How to have a difficult conversation if you hate confrontation

Mental health and wellness tips, our latest guides, resources, and more. Take the assessment and get matched with a professional, licensed therapist. If a conflict is going nowhere, you can choose to disengage and move on.

What is conflict avoidance a symptom of?

But it could be that you have a nice dinner with no conflict or emotional drama—and often, that’s enough. With HCPs, this means accepting that their behaviors and ways of communicating and interpreting reality will likely not change. What can change are your strategies and understanding of their personality limitations. HCPs generally do not, and if they do, it’s to a very limited degree. This deficit often leads those that interact with them over time to struggle with a wide range of negative emotions such as anger and confusion. In my clinical experience, many clients seek therapy because of ongoing relationships with people with high-conflict personalities.

• For example, being raised by high-conflict parents or cruel and abusive family members can at times result in developmental trauma or even post-traumatic stress disorder.
• If you don’t know how to stay centered and in control of yourself, you will become overwhelmed in conflict situations and unable to respond in healthy ways.
• People-pleasing is a coping mechanism that we revert to when we are overcome by stress and the fear of conflict.
• The degree of success of a relationship within a couple, family, workplace, or group is how effectively all parties can rupture—have disagreements—and repair their conflicts.

Enneagram 5: Maintain strict personal boundaries

The thought of having to explain avoidance behavior to someone motivates some people to take a different approach. You might want to ask a friend to help you as you work on getting rid of your avoidance coping strategies. For example, you might https://ecosoberhouse.com/ ask a friend to check in with you about a project you need to start or ask if you have had that difficult conversation with your coworker yet. When we avoid conflict with those we continue to interact with, we allow it to fester and grow.

• Fortunately, what’s good for flighters turns out to be good for everyone.
• Situational avoidance refers to staying away from people, places, things, or activities that feel activating to you.
• They use words like “always and never” as they bring up their long-held inventory of grievances.
• They prefer keeping the peace to confrontation, and will often defer to others, trivializing their own needs, rather than engage in conflict.
• There’s a reason you or your partner is conflict avoidant and that reason deserves some empathy!
• Growth has already started to happen when you have learned how to diffuse your anxiety and turn it into a productive exchange of ideas.

Caregiver Stress and Burnout

Remember, you’ve got to connect to correct so showing empathy and compassion if your partner is a conflict avoider is the best way to create a space where they’ll start sharing what’s real. In this same vein, you want to emphasize that you’re a team; you’re not going anywhere and you’ll get through this together. Being conflict avoidant also impacts our relationships because we’re cutting off all honest communication with the other person. When you avoid the slightest disagreement, you’re compromising your true feelings and storing up frustration that can end up negatively affecting your health.

Somatic avoidance

As of Thursday, the police had arrested 2,000 people across more than 40 campuses, a situation so startling that President Biden could no longer ignore it. Mindfulness skills can help achieve this goal, particularly the skill of observing what is happening around you and detaching from it emotionally (Lindsay, 2015). If you find yourself becoming emotional, remind yourself to “detach” or “disengage” and communicate in a factual manner. It’s possible—but you likely will have to accept the relationship for what it is and learn to approach it differently from your other relationships. Psychological safety may be particularly important for flighters, because it helps avoid triggering the fight-or-flight instinct that so often pushes these people to clam up, shut down, hide out or acquiesce.

Are You Feeling Suicidal?

By contrast, one study of over 2,000 people aged 33 to 84 found that those who intentionally resolved daily conflicts reported that their stress diminished. They also experienced fewer negative emotions than others in the study, and their positive emotions remained stable for longer periods how to deal with someone who avoids conflict of time. Conflict avoidance actually creates much larger conflicts and creates more disconnected feelings in relationships. When you hold in conflict it can grow bigger and bigger and come out as an explosion. A small conflict pushed aside then becomes so large it feels unresolvable.

• “Abusive relationships, environments, and situations may not be a place where we practice assertive communication,” she explains.
• Instead, we stress about what needs to be done and become even more stressed as we inevitably rush to get it done.
• Rehearse concise points you’d like to get across to a boss or colleague so you’ll feel confident when addressing them.
• When we bury our emotions we always “bury them alive” which means they can fester and show up when we least expect it, often causing us and others unnecessary pain.

Conflict Avoidance Doesn’t Do You Any Favors