The Art of Relational Repair: Insights from the RLT Conference

I spent an incredible weekend at the first-ever Relational Life Therapy conference in Orlando, immersed in transformative teachings from world-renowned relationship experts. RLT offers powerful tools for building radically honest, fiercely loving relationships where both partners thrive in equality, focusing on intimacy, connection, and practical relational skills.

• RLT focuses on telling the truth in relationships and why honesty creates deeper connection
• Diversity and inclusion play crucial roles in understanding how upbringing affects relationship dynamics
• Learning practical techniques for vulnerability, speaking truth to power, and working through difficult moments together
• Multi-generational trauma can be healed when one person "faces the flame" and changes family patterns
• Happy couples aren't conflict-free but excel at repair after disconnection
• Small repair attempts like reaching for your partner's hand or saying "we're on the same team" can transform relationships
• Relationships aren't meant to be perfect but real—the growth happens in the repair

Share this episode with a friend and DM me on Instagram @monitanner1 to let me know one thing you're going to do this week to make your relationship stronger.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever
After podcast.
I'm your host, monica Tanner,and I have a special episode for
you today.
As some of you know, I spentthis past weekend in Orlando at
the first ever RLT conferenceand, oh my goodness, I have come
home with a mind and a heartthat is so full of goodness.

(00:25):
If you've ever wished you couldbe a fly on the wall at a major
event where the brightest mindsin relationship therapy gather,
well, today is your day.
I am going to tell you aboutsome of the major takeaways I
had at this conference with someof the most world-renowned

(00:46):
family and relationshiptherapists in the world, and at
the end I'm going to give you asimple and powerful tool you can
start using right now to levelup your relationship.
So this is a shorty episode, sostick with me till the end.
Now if you're thinking, wait,what was that RLT?
Again, rlt stands forrelational life therapy, founded

(01:10):
by the legendary Terry real.
It's about building radicallyhonest, fiercely loving
relationships where bothpartners thrive in environment
of equality.
Relational life therapy isabout rolling up your sleeves
and growing together through thechallenges.
It's about intimacy andconnection and about honesty.

(01:33):
It's about learning relationalskills that will help you not
only in your marriage, but alsowith your children and with your
community.
As I always say, happily everafter doesn't happen by accident
.
It's something that you buildmoment by moment, action by

(01:54):
action, intentional skill byintentional skill.
Relational life therapypromises not only to heal homes
and legacies, but our world as awhole.
So some of my highlights fromthe conference were learning
about the history of RLT and whytelling the truth is so sexy.

(02:17):
We talked about how RLT started, the foundation and influences
that Terry used to bring aboutthis powerful relationship
modality.
One of the things I love aboutTerry Real is that he is
constantly talking about thosewho have influenced RLT from the

(02:38):
very beginning, as well asthose who are influencing its
growth into the future.
One of the things we talkedabout a ton this weekend was
diversity and inclusion and howour relationships are influenced
by our upbringing where in theworld we grew up, the color of

(02:59):
our skin, the things that webelieve and the trauma we
experienced.
All of these things go hand inhand and as an RLT practitioner,
it is our responsibility tolearn about different cultures
and different experiences andespecially how these things
affect the relationships of thecouples we're working with,

(03:23):
because every relationship isunique.
There are no two that are thesame.
All want intimacy andconnection.
In fact, it is our birthright.
We also learned some superpractical techniques about
opening up vulnerability andhonesty, speaking the truth to

(03:44):
power, the power of the pause,how to join through the truth,
how to let the bad thing happenand work through it together
relationally.
We learned about sex and RLT.
We learned about relationalrecovery and relational
reckoning.
I really appreciate the powerand you could feel it of over

(04:05):
200 marriage counselors,therapists, practitioners,
coaches all together in one room, learning how to support and
sustain our clients with moreskill, more compassion, more
understanding, more love andmore relationality.

(04:26):
Forgive me as I look at mynotes, because I don't want to
miss anything really important.
We talked aboutmulti-generational trauma and we
can, by changing ourselves,change our generational legacy.
My very favorite quote fromTerry Real is that family

(04:46):
pathology rolls from generationto generation like a fire in the
woods until one person in onegeneration turns and faces the
flame.
That person brings peace totheir ancestors and a better
world for their children.
Changing ourselves changes theworld, and here is the beautiful

(05:08):
thing about relationships isthey are skills that can be
learned and practiced and we'renot going to get them right
every single time.
But in that challenge, in thatgrowth is the magic.
One of the speakers, duran Young, talked about shame and how,
when we go into shame, it's fromthe mindset of using shame as

(05:31):
an acronym should have alreadymastered everything.
Of course we're human and we'regoing to make mistakes.
As humans, we're all mistakemakers.
It's part of our humanity.
We are perfectly imperfect andwalking through the world.
We need others to help us walkback to ourselves.

