Change Conflict Into Chance

Many people avoid conflict for fear that it could end relationships. With friends, lovers, and perhaps some family members, it’s possible to turn that self-fulfilling prophecy into a roadmap for further connection.

Conflict is an opportunity for commitment. Every new argument is a chance to connect and build trust. There are tools to help you communicate and shift your mindset to take advantage of those opportunities.

One major disclaimer is that these strategies only apply to relationships where all parties are equals. There are a plethora of ways to help manage conflict in relationships that are unequal, but this discussion is about using conflict with your equals to grow closer. If you find yourself struggling to relate or implement these strategies, you may need to examine whether there is an unequal distribution of power or responsibility in your relationship.

People define commitment by the fear of conflict ending their relationships: committing to your relationship with a person is committing to your conflict with them. It’s a decision that you will weather the conflict no matter what, and your partner(s) can rest easy knowing that they won’t be abandoned for fighting.

Commitment is difficult, and you may still not rest easy if you still don’t feel safe. This can be resolved with time and consistency, but you might also need more tools to understand each other in conflict.

“Love is an intellectual decision you make to fulfill another person's reasonable emotional needs.” This definition is by Calvin Roberson, a pastor and relationship counselor. It recontextualizes conflict into a discussion of basic emotional needs.

For example, in order to be open and vulnerable with our loved ones, it’s important to feel secure that you won’t lose them because of fights. This demonstrates an emotional need for security. To love someone you respect as your equal is to make a decision that it is important to you to fulfill their need for security, i.e., to make them feel safe.

The caveat that a need must be reasonable namely represents that there are many ways to fulfill your emotional needs. If you don’t post your partner on social media, they might feel dismissed, unimportant, or fear that you’re ashamed of them. This does not mean that you’re obligated to post them on social media, or that being posted on social media is an emotional need.

It is one way of fulfilling an emotional need. If you have some reason you don’t like that solution, you can communicate about other ways to make your partner feel important. Perhaps you dislike social media, but you’re proud to show off your partner with PDA. This is why it’s important to dig deeper and connect over the emotions beneath an argument.

Every time you’re met with an emotional need by someone you love, you have an opportunity to make a choice to help, support, and fulfill it. Every time you make choices in favor of your loved one’s security, you build more trust and intimacy.

One of the emotional needs that we as people have is to be understood. In conflict, there are a lot of times when multiple parties are fighting to be understood and failing to understand each other. One way of resolving this is that you have to take turns caring more about someone else’s perspective rather than just your own.

It’s a good thing if you are the one who apologizes first. Trust that you can advocate for yourself and demand the same attention after you’ve suspended your perspective and made the steps to understand theirs. There is no shame in caring about understanding your loved ones. In an ideal relationship, you won’t be taking turns in who gets to be understood first; you’ll both be competing to prioritize each other instead of yourselves.

One of the things that you have to be motivated to understand is why someone cares about their argument. We have emotional stakes in the things we argue about that surpass the actual correctness of our words. As the adage goes, it’s never about the bread.

I’m going to share a personal example, because it’s very difficult sometimes to weed through your thoughts and find out why you care about one argument over another, and it’s hard to expect your loved ones to value that when you don’t even understand it yourself.

I was friends with a gym rat who wanted me to support their desire to add hormonal supplements to their routine. We argued about the efficacy and safety of that, and they were adamant that I was wrong about the ways it would change their body and their behavior.

While I do have a lot of experience with the effects of hormones, as a trans person, my stake in the argument was not that my credibility was being challenged. The emotional need I was defending was a need for physical safety.

I did not trust that this person, under the increased aggression of testosterone, who was already a great deal stronger than me, would be safe for me to be around. When they argued against my correctness, they dismissed and misunderstood my fears. I wanted them to care more about why I was fighting than what I was fighting about.

Suspending our desire to be right in favor of making someone feel safe is not easy, so be careful not to write off anyone who fails to extend that courtesy. Instead, practice being that person. Take every argument as a chance to prove yourself by understanding and caring for someone else. Don’t let your side go unheard after you’ve made that connection, but do away with shame or fear about being the one to go first. You can’t change someone else, but you can change yourself into someone who can maintain your own happiness regardless of who they are.

Many of us are familiar with the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, maybe even from our own blog last month. If you haven’t read it yet, take a look at Heartfelt Reflections by Alan Perez. The main message of the Five Languages model is that you don’t have the liberty of doing what comes most easily to you when your loved ones feel insecure. In order to maintain your relationships, you learn to show your love in their language.

Relationship counselor Lena Morgan created a mirroring model she calls the Five Fight Languages. Like Chapman’s five languages, they are not scientifically accurate observations so much as new linguistic tools for communicating your needs in a relationship.

She provides a short test for identifying your distribution here, but I recommend investigating the ways that you connect with all of them so that you can clearly communicate where you stand in each new argument you have.

Ignitor

Ignitors face conflict explosively. They recognize it as an attack and lash out with anger when they feel unsafe. They’re reactive and will need some distance to experience their hurt and anger without acting on it impulsively.

Amplifier

Amplifiers face conflict expressively. They have strong feelings and a strong need to be understood. They need to hear their feelings validated and reflected back to them and to talk through their experience of the conflict.

Negotiator

Negotiators try to minimize conflict. They neglect their own feelings and pacify others. This ultimately can be dismissive and backfire when neither party has an opportunity to be understood emotionally.

Analyzer

Analyzers are very dismissive of emotions in conflict. They weed out the logical justifications and reasonings and fight point-for-point about who is more correct, rather than connecting or understanding.

Extinguisher

Extinguishers are very avoidant of conflict. They’re easily overwhelmed and shut down, detach, and disengage when they feel that way. They’re likely to avoid or leave discussions entirely and are very dismissive.

Regardless of which languages you’re drawn to, they give us a new way to communicate around conflict. For example, an extinguisher is liable to make anyone feel abandoned; therefore, if they choose to shut down a conversation, it’s also their responsibility to set a specific time to restart it. An analyzer may assume that an apology marks the completion of an argument and feel attacked when an amplifier recognizes the apology as an invitation to listen and understand their feelings.

Having the literal language to describe your emotional needs for security, attention, connection, and understanding will make it easier to advocate for yourself in your relationships. Having conflict boils down to an unmet need, and it’s important to see that as an opportunity to connect and repair hurt feelings instead of a personal failure.

When someone puts themself in the vulnerable position of asking for support, it is a misunderstanding to perceive that as a failure. It is not your responsibility to fulfill those needs all-encompassingly so that there is never conflict, or predict what they are before conflict arises; rather, conflict is the way we ask for help. It is a vulnerable chance to connect and care for someone by listening and considering how we can help them feel more secure.

About the Author

I’m a LYF administrator and wellness coordinator who works closely with the writing teams. I have a background in journalism, technical writing, poetry and creative prose.

Introspection and careful behavioral analysis have been my most refined skill. I take a deep care in observing and understanding the people around me. It’s an interest that is only fair or possible to do if you're 100% accepting of what you're going to find in people. To discover the things they can't admit because they dislike it in themselves is cruel and unkind unless you take on a particular perspective that at worst their worst traits are neutral.

I define myself by that perspective of radical acceptance, and I hope that you as readers can feel warmth in my work.