Managing Your Relationship Through Conflict

It’s important to understand that conflict and otten the anger that goes with it is going to happen if you’re in any meaningful intimate relationship over the long term. But before we talk about managing through conflict and anger, let’s distinguish between the two.

• According Dictionary.com conflict means to come into collision or disagreement; be contradictory, at variance, or in opposition; clash: e.g. The account of one eyewitness conflicted with that of the other. My class conflicts with my going to the concert.

• Anger on the other hand, is a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.

So while conflict and anger often coexist, they are not the same. Conflict often exists first and anger develops during conflict resolution. When it comes to conflict resolution, anger is like an accelerant. The angrier you become, the more likely as a man you will say something that further ignites the conflict, thereby extinguishing any spark of hope of resolution.

In her book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First): A Step-By-Step Guide for Resolving Relationship Conflict and in her latest book, Make Up Don't Break Up, Dr. Jamie Turndorf outlined the various dysfunctional ways that people act out their anger using what she calls Fight Traps. She classified them into two categories:

1.    Open Warfare – consists of those outright slaps in the face. These tactics are designed to hurt or pay back the person you are angry with. Open Warfare Fight Traps include: name-calling, verbal insults, character assassinations, I told you so, bringing up ancient history, and many more. 

2.    Secret Warfare – is subtler but just as dangerous. Secret Warfare tactics include: silent treatment, passive aggression (coming late, forgetting, withholding, etc.), indirect digs, paybacks, and so on.

As mature adults, we generally tend to shy away from open warfare since it diminishes the strength of our character as well as our argument. Some people snub name calling or insults – viewing that as a sign of inarticulateness. More people chose to exercise secret warfare, as it defers direct confrontation and is seen as a more civil form of fighting.

Fight Traps can be the kiss of death to your relationship, if you wish to resolve conflicts and experience harmonious loving relationships with friends and loved ones, you need to identify each and every Fight Trap that you use and permanently ditch them. If you do fall into a fight trap apologize for your hurtful actions see How to Apologize Effectively as quickly as possible to begin the healing process.

As men, we fight differently from women and our raw emotions tend to be right on the surface. Before we say anything, it’s best to “go to the balcony,” filter our emotions through the sieve of our intellect and say things that are authentic to your feelings but are helpful, beneficial and constructive to your relationship. This is an exercise in self-discipline, but with practice you will have mastered a skill incredibly beneficial to improving your relationships.