for weeks about this, carrying it on his own, feeling like I wasn't a safe space to share this mistake. And I had the opportunity to sit and think about how I'm going to handle this. And what I knew was I don't care about that midterm. I don't care about the zero. I don't care about graduation. We will get through that if it requires summer school, whatever, whatever has to happen, we will deal with that. What I care about is creating the kind of relationship with my son that he knows if he messes up, I am the one to go to. I am the person that you call first. And I

Choosing Connection Over Consequences

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knew that was my priority in this moment in the situation is dealing with the container and not the content. And I told him, I was like, look, here's the deal. You have to be accountable. And he was like, I am accountable. I got a zero. I get it. No, no, no. I'm saying sometimes we acknowledge our accountability to others that are involved in the situation. You email your professor and you say, This is what happened. You accept accountability that way. You're not asking for her to change it. But then you could have let your professor know that you actually do give a damn. Whereas waiting a month and her just thinking she hasn't heard from you, you got a zero in a midterm, you do hold a student in a different light if they just don't care. So I was able to at least guide him. I don't fix things for my kids, I don't remove obstacles for my kids, but I certainly want to provide guidance that allows little mistakes not to end up as life-shaming crises. We don't have to make it bigger than it is. So we navigated that a little bit. And the the professor was essentially like, your final is a huge part of your great grade, focus on that, which meant he had weeks of graduation and senior preparation before graduation, in which he wasn't positive he was going to graduate. So it was a little bit stressful for him. I didn't hold a lot of stress for it because there was nothing I could do about it. All I could do is remind him, Are you studying for your class? She has said, This is all you can do is pass your final. I did decide to keep this little bit of pertinent information away from Mark until we had a passing grade because he had already mentioned that he was feeling a lot of stress, like pre-heart attack level stress. And this felt unnecessary to add to his plate because there was absolutely nothing he could do to contribute to the solution. There's nothing I could do either. So my focus was only on responding in a way that Dashi knows that the next time you mess up, you call mom. You call mom. You call mom, if nothing more than to not carry it alone. That is what this relationship in this container offers you. And I had the opportunity to live that with him, to show him that I'm not beating you up over this. In fact, I can give you a hundred examples of when we have screwed up, when we have made mistakes. Mark just booked our second flight for the trip we're about to take on the wrong date, had to call and correct it. $700 to get flights changed because he chose the wrong date, because mistakes happen. And what I wanted Dashell to understand is that we all make the mistakes. And I am not going to unload on you because you did. We have to be accountable, but also we have to be there for one another. So that was the past couple of weeks was walking through that situation with him over the course of this year as he has been, you know, bragging about his grades and I have been validating him. I also wondered if I created a fear of disappointment that there was there was so much excitement over what he was doing and pride that he cared, that I hope I wasn't fostering a fear of disappointment. But when you have a zero on a midterm, you have the opportunity to show up as wholly loving and supportive as if he got a hundred. I wanted this moment to teach him that he does not lose connection with me when he messes up. I do think that boys are socialized to hide mistakes until they become crisis, whether it is marital problems or financial problems. A lot of times owning up to mistakes is very, very difficult for boys and men. And I wanted to create a safe space that says mistakes happen. And that's okay. This opportunity, this situation, I call everything situations now, but this most certainly was a situation. This allowed me to really reflect on how we hold relationships because this wasn't just a parenting lesson. It is a relationship lesson that applies almost everywhere. When we are so focused on solving the immediate problem, we forget to ask what remains when the problem is gone. The content feels urgent, the container feels invisible. And the container is usually

Container Versus Content In Real Life

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what determines everything that follows. For example, in marriage, a disagreement about money is rarely about money. The content of the conflict is the budget, the spending decision, the forgotten purchase, the retirement account, whatever it is. But underneath is the container of trust and safety and partnership. And so a person can technically win an argument about money. They can come out on the right side of the content, but they can simultaneously damage the relationship. They can prove they are right while making the other person feel judged or dismissed or controlled. So years later, when you don't even remember what was purchased or the exorbitant restaurant bill, you remember whether or not you felt safe to tell the truth. And the same is true at work. A leader can be frustrated by an employee's mistake. The content is the missed deadline or the forgotten detail or the client complaint, but the container is psychological safety. If the employee learns that I can admit mistakes and we will solve them together, future problems get surfaced quickly. And the quicker problems surface, usually the easier and less costly the remedy is. We want people to feel safe admitting mistakes. When people, employees, partners feel like they will be judged or dismissed or ridiculed because they make a mistake, that's when they hide it. And a lot of times those hidden mistakes are the ones that they grow underneath the surface until they are ready to explode. Friendships are no different. Sometimes we are so determined to make our point that we lose sight of the relationship holding the conversation. We've all experienced moments when someone is technically correct, but relationally absent. You might be proving your point, but you are damaging the way in which we move forward. The issue can get resolved, but something is fractured. And I think this happens because our nervous systems are wired toward immediate threats. The grade, the argument, the mistakes, the missed deadlines, we zoom all the way into that content. That is where we are focused. Wisdom asks us to zoom back out and ask, what is the thing that I am actually trying to protect here? Because the goal is a healthy marriage, a trusting friendship, a connected relationship with a child, a thriving team. If those are the goals, then the answer is rarely about the media issue. The answer is usually the relationship itself. So I've started asking myself something different when something goes wrong. I don't ask, how do I solve this? But I ask, what do I want to exist after this moment is over? When we are engaged with a coworker and we are trying to prove ourselves right, when we are trying to have the last word or even feeling joyful when they stumble, we are forgetting our part in the container. That what we truly want to thrive is our relationship and seeing a relationship as the unit, not me, not you, but us. How do I want us to be? How do I want to nurture us? When we start holding things in that light, we address the content much differently. The grade will pass, even if he failed, the grade would pass, the disagreement will pass, the mistake will pass, the missed deadline will pass. But the relationship may remain for years or decades. So the real work is learning how to tend the container while we address the content. Y'all, the midterm mattered, of course. Accountability for his actions mattered. Yeah. Learning from the mistake mattered. But none of those things mattered more than preserving a relationship where my son knows that he can come to me when things go wrong. Because that grade belongs to one class. But this relationship belongs to a lifetime. So I hope you'll think about that as you move forward. Tending to these relationships, like they are the structure that can hold the rest. And the rest will change. The contents change. They come and go, they pass. It's fine. Focus on what holds them. Thank you for being part of this relationship, for being on the other side of this exchange. I feel your presence when I speak. I love you and I love I love what we have here. I'm going to take a break so that I can come back refreshed and rejuvenated and ready for the fall. I hope you are able to take some breaks this summer too. This will give you a time to listen back to episodes you've missed. And because it was my birthday, if you haven't left

Summer Break And A Simple Ask

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me a rating or review, please do. It takes just a couple of minutes, and it is how other listeners find this podcast. Hopefully, there has been something in the remembrance codes over the past year that has helped you in some way. Thank you for listening, and I'll be back soon. Have a good summer.