Watching the drama unfold in the Indiana legislature, I am drawn to think about the impulse in many of us to withdrawal and hide from conflicts in our real lives (as opposed to the surreal political world).
Conflicts are inevitable when we need other people to survive and thrive. We need to cooperate with others in our jobs–therefore we have disagreements with coworkers. Most of us have bosses--how conflict laden is that relationship? We grow up in families and start families of our own--another breeding ground for conflicts.
A common tendency is to avoid conflict and pretend it doesn’t exist. For example, I sometimes get irritated with small things my wife does. (Imagine!) At least once a week she parks her car in the garage where I have to climb over it to take the garbage out. (And, of course, I seem to be the only one capable of doing that particular chore.) Usually, this is a minor annoyance and I can easily justify not mentioning it to her: After all, she’s far more considerate of me than I am of her. But, sometimes I find myself storming back into the house and being sulky for the next hour. It’s then I know that I’ve wrongly avoided a conflict.
People avoid conflicts because they’re afraid of angry or hurt responses, because they don’t know how to bring up problems without being verbally assaulting, or because they anticipate that airing a transgression might lead to the retelling of a failing on their part. In my example, if I complain about my wife’s parking, she’ll remind me of the giant stack of old work files also in the garage that I keep promising to sort and throw out. That’s not an argument I can "win," so I avoid it. And sometimes I sulk.
But the thing is, if the transgression keeps me from acting in a functional and supporting manner in my relationship, I need to resolve it. I’m not justifiably overlooking a wrong, when I give my wife the cold shoulder for the rest of the night. I’m avoiding again.
So the first step in resolving a conflict is realizing that you’re in a conflict that requires work. Instead of avoiding, take affirmative steps to resolve the issue and, dare I say it, help your relationship grow as a result.
Not that any of this would help the Indiana Democrats--they realize they’re in a conflict. They just know that they can’t "win" and they believe "losing" is not an option. Fortunately for us, relationships, unlike partisan politics, are not win-lose situations. With my wife I own up to the work I haven’t done, and approach her without assuming that she intended to cause me inconvenience. That’s a start.
Over the next weeks, I hope to lay out a plan-of-attack for successfully resolving conflicts, starting next week with the tip: Don’t Attack!