Conflict Avoidance and Other Lighthearted Blog Openers

When I was a kid, I struggled to make and keep friends.

Despite what the melancholic lead-in may have suggested, I swear this post isn’t going to be a downer.

It wasn’t that I was a mean-spirited little punk – at least, no one has ever told me that I was – but when it came to forming those deep childhood friendships people always talk about, I never really seemed to be able to do that. I can remember sitting with my teachers at recess, chatting their ears off about the latest book I’d read or something I'd seen on National Geographic. It was always my teachers whom I felt understood me best, not my peers.

Writing this now, there’s as good a chance as not that I was just a weird kid who grew into a weird adult, so it may be in your best interest to take the rest of this with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, I might be onto something. I'll leave that to you to decide.

When I reflect on my experience of childhood friendships, a recurring theme is how difficult it was to deal with conflict, which, as it turns out, is a pretty important piece of maintaining relationships with just about anyone. In my family and in a lot of other families, too, conflict was nearly always a thing to be avoided. In these sorts of families, when you have a problem with someone you’re close with, you put that problem in a box, take that box to the backyard, dig a large hole, put the box in the hole, pour a bag of concrete on top of the box, and you might even add a fresh layer of dirt and a couple of flowers to make the hole look pretty.

You certainly don’t talk about the problem, and if you do, it’s because there isn’t any space in your yard to dig another hole.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and I’m a therapist with a private practice. On any given day, I work with clients in the midst of some pretty intense conflict – some are in the middle of a separation or divorce, others are working through issues with their families of origin, and still others are struggling to communicate and maintain healthy boundaries with friends or coworkers.

For some of these clients, the problem centers around – or, at the very least, is reinforced by – their tendency to approach conflict too readily. These are the people others might describe as “hotheaded.” They perceive some injustice committed against themselves or another and react quickly and intensely. For the time being, let’s set aside this group – if this describes you, don’t worry, we’ll talk about this approach to conflict more in another post.

Today, we’ll focus on another group I work with a lot – that is, the conflict avoiders. On the surface, conflict avoiders can look like the “good guy” in a given relationship. They’re the ones people call “easygoing.” They’re the peacemakers, and, taken to the extreme, they’re the doormats. The prospect of confronting conflict head-on to this group seems daunting or unnecessary. They’re quick to make excuses for others’ behavior, rationalizing that the person’s behavior is due entirely to some matter of circumstance, or assume that they themselves must in some way be at fault for what’s happening. They don’t want to hurt feelings or step on toes. This mindset might temporarily keep the peace, but it’s also painful and paralyzing.

The surprising part is, conflict avoiders lose relationships just as often as their hotheaded counterparts.

Why? Because they never actually confront what’s happening, but they also don’t let it go. You see, conflict avoiders aren’t actually avoiding conflict – they’re avoiding dealing with the conflict that’s already bubbling under the surface. To use the metaphor from earlier, the problem still exists whether or not you put it in a box and bury it. Eventually, and usually following a series of unaddressed relational issues, conflict avoiders tend to avoid their way right out of a relationship that might otherwise have been fixed.

If you’re a conflict avoider, it’s easy to let things blow over. It’s easy to default to what I like to call “not rewarding” the behavior you don’t want to reinforce. If it’s not the most common way of avoiding conflict, it’s certainly up there.

Take this example:

If I’m really bothered by others complaining and my roommate likes to rant without ceasing about her boss, her mother, or her turbulent love life, I might choose to “not reward” the behavior by responding with one- or two-word answers or by making some excuse to exit the situation – I’m not picking a fight, but I’m also not confronting the problem, nor I am letting it go.

So maybe I don’t engage with my roommate, and maybe I don’t feed into the negativity, and in those ways, I’m not “rewarding” the behavior that’s bugging me (the complaining). But I’m also not taking any real steps to solve the problem, and perhaps even more important here is that I’m allowing my resentment to build, making it less likely that a calm, kind conversation around the problem will happen. I’m giving my mind a chance to run scripts about this person (“She’s so negative,” “She drains my energy,” “She’s the worst”), and I’m cementing myself in a powerless, victim role. In simply “not rewarding” the behavior, I’m resting in inaction and robbing myself and my friend of an opportunity for growth.

Which brings me to the point of this post:

Sometimes not rewarding behavior isn’t enough to change it.

Sometimes, the hard conversations have to happen.

And sometimes, you’ve got to be the one to initiate them.

People aren’t always going to pick up on your subtle cues.

People who pick up on your cues aren’t always going to heed them.

If you want something to change, you’ve got to be willing to face the problem head-on.

What does that mean? Well, a lot of things, but first, it means taking a moment to cool off. Even conflict avoiders can come off as harsh if they don’t take time to get present. Get grounded, get away from the situation, and check your pulse. Normal? Good.

Once your mind has deescalated a bit, take a moment to define the problem clearly and concisely (i.e., “I sometimes feel overwhelmed when you share about...”).

​If the relationship matters to you, share the way you are feeling with the other person. You owe it to yourself not to martyr yourself, and you owe it to the other person not to resent them for not changing something they didn’t know bothered you.

Bottom line?

Be direct, and be kind.

You've got this.

<3 Morgan