We can have several reactions to conflict, depending on what past experiences have taught us:
- Fight fire with fire and answer with more defensiveness, including verbal and physical violence.
- Deny the conflict, hide inside and avoid future conversations on problematic issues.
- Give up and go along with others, forgetting our own interests and finally compromising our souls.
- Decide to get our own way no matter what, and do "passive aggressive resistance" without ever getting to discuss our behavior and its deep motivations and its impact on the other.
- Go the way of skilful negotiations, and learn how to talk about difficult issues with the people we love, and explore different sides of a dispute and get an agreement.
If you have experienced your share of conflict in your life—and who hasn’t? — You may even be afraid of conflict. Perhaps you lost big time when you tried to impose your views on your spouse; or your best friendship ended in sour recriminations that nobody wanted, but nobody could stop.
What is the lesson here?
What did you learn?
Is there another way?
In the future, you may decide to escape; to do anything to avoid another conflict situation: giving in to other’s demands without being satisfied yourself, only to keep the peace; settling for second-best without getting your needs met, and in general taking refuge in a place where you don’t ever have to be bothered with anything related to confrontation, challenge, or friction.
If you adopt this response while in a relationship, the demands of the other person will be seen as intrusive and could lead, on your part, to all kinds of passive aggressive behaviors - sabotage, and self-isolation, to name a few - which will escalate the conflict. You may go deep inside yourself, in fear and mistrust, and refuse to get near other people again, preferring loneliness to anger and mistrust.
Sometimes, people never have learned the necessary skills to assert themselves with respect, to challenge toxic situations or to negotiate their own needs’ satisfaction with others! People never obtained the skills to negotiate with loved ones with little risk to the relationship, and this is the problem here, because now, they don't know what to do. You can see clearly how this terrible lack of skills compounded their loneliness and frustration.
Rremember that all avoidance ways of dealing with conflict will help you stay away from confrontation but will never provide you with the warmth, intimacy and confirmation you are always craving for! Besides, there is no learning of more productive strategies, if you keep avoiding. So, face on and do some positiveconflicting, right?
What is the lesson here?
What did you learn?
Is there another way?
In the future, you may decide to escape; to do anything to avoid another conflict situation: giving in to other’s demands without being satisfied yourself, only to keep the peace; settling for second-best without getting your needs met, and in general taking refuge in a place where you don’t ever have to be bothered with anything related to confrontation, challenge, or friction.
If you adopt this response while in a relationship, the demands of the other person will be seen as intrusive and could lead, on your part, to all kinds of passive aggressive behaviors - sabotage, and self-isolation, to name a few - which will escalate the conflict. You may go deep inside yourself, in fear and mistrust, and refuse to get near other people again, preferring loneliness to anger and mistrust.
Sometimes, people never have learned the necessary skills to assert themselves with respect, to challenge toxic situations or to negotiate their own needs’ satisfaction with others! People never obtained the skills to negotiate with loved ones with little risk to the relationship, and this is the problem here, because now, they don't know what to do. You can see clearly how this terrible lack of skills compounded their loneliness and frustration.
Rremember that all avoidance ways of dealing with conflict will help you stay away from confrontation but will never provide you with the warmth, intimacy and confirmation you are always craving for! Besides, there is no learning of more productive strategies, if you keep avoiding. So, face on and do some positiveconflicting, right?
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