Tips for Positive Relationship Conflict

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll give my tips on engaging in healthy and positive conflict in your important relationships.

Okay -- in previous videos, I talked about maintaining boundaries to prevent relationships from blowing up and how to determine whether your relationship is even worth the energy that conflict requires.  In this one, let’s talk about how to ensure that you are engaging in conflict in the most positive, constructive way.  First of all, 

Check Your Motivations

Presumably the reason that you are engaging in conflict at all is because you care about the relationship and something happened that bothers you, offends you, or otherwise makes you uncomfortable.  It’s very possible that you are pretty angry over this incident.  Remember, the main reason you are doing this to help heal your relationship.  So, if, when you check in with yourself, you find that your primary motivation is to scold, reprimand, defend yourself, or otherwise rant — your motivations are all wrong and it’s too early to have this conversation. Keep checking in until you have gotten past a need to lecture your friend on their wrongdoing. This isn’t about fixing their general behavior, this is about addressing where they stepped over YOUR boundary.  After all, they may have other friends who are fine with this behavior, so they only thing that should concern you is how they behaved towards you and limiting that in your future interactions.  In order to get to a place where you are not lecturing them, you may need to

Take Some Time

Some people have the mistaken impression that if you don’t say something in the moment, then you’ve lost your opportunity.  I disagree.  In fact, many times I think that it is kinder to go away, process the event, and get into a better frame of mind before bringing it up.  Even if you have expressed your displeasure in the moment, you may need to circle back around and address it again to make sure your friend or family member understands the significance to you.  It might take you a good, long time to get to a point where you aren't super emotional. That is okay too.  There isn’t a statutory limit on addressing problem areas.  That said, here is what you should NOT do.  Don’t be angry, let it fester, and then at some point when you are having an argument about a totally different topic, bring it up to stick it to them.  That is cowardly and playing dirty.  It means that you hadn’t managed to muster up the courage to bring it up before, but you also weren’t willing to let go of it, so it became a booby trap for your unsuspecting friend.  It’s not fighting fair, so don’t do that. Take the time you need to calm down, be less angry, and

Be Empathetic

This can be so difficult in the moment when you feel wronged. After all — how dare they?  But in the end, you care about this person or you wouldn’t even bother to go through the trouble of healing the relationship.  Generally, people don’t mean to be cruel or neglectful or rude — they are just walking their own journey, which can also be complicated and messy.  Give them the benefit of the doubt.  If you find that they DID mean to be cruel or neglectful or rude — well, maybe you need to create some distance with this person.  You may find it helps to

Write It Out

I am a better external processor than internal.  That means that I work things out for myself by talking through them.  This is true of most people. However, also like most people, I don’t always have a willing or patient listener to get through all the processing that I need to do.  My husband is long suffering in this regard. So, to relieve him of this tedious duty, I find that writing helps.  I write one really messy, mean-spirited first draft that contains all of the vitriol that would totally poison the relationship if I actually said it out loud.  Then I start actually drafting what I might say.  If you have a conflict avoidant friend, you may want to pass this draft by them since they can immediately point out when you have been too harsh or need to tone it down.  Sometimes I can draft the final in one go.  Sometimes it takes 6 or 7 iterations before I get to a draft where I’m not lecturing or ranting, and I'm feeling empathy for them.  

Some people think it is cowardly not to have a face to face conversation when you bring up conflict. I actually think that face to face isn’t as good as written — as long as you have followed the process that I’ve outlined and systematically purged the anger from your missive.  I think your message can be clearer and more disciplined, you have less chance of going off script, and it is kinder for the other person to have a couple of beats to process before they have to respond. In my experience, people’s first reaction is almost always defensive. This allows them time to get beyond that before responding back to you.  

What to Say

This actually pretty straightforward. It follows this template:

• I’m concerned/worried/upset about ______________________.
• It bothers me because _____________________________.
• What can we do in the future to prevent this from happening?

The second bullet — “it bothers me because” should be something concerning you. What they call “I statements” in the biz.  “It’s inconvenient for me, it hurts my feelings, it makes me defensive”.  It should not be a “you” statement — “you are inconsiderate, you are rude, or you were offensive”.  It is not your job to generalize their behavior, only to point out the behavior that affected you and why.  In the conversation about how you can prevent this from happening in the future, you can discuss how you can provide better feedback in the future.  The unspoken threat, of course, is that if things don’t change, you will be distancing yourself from the relationship.  I’m all for direct communication, but this really doesn’t need to be said out loud.  It feels a) somewhat obvious in interpersonal relationships and b) like a coercive tactic despite being a completely natural outcome of conflict that goes poorly. 

Response

Not everyone is good at conflict.  This has a lot to do with what we have witnessed and experienced throughout our lifetimes.  We should strive to be generous with our friends and family. They are not going always going to respond perfectly. They will be defensive, they will lash out, they may blame, or get emotional.  But, look for guestures of vulnerability, which are crucial for close relationships.  And look for apologies, even if they aren’t perfect or even fully verbalized. We are teaching people how to engage with us — you can’t expect perfection immediately.  And you can reward people for making progress.

Good & Bad Outcomes

How do you know your conflict went well?  Well, you normally feel better!  But make sure your friend feels better too.  Sometimes we are so concerned with meeting our own needs that we don’t realize we are stepping all over our friend in the process.  Ask if they feel better afterwards — if they don’t feel better, arrange to have a longer in person meeting to work things out. 

How do you know your conflict outcome was negative?  You’ll feel worse — sometimes like you’ve been run over by a truck.  There are lots of ways for things to go wrong: they blame you, don't take any responsibility, accept all of your concessions, but offer none in return, refuse to change or compromise, belittle your concerns, etc.  The ability to have healthy conflict is crucial to good relationships.  Otherwise, how do you communicate your boundaries?  If things go badly, that is a good piece of information for you to have.  It'll help you decide a) whether conflict is worth it with this person in the future and b) how far to distance yourself from them going forward.

Risks

There are obviously risks in having any kind of conflict.  You could end up creating a rift that your friendship doesn't recover from.  Most true relationships are worth this risk.  If the person decides not to speak to you again after you confront them -- it probably wasn't a relationship that could go beyond surface level to begin with.  The other risk is that if you complain too much, people will distance themselves from YOU.  People are who they are and they show you by their behavior every day.  If you really want them to be a totally different kind of person, perhaps you need to change your expectations.  

If you are disciplined about the method by which you approach conflict and are empathetic, most people will be grateful for the feedback and it will strengthen your relationships.  Let me know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching.