The Secret to Having Healthy Interpersonal Relationships

4 min read

One of my guilty pleasures is watching The Real Housewives. This American reality television franchise delves into the personal and professional lives of a group of affluent women residing in a particular city. Viewers may not always relate to the realities of the cast, but if they peel back the layer of opulence, they might see some semblance to their own lives in the area of interpersonal relationships and gain insights into how to navigate sometimes complicated dynamics.  

I have especially appreciated watching the story unfold with Dr. Nicole Martin, an anesthesiologist, and her estranged father on the Real Housewives of Miami. On the show, Dr. Nicole opens up about her hardships with her father, whom she describes as an "old-school Cuban man who is used to living his best life with little regard for anyone else." Dr. Nicole's upbringing turned unfortunate when her father was sent to jail for money laundering, leaving her stay-at-home mother to search for a job to support two kids and a household for the first time in 20 years. She has had a hard time forgiving her father for the past, and his struggles with drinking did not make the situation easier. In the season finale, Dr. Nicole's father joins one of her therapy sessions. The following exchange was moving and poignant, inspiring me to write this piece.

During the session, the therapist asks Dr.Nicole's father, "What would it mean for you to look at her and just say I'm sorry?" 

The father replies, "I have written in many cards, I'm so proud of you; I'm so grateful you are in my life."

The therapist stops him, "That's not the same as saying I am sorry." She asks him if he would look at Nicole and say I'm sorry.

He refuses to apologize, saying, "Maybe she'll get it one moment."

The therapist nudges him, asking, "Because you're not ready to look and say, Nicole, I'm sorry?"

"I am, but I don't think I should apologize for who I've been," the father replies. He turns to Nicole and says, "I didn't think it was appropriate as you were growing up to be too close to me with my craziness. I felt you were better off."

The father proceeds to tell a story about when Nicole was a child, and he was neglectful to the point that she got hit by a car. For him, every time Nicole was with him, something unfortunate would happen, and given his lifestyle, he didn't know what else to do, so he stayed away. 

This was revelatory. The therapist points out, "For Nicole, all these years, it has lived as rejection and abandonment, and for her dad, it lives as I loved you so much, I stepped aside." 

Dr. Nicole had never considered that perspective. She tearfully confesses, "So can some of my anger, resentment, and grudge be let go knowing that it wasn't like an act of abandonment and rejection? Knowing that it was coming from a positive place. It's an interesting take on the way you've viewed your entire life. Knowing that in his mind it was different than what was in my mind is validation." 

I appreciated this scene's vulnerability and, more importantly, for highlighting the power of storytelling in conflict resolution. Storytelling allows us to share ourselves in all our shapes and colors; engage with and make meaning of our experiences. Storytelling is critical to building healthy interpersonal relationships. When Dr. Nicole and her father sat with the therapist, they were given the space to tell their respective stories and perspectives. For the first time, they were talking to each other instead of at each other, and by talking and listening, they began to understand each other’s different perspectives. Along the way, they uncovered the hidden assumptions that underlie their narratives and disagreements, and with it came an aha moment. This discovery allowed Nicole to finally remove "the foggy goggles" clouding her view of her father. 

This scene revealed how we are all operating under hidden assumptions and how those assumptions can lead to or perpetuate conflicts in our interpersonal relationships. It took courage on both sides to say truths they seemed to have never dared to say aloud and, ultimately, allow the healing to begin.  

This episode also resonated with me because it reminded me of my conversation with my baba on the S1E9 of the podcast, where we discussed significant turning points in our father-daughter relationship that allowed us to reconsider assumptions we had made about one another. We all have certain sets of assumptions, but by pausing to talk to one another instead of at one another, we can better understand where each of us is coming from, which helps us see things from the other's perspective. 

We must stay open to telling and receiving many stories to have healthy interpersonal relationships. I will leave you with this: 

There's a story. 

There's a making a story. 

There's an awareness that a story is being made and is happening. 

There's an awareness that one living the story can step back, observe one's own story and look at it from a different perspective, and even shift it and reframe it and adjust the story.

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