Reducing unhealthy conflict

I talk with people about conflict a lot. Often, couples come to speak to me about their cycle of conflict, or negative cycle, because the way that they are in conflict is causing problems in their lives. Sometimes family members come for similar reasons. I find that people often want to banish conflict from their lives entirely, but the avoidance of conflict causes difficulties too — mostly a lack of connection and understanding and this is a huge sacrifice to make for a peaceful life. So I talk to people about the difference between healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict, or ways that people can disagree without getting into arguments. Healthy conflict causes the energy that we need for change. Put another way, you can’t polish a gem without a little friction!

Having had these conversations and search for solutions in other places (see the list of books at the end for more information), these are some of my top tips for people who want to reduce unhealthy conflict in their lives.

1. Remember that you are connected

This is my biggest piece of advice to people — family members, couples and individuals alike. We are all connected. Whether you like it or not! What you do will affect what other people do. How you express yourself might well change how someone else expresses themselves. Think about this when you are trying to bring about a different outcome — expecting others to do things differently without changing something yourself is likely to lead to frustration and disconnection. This leads me to the next point.

2. Change needs to start with you

It is really common for people to get themselves in a pickle by hoping, expecting, waiting, or pushing someone else to change. Despite being an attempt to connect and get relationship needs met, this often leads into a negative cycle as it is experienced as “nagging” or criticising and can be connected to feeling blamed, shamed, worthless or like a failure. It can also lead to people feeling coerced and the relationship feeling toxic.

So I encourage people to start by looking at themselves to find ways of doing things differently, understanding themselves differently, experiencing themselves differently. This is often met with resistance: “Why should I be the only one to change when….”, or “But then they’re getting away with it!”. Don’t worry! If you remember the first point, that everyone is connected, it helps to remember that if you change, this is likely to shift something in the system and bring about changes in others.

Read on to work out what else you can do about these kinds of thoughts.

3. Identify the thoughts or stories that keep you hooked into conflict (and ask yourself if they’re helpful)

Through our experiences of conflict including those modelled to us by our parents, families, society more broadly, war, division, polarisation, social media use and more, we have developed beliefs about conflict and ourselves in relation to conflict. I often ask people what thoughts, beliefs or feelings make it hard for them to step out of escalating conflict. It is not unusual for people not to know. So then I ask them to finish the following sentence:

“If I do/don’t [insert behaviour here], then he/she/I/we/they/it will…”

For example:

“If I don’t shout, he won’t know how important this is to me”.

“If I don’t call her out, she’ll never stop”.

“If I back down, they’ve won”.

The behaviours attached to these thoughts aren’t helpful — the shouting, the calling out, the not backing down — they’re likely to fuel the negative cycle. There are useful messages within them though, about your fears and desires. If you can express these fears and desires, you are going to be one step closer to connecting with the other person.

4. Resist the binary

Conflict has a tendency to polarise people and their positions. When we are under threat, we often move to black and white thinking, positions of attack and defend, them and us, victim and perpetrator. Things are never this simple and the false simplicity often maintains these positions making it hard to shift the narrative or change the cycle. Remembering to resist the binary might just help you out of one of these positions long enough to do something differently.

5. Remain curious

I often find myself talking to people about the danger of certainty. When I hear people say something like, “I know how she’ll react…” or “I know exactly what he’s thinking”, alarm bells go off for me and I suddenly find my hands have lots of energy and they’re waving at people. Why is this? Well, it is not possible to know these things for sure. You can suspect, you can have an inkling, you can base your opinion on past experiences, but you can’t know. Being certain reduces your opportunities for discovery and surpise. It pigeon holes the other person and invalidates their experiences, it reduces the space across which people can reach out to one another. And in these ways, it kills intimacy.

So remain curious, ask questions instead of telling people what you think you know about them, look for complexities, exceptions to the usual narrative and create space so that you can connect in ways that encourage true intimacy.

If you’re curious enough to read more, you could look at Esther Perel’s work on intimacy (e.g. Mating in Captivity), Amanda Ripley’s book, High Conflict, and / or The High Conflict Couple by Alan Fruzzetti.

Or get in touch with curious questions!