Conflict Avoidance: Why It’s Harmful, How to Overcome It & More

If the other person is also bursting with emotion, staying on track to discuss the core issue and find a logical compromise will feel impossible. You know that confrontation is a part of your everyday life, important for growth and one of the ways you can learn about yourself and other people. Make conflict resolution the priority rather than winning or “being right.” Maintaining and strengthening the relationship, rather than “winning” the argument, should always be your first priority. If you are out of touch with your feelings or so stressed that you can only pay attention to a limited number of emotions, you won’t be able to understand your own needs. This will make it hard to communicate with others and establish what’s really troubling you.

What’s behind avoidance behaviors?

• “Conflict avoidance can greatly connect to racial and gender privilege,” Ezelle explains.
• The more you challenge yourself to face rather than avoid conflict, the greater potential for your personal growth.
• You often walk away from the conversation feeling like the crazy one.
• 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!
• Your friends might value your flexibility; you find it easy to see both sides of a disagreement, but you’d rather not voice your personal view on any given matter, should it sway heavily in one direction or another.
• We strive for “stress management” rather than “stress avoidance” because we can’t always avoid stress, but we can manage it with effective coping techniques.

These situations are excellent opportunities to practice communication skills. “Individuals who are conflict-avoidant tend to expect there will be a negative reaction and avoid even interactions that https://ecosoberhouse.com/ are healthy conflicts,” she explains. Gaslighting is a dangerous form of manipulation where someone acts in such a way that you start doubting your perceptions, your memory or your own judgment.

The Fictitious Reality of Avoiding Conflict

Learning to resolve conflict is a necessary skill for growing and sustaining your relationships. When you realize your conflict avoidance turned you into a conflict starter, remember there is power in owning your actions and holding yourself accountable. If you’re the one who’s struggled with conflict avoidance, all the same applies!

Why Most People Avoid Conflict… and Why You Shouldn’t

Laughing nervously or plastering a fake smile on our face instead of acknowledging distressing emotions can also lead to feelings of loneliness and depression. A person may be conflict-avoidant because of past experiences with an individual who wasn’t secure enough to handle confrontation productively. The nightmarish fights which followed a minor and diplomatic confrontation or question may have been painful and dramatic. He convinced the bank president to offer her a $10,000 voluntary separation package (which he somewhat disingenuously called a “scholarship”) that offered her the financial wherewithal to quit her job.

You Find Emotional Honesty Scary

Every relationship has disagreements, but effective conflict resolution leads both parties to feel closer to each other. Clinicians who work with these populations have found that conflict resolution skills can increase warmth, solve problems, help people feel closer to each other, and increase trust over time (Lester & Godwin, 2021). These tactics can be particularly helpful to have in your back pocket if a loved one approaches you with a thorny conversation you weren’t prepared for. “Avoiding conflict can compromise our resilience, mental health, and productivity in the long term,” writes Andrew Reiner for NBC News.

Leaving conflicts unresolved leads to pent-up frustration and a greater sense of loneliness that can build up over time. 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. Being aware of how your emotions impact you can help you gain a greater understanding of yourself and others. Before confronting someone, try examining and questioning your feelings. While avoidance sometimes seems like the best way to deal with conflict, in the long run it ends up harming our intimacy. You prefer to be seen as the “nice person” at work, for example, or may shy away from open, healthy conflict so as not to rock the boat.

When we avoid external conflict, have we created an internal struggle?

Enneagram Fives meet anything that sounds like confrontation with an analytical detachment. They are far more comfortable with data than people and they use the one to shield themselves from the other. In their efforts to avoid being overwhelmed how to deal with someone who avoids conflict by their own needs or the needs of others, they focus on the problem at hand and avoid the emotional burden of conflict entirely. INFJs nurture and support others and would never accept an invitation to a fight, let alone start one.

• And ultimately he was going to need the words in order to manage his own emotions.
• This emotional withdrawal shows up in a number of ways, but they all equal distance in the relationship.
• During confrontations, you can try to practice anxiety-management techniques.
• The pressure mounts and perceived stress is followed by sweat, an increased heart rate, and worry, and your gut reaction to is avoid the situation altogether.
• Before confronting someone, try examining and questioning your feelings.

Find New Ways to Relieve Stress

Eventually, most of our relationships—be it with friends, loved ones, and coworkers—encounter disagreements, misunderstandings, or other conflict-laden situations that need to be addressed. For example, conflict can be an opportunity to share your feelings and become closer to your partner. Vulnerability can improve emotional intimacy as it can help your partner understand you better. And it can help you feel more accepted and loved by your mate. Lastly, when you avoid conflict at all costs, it can also make it harder to create and maintain boundaries.

Healthy and unhealthy ways of managing and resolving conflict

When you can do this confidently, you’ll be less tempted to avoid conflict in the future and more empowered to resolve it in a way that strengthens your relationships. One of the only passive coping strategies found to be helpful is the practice of stress relief techniques. If you learn to calm your body’s stress response when you are stressed, you’ll be less reactive and more empowered to be proactive when faced with conflict. Take a minute to think of situations when you tend to use avoidance coping.