Reading time: <1 minutes
The PDF EBook version of Marriage from Roots to Fruits is now available.
The print version will be ready sometime in April. I am giving way 8 copies of the print version on GoodReads.com.
Conflict Resolution
Why Two Identities Struggle to Resolve Conflict
Reading time: 4 minutes
In my previous post, How Two Identities Become One, I compared relationships to roads. Roads are helpful but they require significant effort to build and maintain. Potholes and dead ends threaten to prevent you from arriving at your destination: connection and closeness.
On the road, potholes represent the fear of intimacy. Destructive conflict is a result of the inability to tolerate intimacy. And what is intimacy, really? Intimacy is nothing else but reality: the way things really are — flaws and all.
How much do you want to know the way things really are? God knows you perfectly. Do you want to know others and yourself perfectly? Reality is scary sometimes. Being authentic requires dropping your guard. Are connection and closeness worth the risk?
If the risk is too great, you can opt for denial and attempt to maintain the status quo (avoid conflict). If you want true intimacy, you can accept the condition of the road and plan a road construction project (embrace conflict).
Denial Makes for a Long, Bumpy Ride
Denial is like driving without your lights on at night. You can’t see the road. But sometimes you don’t want to see.
If you came face-to-face with the brokenness of your fiance and you realized your mate-to-be can’t meet your deepest longings, would you still want to get married? What if I told you the purpose of marriage isn’t to meet your deepest longings? God is merciful here in that de-emphasizing some of your potential mate’s faults allows you to appreciate their positive qualities and pursue marriage.
However, a flat-out denial of your or your mate’s immaturity will weaken your marriage in the long run. You can use denial to obscure a painful reality. Denial helps you cope with the disappointment of discovering flaws only by keeping alive a false hope.
Conflict will come, however, when you realize your mate isn’t capable of what you hope for the most. If you feel entitled, as in your mate owes you, then you’ll probably pick a fight. Fighting allows you to keep the hope alive that your mate can meet your needs. Else, why bother to fight if the situation is hopeless?
When you can’t accept reality one option is to blame your partner for the condition of the road. Conflict becomes a perpetual attempt to avoid facing the death of hope. You reason:
If I try again a different way, even if I create bad conflict, I keep hope alive. They could meet my need if they wanted.
You remain in denial that the other person can’t or won’t fix their road.
Acceptance Allows Detours of Opportunity
In this context, a fear of intimacy is a fear of unfulfillment.
I’ve been hoping all my life to finally make a connection and experience that I’m loved, needed, and wanted. I can’t handle not experiencing this with my mate.
Sometimes there is no fix. Or, at least, no immediate fix. The best solution, healthy grief, allows for the acceptance of true intimacy.
What I want isn’t going to happen. That really sucks! But I’ll be okay.
Putting aside your denial and moving toward acceptance is a tough, but mature, move. It puts a roadblock in the path of your hopes.
Yet, the blocking of one path allows you to see other paths you couldn’t see until now. That “I’ll be okay” can transform future conflict from bad to good. You’re no longer an unreasonable negotiator. You’re emotionally able to consider alternative solutions.
Wait. You mean there’s more than one way for me to experience peace and fulfillment?
Now you’re ready to see your partner in a more realistic light. A mature person wants to see reality more than they want instant fulfillment. Ironically, once this happens, a deeper fulfillment is possible. You’re no longer held hostage because you’re believing there’s only one solution to your pain problem.
Intimacy which results in seeing the limits of the relationship doesn’t have to lead down a path to a dead end. You can see the potential and put up a road construction sign and begin work to fill the potholes and expand the road in the direction God provides:
- You can start pursuing self-intimacy (knowing yourself), instead of focusing so much on changing your partner.
- You can feel good about yourself, even if your relationship is limited.
- You can accept yourself and the needs you have, even if they aren’t currently being met how you want.
- You have more reason to negotiate because you have more acceptable outcomes.
