07/01/2024
[Why You Get Locked Into Conflict With Someone You Love]
Here are the top 3 reasons you get stuck in conflict and suffer with long-term pain, disconnection, loneliness, and uncertainty. (Hint: It’s not a lack of communication skills.)
#1. AVOIDANCE
“Love is letting go of fear.” And what is scarier than facing a conflict with an intimate partner?
What if my partner is disappointed in me and I’m not good enough to make them happy?
What if we face the problem and my worst fear comes true—we have to split up? (There are a lot of fears that come along with splitting up, too.)
The fears can be overwhelming and people respond to these fears in a variety of ways. It’s completely human to respond to overwhelm with paralysis, denial, or avoidance.
Or perhaps you procrastinate. “We don’t have time to address our conflict now. We’ve got to focus on [the kids, our careers, the home renovations, fill in the blank]. Hopefully, it will go away. If not, we can address it later.”
Conflict delayed is conflict multiplied. And conflict avoided is conflict made permanent.
But what if you and your partners both want a better relationship and are both willing to work on it? Why are you still stuck?
#2. LIMITED HUMAN PERSPECTIVE
As humans, our perspective is limited. We have immediate access to our experience—our thoughts, feelings, wants, worries, wishes, desires, intentions, and fears and how the conflict is affecting us.
And when we’re in pain, we feel threatened, or we’re afraid our perspective becomes even more focused on our limited perspective.
Unchecked, our brains automatically and effortlessly create victim vs. villain stories.
We think, “I’m in pain, which means my partner doesn’t care.” Or worse, “My partner caused me this pain. They must have intended it.”
It takes slowing down to reflect and get curious.
What is my partner going through? What is their experience? What are their thoughts, feelings, wants, worries, wishes, desires, intentions, and fears? And how is the conflict affecting them?
When we realize that the conflict is really two humans in pain, the victim vs. villain story dissolves and the resolution process starts.
Both people can start working together to find solutions.
But getting to that point is hard, which is what #3 is about.
#3. WHEN VULNERABILTY SEEMS LIKE IT DOESN'T WORK
When a couple is locked in conflict, they are often ruminating on their analysis of the situation. She believes her partner is being selfish and uncaring. He believes his partner is being difficult and unreasonable. It doesn’t matter what the story is, exactly. What matters it that both people are focused on their analysis of the situation, neither really understands what matters to the other, and they are stuck at an apparent impasse.
Usually, the disconnection becomes painful. Sometimes the couple acclimates to the disconnection and lives with it for years. Other times, the distress is palpable. One partner may be crying themselves to sleep at night while they are both at a loss regarding how to change.
The way out of the conundrum involves vulnerability. Someone has to go first. They reveal what’s going on underneath the analysis.
She says, “I’m feeling lonely and I’ve been feeling lonely for a long time, and I’m afraid about what it means for our marriage.”
Or he says, “I’ve been working really hard and I feel like all my work is unappreciated. When you criticize me, I don’t even want to come home. But I really miss the times we were close in the past.”
Here is critical point. One person has just been vulnerable. What will the other do?
Keep in mind that, by the time the couple has reached this point, the conflict and disconnection has been going on for a long time. Frustration, anger, and resentment has built up. That moment of vulnerability is often met with distrust, criticism, or disregard.
“You feel unappreciated?! You’ve been working hard?! I’ve been working hard. Besides going to your job, you don’t do anything for this family.”
What just happened? He was vulnerable and his vulnerability was met with invalidation and criticism. He’s just been injured again.
And it would be natural to conclude that vulnerability doesn’t work!
The challenge is to stick with it. He could start to argue and become defensive. But rather than becoming oppositional, he can respond: “I was just vulnerable with you and you met me with criticism. And, I realize that for you to respond to me that way must mean you’ve been living with a lot of hurt for a long time. Can you tell me more about that while I just listen?”
Usually it takes a professional to guide a couple through this process, especially if they’ve been locked in conflict for a long time.
Every authentic relationship has times of conflict. Successful ones move through cycles of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Conflict isn’t a problem. The key is to learn to repair.
Repair may be the most uncomfortable process for you. The reward for your courage to get uncomfortable is deeper intimacy than you’ve ever had. You decide if it’s worth it.
*****
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