(05:52):
That the reality is.
No matter how wonderful ourparents were, of course they
made mistakes.
So many of us are the productof trauma.
But in these relationships wecan heal the trauma.
We don't have to hand it downto our children.
Terry Real called up his wife,belinda Berman Real, for an

(06:16):
incredible presentation onmulti-generational trauma and
how we carry energy or feelingthat brings with it a legacy
burden.
They pointed out that there'sno such thing as overreacting.
It's just that what you werereacting to may not be what's
right in front of you.
When major caregivers aremishandling an emotion, no

(06:40):
matter what that looks like,whether it's stuffing it down or
acting out, they radiate thatemotion and hand it down to
their children, and what we, aspartners in recovery, are doing
by learning these skills ismoving beyond the legacy of what
was handed to us and learninghow to do it better.

(07:03):
Terry talks about being raisedby an abusive, alcoholic father
and how his biggestaccomplishment is that his sons
will never describe him that way, because he's done the work to
change that legacy ofgenerational trauma.
This is so powerful as we thinkabout the legacy burdens that

(07:25):
have been handed down to us andhow we can change that for our
children and for their childrenand for generations to come.
That's why this work is soworth it.
I'm so grateful for thepresenters at the conference,
for the friends that I madethere, for the resources that I
have with all of these differentpractitioners who were all so

(07:49):
invested in changing the world,one couple at a time, and
there's certainly not enoughtime to talk about all the
incredible things that I learned, but obviously they are woven
into the tapestry of everythingthat I teach and how I work with
my clients, and I promise thatif you would stick with me
through this episode, that Iwould give you a golden nugget

(08:12):
and what I find so importantthat you can do right now in
your relationship that, nomatter where you're at, will
improve things, and that is theability to repair instead of
just holding on to resentment,instead of not talking about the
impact that your partner has onyou.

(08:33):
Research shows that whatseparates happy couples from the
ones who struggle is not theabsence of conflict.
There will always be conflict,and here's why Because you
married somebody different thanyourself, because as humans,
we're all different from eachother, so conflict will arise.
But the happy couples learn howto quickly repair after the

(08:58):
disconnection.
So repair attempts can be assimple as reaching for your
partner's hand, saying can wetake a breath and start over?
Making a silly face to releasethe tension?
Or just whispering hey, we'reon the same team or I'm not
going anywhere, we're going tofigure this out.
Those are all very smallattempts at repair.

(09:21):
So if I can give you a singletakeaway from this episode, it's
that you're going to mess up,you're going to disagree,
there's going to be conflict.
You're not going to handle itright every single time, but
there's no such thing asobjective reality.
There's how you experienced itand how I experienced it, and it

(09:43):
doesn't matter who's right andwho's wrong.
What matters is that we keepcoming back to each other again
and again.
So the next time you have adisagreement with your partner,
I want you to challenge yourselfto make an attempt at repair.
The more that you practice thisincredible skill, the better
you're going to get at it.

(10:05):
Coming home after this powerfuland incredible weekend, I'm more
convinced than ever thatrelationships are not meant to
be perfect.
They're meant to be real.
You are two perfectly imperfecthumans going about making lots
of mistakes.
The growth is in the repair.

(10:26):
So if you're interested in RLT,if you're interested in
learning relational skills, dome a favor.
Share this episode with afriend, or any episode for that
matter.
Dm me on Instagram atmontytanner1 and let me know one
thing you're going to do thisweek to make your relationship

(10:47):
stronger.
I can't wait to hear from you,and I'm so excited because next
week at this time, I will bereporting on my son's wedding.
That's happening on my 23rdwedding anniversary.
I'm so grateful for thismomentous occasion in my family.
I can't wait to tell you allabout it, and I'm grateful that

(11:12):
I haven't passed on thegenerational trauma that was
passed on to me onto my son,that I've given him a better
blueprint for what relationshipsshould look like.
And until next week, rememberlove and we'll see you right
here, same time, same place.
Bye for now.