> I'm genuinely curious if this is a good strategy, relationship-wise. Not in the naive "always apologize" sense. That has the risk of creating a dynamic where

> I'm genuinely curious if this is a good strategy, relationship-wise. Not in the naive "always apologize" sense. That has the risk of creating a dynamic where the apology can't be trusted to be sincere and problems don't actually get addressed. Sure, if you actually did something wrong, by all means apologize. But if it's somewhat of a gray matter, a healthier dynamic would be to establish a baseline, something that is only built over the long term, that whatever happened it wasn't either person's intention to create conflict or upset the other person. That might mean apologizing for triggering something. With a bit of space, ideally both people could talk about what they were thinking or perceiving, understand why the other person behaved the way they did, and come up with ideas for how to prevent the same problem from happening next time. Obviously that only works if both people are well-intended, able to deescalate conflicts, and willing to put in the work. No amount of this would fix fundamental differences or relationship red flags.