- You move beyond destructive conflict because you accept true intimacy.
- Acceptance allows you to appreciate your mate for who they are, not who you want them to be.
After you’re able to manage your fear of intimacy, you’re ready to resolve conflict. Next week, I’ll discuss cleaving together by defining a set of team values and negotiating decisions.
Take Advantage Of Defensiveness
Reading time: 4 minutes
Imagine a conversation caught in an endless loop of defensiveness and blame-shifting.
Person A: Why are you yelling at me?
Person B: I’m not yelling. You’re just too sensitive.
Person A: I’m not too sensitive. You don’t realize how loud you’re being.
Person B: Well, I’m not raising my voice. You’re being unreasonable. I’m only trying to explain why your vacation ideas won’t work. Why can’t you admit when you’re wrong?
Person A: Vacations aren’t about right or wrong. They are something we should both enjoy. You obviously don’t care how I feel. Now I remember why I don’t like going on vacation with you.
Person B: Fine. You’re impossible to please. You take the vacation you want and I’ll go on mine. That’s the only way we’ll both be happy.
Who hasn’t responded with defensiveness? Being “defensive” is neither good nor bad. But adding the “ness” indicates a general pattern of over-protection that prevents people from feeling emotionally close. You can guard against negativity and lies, but you can also guard against I feel shame and I don’t want to be known right now.
A Healthy Defensive Protects You From Harmful Attacks
When you feel threatened, it’s okay to throw up your defenses. Usually, it happens automatically before you’re even fully aware of the danger.
Danger can be a genuine threat that will cause harm but it can also be a false perception. If you experience a situation that reminds you of a threat you’ve had to endure, you can perceive an innocent situation at the same threat level. It’s even possible to be so worn down by stressful experiences that a person can hold onto a generalized level of fear almost all the time. Another word for this is burned-out or it could even be Post Traumatic Stress.
If you take a piece of plastic and bend it, it will start to heat up and weaken. If you do it too much, it will snap. That same thing can happen with us when we experience too much stress in too short a time.
That’s why it is so important to be patient with others. You don’t know what threats they’ve faced. You probably don’t intend to harm anyone, but your behaviors could raise someone’s threat level.
An Unhealthy Defensive Prevents You From Receiving Love
Being defensive is such a natural response that it can be difficult to realize you’re doing anything wrong. Unless there is a real threat that you know you can’t handle, defensiveness blocks you from getting what you want. The good things you want from life will come to you as you learn the right time to be vulnerable.
It’s hard to ask for what you really want when you’re afraid that you’re not going to get it. Maybe you’ve had a string of times you’ve been forgotten. Maybe you’re convinced by now that your desires don’t matter. Whatever the reason, defensiveness might serve to protect you from further disappointment, but it will also protect you from that love you desire.
Now, what would a healthier version of that conversation look like?
Person A: Why are you yelling at me?
Person B: I’m don’t think I’m yelling. Am I being too loud for you?
Person A: When you speak like that I struggle to want to stay in the conversation with you. I can’t handle it. It’s too stressful for me. I don’t feel like you care how I’m feeling.
Person B: This seems like my normal voice. I’ll try to speak more calmly. I want to plan our vacation. I have to admit though, I can’t stand the idea of laying around all week at the beach. I’m concerned I’ll be miserable and I won’t have any fun. That isn’t going to help our relationship.
Person A: Vacations are something we should both enjoy. You don’t seem to realize how stressed I am. Camping out is always so much work. It’s certainly not relaxing.
Person B: Yeah, we’re both stressed. I suppose we could split up. You could go to the beach while I go camping. But that won’t work very well because the whole point is that we need to spend more time together. What if we found a place that has a beach and good hiking nearby?
Whenever you become aware of defensiveness, look for ways to turn it around using vulnerability.
Read more about how to Improve Your Communication.
Image by Bingo Naranjo from Pixabay
