There are many steps to repairing a relationship. Trying to overcome a bad reputation, rebuilding trust, or restoring fairness to a relationship are much easier to talk about than to actually do. Roger Fisher and Dennis Ertel suggest the following diagnostic steps one can take when seeking to improve a relationship:

1. What might be causing any present misunderstanding, and what can I do to understand it better? If the relationship is in difficulty, what might have caused it, and how can I gather information or perspective to improve the situation?

2. What might be causing a lack of trust, and what can I do to begin to repair trust that might have been broken? Trust repair is a long and slow process. It requires adequate explanations for past behavior, apologies, and perhaps even reparations.

3. What might be causing one or both of us to feel coerced, and what can I do to put the focus on persuasion rather than coercion? How can we take the pressure off each other so that we can give each other the freedom of choice to talk about what has happened and what is necessary to fix it?

4. What might be causing one or both of us to feel disrespected, and what can I do to demonstrate acceptance and respect? How can we begin to appreciate each other’s contributions and the positive things that we have done together in the past? How can we restore that respect and value each other’s contributions?

5. What might be causing one or both of us to get upset, and what can I do to balance emotion and reason? How can we surface the deeply felt emotions that have produced anger, frustration, rejection and disappointment? How can we effectively vent these emotions, or understand their causes, so that we can move beyond them?