Literature/learning is the treasure of the body
Psychologist Wenger Jolly once said in The Law of Happy Marriage: "In this world, even the happiest marriage will have 200 thoughts of divorce and 50 times of strangling each other in a lifetime." ”
Although the numbers 200 and 50 are not a real specific number, this sentence tells us that it is normal for two people in an intimate relationship to have a conflict, conflict or quarrel.
It's just that some partners don't dare or won't deal with conflict, choosing to avoid conflict, which in turn leads to the escalation of each other's contradictions, because conflict is not terrible, avoidance conflict is terrible.
As the well-known psychological counselor Chen Haixian said: "Conflict, in intimate relationships, it is a problem, but the more terrible problem than conflict is that we have widened the distance between us in order to avoid conflict, and none of those conflicts have a chance to be handled and seen." ”
In today's article, we will talk specifically about how to deal with conflict in intimate relationships.
1. The idea of eliminating conflict is an illusion
Regarding love, many people think that as long as they find the "right person", all problems are solved, and they even think that with the "right person", there will be no conflict, so as to avoid the problem of not knowing how to deal with conflict.
But the reality is that such a dharma can only be a beautiful fantasy, because the conflict in intimate relationships cannot be eliminated.
In other words, those who hold the attitude of always being in harmony with their partners are deceiving themselves.
Because two independent individuals, with different experiences, different personalities, and different hobbies, cannot completely share the same frequency, and sometimes even hurt each other, as the intimacy expert Christopher Meng said in the book "Intimate Relationship": "The probability of being attacked by an intimate partner is greater than the probability of being attacked by strangers."
So, the real problem is not to find ways to eliminate conflicts, but to learn to deal with them.
Of course, this is not to deny the benefits of avoiding conflict, because sometimes avoidance of conflict can also alleviate the contradictions between each other, but to say that it is not advisable to always avoid as the only way to deal with conflict, because it will make the relationship more and more distant.
2. Conflict is not terrible, avoidance of conflict is terrible
As mentioned earlier, two people in an intimate relationship, don't always avoid conflict, because avoiding conflict will destroy the relationship.
In fact, regardless of whether the two sides continue to maintain the relationship after the conflict, at the moment of the conflict, the conflict is conveying an expectation - "I hope that our relationship should be like".
For example, the wife because the husband always comes home very late, the two people have a conflict, the husband feels that the wife manages too much, does not understand himself, does not want to ignore her, so he chooses to avoid the conflict, directly go back to the bedroom to rest, leave the angry wife in the living room, the next day, the wife did not make breakfast, the husband angrily accused the wife of laziness, it is conceivable that this way, the relationship between the two people will naturally get worse and worse.
But if the husband chooses to speak his mind rather than avoid it, their relationship is likely to improve; if the wife makes breakfast the next day instead of not cooking (because that's passive-aggressive) and then talks to the husband about her feelings, the relationship between the two may also improve.
So, when both people avoid conflict, or one of them is unwilling to face the conflict, it is to ignore the expectation signal sent by the conflict, and then miss the opportunity to further develop the relationship, but the "expectation" is always there, so the two people through other ways to let each other see that expectation.
For example, the wife uses passive aggression (passive attack, also known as stealth attack, which refers to a person who uses a negative, bad, covert method to vent his anger in order to attack people and things that he is not satisfied with. This form of attack is not as direct as blaming, complaining, and physical attacks, but more of a covert behavior, including cold war, inaction, non-cooperation, perfunctory, and even irresponsible, etc.), by not cooking, so that the husband can see his efforts in the expectation of being understood and understood; the husband uses blame, through anger so that the wife can also understand herself and care about herself.
The result is counterproductive, but it hurts the connection with the other party.
It can be seen that avoiding conflict hurts feelings even more.
Some people may say, what if the above couple quarreled that night?
In fact, even if two people quarrel, it is better than such a avoidance conflict, because quarrels represent "willingness to communicate".
3. Only by facing the conflict head-on can it be resolved
As mentioned earlier, conflict gives both parties to a relationship an opportunity to sincerely express their differences and further enhance their understanding, and if two people can withstand conflict and collision, the relationship will become stronger.
Therefore, two people in an intimate relationship must learn to deal with conflict.
First, figure out what your needs are.
When we have a conflict with our partner, first stop and ask ourselves "what do I want", this kind of reflection is the beginning of conflict resolution, because when we know when we know what our needs are, we have a new interpretation of the conflict.
Just like the couple who quarreled earlier, the husband used to avoid conflict, and may think that conflict is equivalent to tearing his face, but now he has a new interpretation - I thought my wife understood himself, but it turned out that this was not the case, he knew that he longed to be understood by his wife, so he was likely to take the initiative to change the way he looked at conflict.
Second, sincerely express your needs.
When we know what our needs are, we have to talk to our partners, so how to express them better in the moment of conflict?
There may be a problem here that many people are afraid to say what they need.
Because they fear that their needs will be rejected and rejected after they have spoken out, they are difficult to bear (this experience may be related to their past experiences, such as being rarely met as a child, often ignored); they may also think that saying their needs is equivalent to showing weakness, and showing weakness will make them feel inferior.
So, to express your needs sincerely, you must first trust the relationship enough.
The next question is, how to express it better?
The answer is sincerity. The way to be sincere is to "tell the truth".
Just like the husband mentioned earlier, in the face of his wife's anger, he directly said, "I came home late, which makes you unhappy, but I hope you can understand me, I am very tired from work every day."
I believe that if the husband can say what is in his heart in this way, his wife is very likely to lose his temper and may also tell her what he really thinks, so that the relationship between their husband and wife will become more intimate because of mutual knowledge and understanding of each other.
In fact, the more advanced expression of "telling the truth" is the nonviolent communication proposed by Dr. Marshall Luxemburg: careful observation, reduced comments, recognizing the feelings and needs of yourself and others, and clearly stating your own requests, such communication can lead to love.
Write at the end:
As mentioned earlier, two people in an intimate relationship can only resolve the conflict by facing the conflict directly, and some people may say, what if the partner is not willing to face the conflict together?
The answer is to change first, because the other party is not necessarily unwilling, or may not have the ability to deal with the conflict.
When we try nonviolent communication by changing our perception of conflict, the other person is very likely to change because there has always been a subtle interaction between partners.
In fact, we need to be careful not to deal with relationships that will conflict, but those that cannot withstand conflict.
Hopefully, we can all have the courage to face up to the true face of the relationship.
End of this article
Thank you for reading