Author: Alex Thompson

How to NOT Be Conflict Avoidant

Rather than endlessly ruminate and allow conflicts to fester in your head, try taking a more assertive approach. Instead of trying to sedate emotions like anger, sadness, or fear, try looking at them through the lens of self-compassion, and allowing yourself to see your negative thoughts with empathy. Similarly, if you’re more comforted by smells, you can keep an essential oil on hand to take a quick whiff of when you’re feeling anxious.

Why You Need to Stop Avoiding Conflict (and What to Do Instead)

During confrontations, you can try to practice anxiety-management techniques. Similarly, conflict avoidance isn’t good for our working relationships. A study on workplace incivility found that avoiding conflict doesn’t stop friction from reoccurring in the workplace. Plus, avoidance also led to increased emotional exhaustion. But I’ve also found that being a conflict avoider can be from what you didn’t see as a kid.

If you’re used to sweeping conflict under the rug, interpersonal conflict resolution can feel deeply threatening. You might try to build your skills and confidence by opening up conversations about relatively small matters with those you trust the most. Positive experiences resolving minor issues, such as household chores that aren’t getting done, can equip you to take on bigger concerns. There can be legitimate reasons for avoiding conflict, such as the need to break off an abusive relationship. But in many cases, interpersonal conflict resolution could help repair a relationship, to the benefit of all involved, or end it with less pain. Through a better understanding of conflict avoidance, we can become more comfortable with interpersonal conflict resolution at work and in our personal lives.

How you manage conflict in a relationship can impact family dynamics, happiness levels, and even your physical and mental well-being. In a committed romantic relationship, there are often challenges and conflicts you and your partner will face. The challenges occur because a relationship consists of two individuals, each with their own goals, motives, and desires that don’t always align with one another. There are four main things to focus on if you’re a conflict avoider or if you’re dealing with a conflict avoider at home or work. Learning how to confront someone assertively won’t happen overnight. But you can still take small steps each day toward feeling more comfortable facing your fears and speaking up for yourself.

Maybe it meant a parent withholding love or attention. Maybe you grew up in a home where saying something was met with criticism or what you shared was dismissed or minimized. As they don’t share their true thoughts and feelings, they feel more and more unsafe and can actually blame their partner for why they’re not sharing! This emotional withdrawal shows up in a number of ways, but they all equal distance in the relationship. In a relationship, this can look like going silent on a partner, changing the subject, or enduring uncomfortable situations instead of expressing issues openly. If you are struggling with conflict avoidance and want to learn how to communicate effectively with your partner, Makin Wellness can help.

1. Conflict avoidance can damage your relationships and harm your mental health.
2. For example, in my house growing up I never saw may parents argue.
3. Through a better understanding of conflict avoidance, we can become more comfortable with interpersonal conflict resolution at work and in our personal lives.
4. Conflict avoidance is a prevalent issue in relationships.
5. This part of the brain can’t distinguish between a customer that’s yelling at you or a vicious dog about to attack you.

How confrontation can help a relationship

Caroline is very conflict avoidant and always tries to avoid conflict with her husband. I learned the ropes of what’s technically called “verbal de-escalation” from many years of working in hospitals. Every year, we’d go through training on how to defuse difficult situations in which a patient, family member, or even another employee was extremely angry and seemingly out of control.

The importance of communicating openly and honestly in your relationship

Some conflict-avoidant people experience anxiety just engaging in disagreements. Give your spouse the opportunity to mentally address their anxiety, get their thoughts together, and enter the conversation with a more relaxed mindset. We’ve all been there—trying valiantly to reason with an incredibly difficult person. The situation proves frustrating, maddening, and sometimes even frightening. The truth is, you can’t reason with an unreasonable person.

Stay calm and focus on the common goal.

It’s as simple as answering a few questions about your needs, and within 24 hours you’ll be connected to a highly qualified professional. If you’re ready to get started, get in contact with us. We offer both individual and couples’ online therapy, so you can feel supported no matter how you approach your treatment.

Revisiting conversations that you thought were resolved isn’t unusual when your spouse is working to do better at engaging in conflict. Be understanding if they share more of themselves in a follow-up conversation. Of course, you’d like them to have shared it the first time, but they may have been more focused on avoiding the conflict than resolving the issue the first time. The phrase “conflict avoidance” implies that there will be a negative conflict or tension. Disagreement or sharing your feelings can be seen as an opportunity for growth for yourself and/or your relationship.

Need help with conflict avoidance in your relationship?

They see some yucky consequence for sharing their true thoughts and feelings so be as patient and compassionate as possible. When you’re avoiding conflict, you’re essentially lying about your thoughts and feelings about something. Consciously or unconsciously, your partner picks up on this lie and knows something is off so don’t trust when you say everything is fine or refuse to discuss an issue. They learn that they can’t trust what you say and this leaks into other areas of the relationship. It’s important to learn how to build real trust in your relationship. To hear some tell it, we are experiencing an epidemic of conflict avoidance, finding new ways to walk away from conflict rather than engaging in interpersonal conflict resolution.

Although the adverse impact of conflict avoidance can be seen across all genders in relationships, its effects can be particularly upsetting for women. A lot of the research shows that conflict avoiders often come from homes where conflict was a bad thing. Maybe voicing your opinion in your home growing up meant getting slapped, yelled at, belittled or something worse.

Tips for better communicating with your partner

If you’re a visual person, for example, you can relieve stress by closing your eyes and imagining soothing images. Rehearse concise points you’d like to get across to a boss or colleague so you’ll feel confident when addressing them. It’s also about ensuring that problematic issues (like the one with your co-worker) are dealt with so they don’t happen again in the future.