I see a lot of conflict in my office. Most people get into relationships without a good sense of how to handle conflicts. At the first sign of conflict, some turtle, some fight tooth-and-nail, some dance around issues and vent.
Handling a conflict so it doesn't become a fight is a skill to develop. No one is born with it. Too often, I witness a conflict bring out a critical tone from one spouse, which elicits a contemptuous response from the other. Both parties feel hurt, get angry immediately, and I can almost hear the fight bell sound off as the angry volleys escalate...
When we love someone we want to feel safely connected, loved, appreciated, and nourished by that relationship. That's the experience of secure attachment. That's the baseline we all aim for in a marriage or a family, for instance. When your needs go unmet, or you feel some threat emotionally, your attachments won't feel secure.
Conflict happens in a relationship when you and your partner have competing needs but limited time, attention, or money. You both want to buy a house, but one wants city, one wants country. You both want to be together long term, but one wants children, and one wants travel and less responsibility. You both need some TLC, but one person talks all the air time and doesn't attend to the other.
Conflicts again are two competing desires/needs, in the face of one limited resource - time, attention, money, etc. For a conflict to become a fight, one or both of you need to take offense at the momentary loss or lack of understanding from your spouse.
Conflicts hurt.
Attachment hurts come in two varieties, the hurt you feel when your relationship needs go unmet, and the hurt you feel when you feel threatened emotionally in your close relationships. I'll try to briefly explain the two kinds of hurt with a couple of examples.
Conflict 1 - you are denied or feel abandoned
First, the relationship hurt of unmet need. It's cliché, but a good example is that of a husband leaving his clothes on the floor and the wife feeling upset because she repeatedly asks him not to do that. This is an example of a need going unmet. The idea is that the husband leaving clothes on the floor looks like a message to his wife that he doesn't care about her and she may feel more alone. Her thinking might be, "if he did care about me he'd help by putting his clothes in the hamper. I've told him a thousand times to do that."
Conflict 2 - your are attacked or feel diminished.
Second, is the relationship hurt of emotional threat. One good cliche deserves another so an example of this emotional threat would be a wife criticizing her husband's driving and the husband feeling pressured and judged. The idea here is that the wife making critical statements sends a message of disapproval or contempt and he may feel anger covering over shame and resisting a feeling of being diminished. That hurts.
These are minor examples but major examples are easy to come by. Having an affair would be an extreme act of abandonment or disregard for the emotional needs of a spouse. Criticizing or judging a spouse about physical traits or financial standing after a job loss would be an extreme act of emotional threat, diminishing the spouse in their situation. That hurts too.
It's important to understand that this kind of hurt actually, physically hurts! A study by
Hurts lead to fights.
Both attack and denial are attachment threatening hurts, where the message, "your need is not valid", translates into "I don't care about you". And, the message "you're in the wrong" translates into "I think less of you". Both are a threat to your sense of secure connection to a loved one.
I want to matter, so I fight for that.
The thinking goes like this, "If you tell me I am in the wrong, I feel diminished by you. That is a threat to my connection to you and it hurts. I want To protect from each, both require different responses. When you feel like your partner is putting you down or making accusations, your gut says, "I am good!". group dismisses, belittles, shames, pushes away, or avoids claims made on them.
On the other end of things, the "I need" group shows anger, demands, blames, or pleads, pries, and manipulates.
I want to be claimed.
In either group, when you suffer - with the sense of I need, or I matter - you
