Why Initiating Conflict in Relationships is Essential

In this video I'm going to try to convince you to start a fight with your partner. Stay with me. So I'm being a bit facetious with this video. I'm not really trying to get everybody to start a fight with their partner but in some cases that actually is necessary and I'll explain a bit here. So I got a question and see if you resonate with this question. It's about kind of conflict avoidance in relationships, what it looks like and how to address it. This is a question from Anthony and Anthony and his partner have been having some problems. So he wanted me to to answer this question here. So Anthony starts. He says my partner and I have been fighting regularly for the past three months and I'm at the point where I can't handle it anymore. There's no one issue we fight about. It can be over anything and while I try to remain calm. So she often raises her voice and escalates things. So we could say that escalating raising the voice and that we could put that down potentially as an error in communication. But we'll get back to that. Certainly shouting or throwing things is crossing a line. It can become abusive but we'll talk more about that. There's a kind of a more nuanced way to approach. Why is that happening? Maybe I've tried to be patient but it's not working. Okay and I feel I'm coming to the end of what I can give. It feels as if nothing I do is good enough. She's never happy and it seems the more I try to please her the more unhappy she becomes. I know we have a communication issue and I've tried to work on my listening skills and improve how I communicate. But nothing something is wrong here and I don't know how to fix it. So any advice. So the last part there Anthony is I know I have a communication issue and I've tried to work on my listening skills and improve how I communicate. And this is the thing I see a lot. Maybe listening isn't the problem. Maybe your lack of listening skills isn't the problem because we're all told that right. To be in a happy relationship you've got to be a good listener. And I think a lot of us have kind of got that message for a long long time and a lot of people are good at it. And they think well I just need to listen more listen more. But what if it's more an expression issue. Really what this comes down to is not ignoring that the fighting and the screaming and the yelling and the criticism is not. I'm not denying that that's an error. But what we look at here is it's always a wee problem in a relationship. There's there may be mistakes your partner makes but you also look at we all look at our own behavior and our own drives. This is more of an issue about conflict. OK so in any relationship you've got two completely unique different people with completely different perspectives and outlooks and sets of beliefs and histories come together in a relationship. They're going to see things differently regularly. So because of that there has to be conflict. Conflict is inevitable. If there is no conflict it's actually a major red flag in a relationship. So we need conflict and we need to learn how to resolve it for sure. But it's an inevitability that there will be conflict. So here's here's the thing that you can look at from your perspective. Maybe it's not this listening thing that's missing. Although for most people we do have problems with listening and it is a very important skill to work on. We really don't hear each other in relationships. But the thing I'm getting at here is this is the example I give. Imagine you and your partner are sitting down for a nice relaxed evening and you've got you're going to watch a nice movie. You're getting on really well and you just had a nice meal and maybe you've got a drink and you're feeling really comfortable and connected with each other. In that situation would you ever consider initiating conflict? Think about that for a moment because many partners will initiate conflict in a scenario like that. They'll feel now is the time to bring this up. If you have the impression of I would never even consider doing that there may be something to look at here. If conflict in a relationship is necessary, inevitable and necessary then we look at who's initiating the conflict. Someone has to if it's inevitable and necessary. Somebody has to. So if we look at one partner as always initiating conflict but really what we're saying is an awful lot of the responsibility for the initiation of conflict is falling on one person's shoulders and that can be a heavy load to carry. So what we look at here is not necessarily listening solely. It's how often do I initiate conflict even when we're about to watch the nice movie and have a nice relaxed evening. How often do I use opportunities even when everything's fine to say I'm going to bring up something here. Something about maybe an unmet emotional need I have for my partner or some problem we have. Again just go back to the issue of the raised voice and escalating things. That can be an error and it can certainly be done in a way that's destructive. So this video is not about me denying that at all. But it's always a wee problem. Why is your partner getting to the point where she's escalating things raising her voice like that. Again a mistake but it doesn't come from out of a vacuum either. It's like well have I ever gone to her with a problem and gave her some some criticism about something. If we're not doing that there kind of needs to be I'm not saying even necessarily in a relationship has to be 50 50 about who initiates conflict. But if there's a complete imbalance it's all one sided. We could easily say well this person needs to stop complaining. But then you see we shut down all conflict. So what if it's a well OK this person this person and their partner need to take a sort of a more equal share of who initiates. So it's just to look at that. How often have I initiated conflict in the last say three months or have I been managing my partner's reactions. And reacting to the criticism or the negative feedback that I get. There's a difference you see between your partner comes to you with some conflict some criticism and maybe you get defensive and then you criticize back in the moment. OK that's not what I'm talking about here. So you could say well I am I am given some negative feedback. But if it's a reactive feedback to your partner's initial initiation of conflict doesn't count. Because really all we are in that moment is we're actually not listening then and we're actually just defensive. So it's really what I'm talking about here is the initiation of the conflict when everything's fine and stable. Many partners struggle with that because there can be maybe there was conflict in their past. Maybe there was yelling and abuse in the family home. So we become understandably conflict averse. But this is the skill that we're trying to emphasize here rather than just purely listening. Because you know if you're relying on listening really what that means is OK. It's time for my partner to yell at me. I'm going to sit here and listen. You know what about your needs. What about what you have seen as issues that need to be worked on. It's also quite infuriating for your partner if you never bring up a problem. Because it's almost like you're this stoic Buddha that doesn't react. It can also be perceived as a lack of caring about the relationship itself or the other person. So that can be very very infuriating. So it's rarely a one person problem. It's the relationship has an issue and it can be a lack of either listening or self-expression. I see a lot more of issues with conflict avoidance and self-expression rather than listening skills. I think everyone has got that message. So that could be really something to look at and talk about your partner. Even ask for feedback. Do you think I initiate conflict enough. Your partner might say no. You don't talk. You don't open up. You don't express yourself. So that can be a thing to look at there Anthony. And for everybody really is to take the chance. It's a very you see sometimes we get it. We get this feeling that the partner we're with relishes this. They love initiating conflict. It's actually a very vulnerable thing to break the peace and to move into conflict. Nobody really enjoys that. I shouldn't say nobody but most people certainly do not enjoy that because it's quite vulnerable. You're showing an unmet need you have. That's vulnerability. So things to give feedback on are what are your needs. How are they being met. If you don't know what your emotional needs are relationships. I have a course on my website. You can check it out. It's on relationship skills because relationships really are. I mean the statistics on relationships are really really not good. I think for the most part is due to a lack of a skill set that we bring into the relationship. Nobody trains us. Nobody tells us how to do it. We have the Hollywood picture of you know you fall in love and that's that. And the chemistry or something is going to sustain the relationship. Really it's a it is a skill set and you know it could be worth your while investing some time learning a skill set that could help turn things around here. But I hope that's useful Anthony and I hope I gave you some food for thought that you can maybe bring to your partner will help you with this issue you're having. And anyone else that watches video to hope this has been useful. And as always thanks for being with me and I'll see you again very soon in the next video. Bye for now.