I caught myself in a double standard...and it sucked.

This week, someone close to me called me out for having a double standard. Without going into too much detail, about a year ago, I felt frustrated by an interaction with some friends and knew I had to let them know before my feelings festered and poisoned our otherwise awesome friendship. When it happened, I told them what I was feeling, why I was upset, and what I hoped they could do differently next time. It was immediately resolved, and I was able to move on with no hard feelings.

Fast forward a year—same group of people—and I did the exact same thing they had done, without a second thought. It wasn't until my friend called me out and said, "Remember how this hurt your feelings, and you said something about it? Well, I'm feeling the same way, and I think it's important to tell you."

In the grand scheme of things, the incident wasn’t a huge deal, but I still felt immediate shame when she called me out. That yucky, pit-in-your-stomach feeling where you wish you could just take it all back, crawl into a hole, and be perfect so no one would ever know. Instead of doing that, here’s how I handled it:

• I thanked them for being brave enough to tell me how they were feeling. It’s not easy to be honest when you're hurt, but I was so grateful they chose to save our relationship from festering resentment by speaking up, even if it was uncomfortable to hear.

• I validated that what they were saying made total sense. I verbally acknowledged that I could see their POV and why it would have caused some hurt feelings.

• I apologized for the hurt I caused. I said, "I'm sorry," and that I wished I could take it back. Verbally saying the words is an important part of rebuilding trust and taking accountability.

• I focused more on impact than intention. I did let them know my intent wasn’t to hurt them, but I spent more time acknowledging that I had hurt them—because in close relationships, impact > intent.

Here’s where I almost messed up again. I wanted to make sure things were good, so I was tempted to over-engage in the conversation to reassure myself that I was forgiven. But in reality, that would have been more for me than for them. Rather than being heard for their pain, they would have had to start comforting and reassuring me. It was difficult to stop myself from overcompensating in the friendship that day, but I made a conscious choice to leave it be for 24 hours and then resume things as normal.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because honestly, this stuff applies to any of our relationships. If you saw yourself in any part of this story, I hope you also saw an area to improve. We're all learning, trying, and growing in our relationships, and the key to feeling closer to someone is having a relationship where you can kindly, authentically call each other out—and then kindly, authentically take accountability.