Blog Short #218: The Most Crucial Skill for Flourishing Relationships and How to Upgrade It

January 18, 2025
Barbara Frazier
Blog Shorts

Photo by fizkes, Courtesy of iStock Photo

What’s the biggest reason people seek marriage counseling?

Take a guess.

Most people will say communication.

That’s close, but it’s more specific than that.

It’s the inability to resolve conflicts verbally.

One way to upgrade your conflict-resolution skills is to recognize and eliminate the obstacles that get in the way.

When you address these, you’ll get better at talking through problems.

Let’s start with emotional reactivity.

1. Emotional Reactivity

Most people operate under the belief that emotional reactions have a life of their own and, consequently, you can’t control them. If you do, it takes tremendous effort.

Very often, the solution used is to suppress your emotions. If you can do that, you don’t have to react to them.

But, as we all know, that doesn’t often work. And if it does, it’s only a temporary solution because those emotions will surface again under similar circumstances.

A better approach is to train yourself to handle emotional reactions without much effort and without trying to suppress or repress them. Even if you’re very emotional, you can do that successfully.

The solution is to give your emotions space every time they arise.

So what does that mean?

It means letting them come up.

If they’re overwhelming, you can take a break until the fire dies down, or you can take a step back and observe the reaction as you have it without acting on it.

By becoming proficient at approaching your reactions with mindfulness, you can train yourself to use it automatically whenever you have an emotional reaction – even a positive one.

Get in the practice of watching your emotions ebb and flow as you experience them.

With regular practice, you’ll get good at putting space between your reactions and your responses.

You’ll gain a sense of “you” separate from your thoughts and emotions.

This “you” or “I” has the control. It’s the captain of emotional your ship.

2. The Need to Assert Yourself (or Be Right)

A second issue when conflicts arise is having a strong urge to assert yourself – your opinions, thoughts, emotions, and responses.

When someone says something to you that you disagree with or take issue with, the urge to defend and correct is intense. You want to be right.

The stronger you disagree, the more intense the urge becomes and the more impulsive your response.

The unspoken underlying belief that creates this urge is that if you don’t defend, you agree.

And if the issue pertains to a value you hold dear, the need to defend is stronger because your identity is threatened.

That’s why people become so fiery when the subject matter is something of particular value to them.

The way to get around this is to recognize that listening to someone’s assertions or ideas, even if they’re opposite of yours, does not imply agreement.

Nor is it penetrating your sense of self.

You could listen to someone rant for thirty minutes about something you disagree with, but that doesn’t change your stance unless they happen to say something that resonates with you.

When you know and remember this, you can calmly hear someone out before jumping in and defending.

You can ask questions and encourage them to elaborate and voice their thoughts and feelings without jumping in and defending or correcting them.

That skill is the most important one for successfully resolving conflicts. It allows you to see the other person’s point of view with insight and empathy. It creates a connection between you and them, so you’re on the same side.

You’ll have your turn, but your responses will be more effective and potent if you thoroughly listen first and understand the other person’s perspective.

3. Backstories

Backstories add layers to conflicts.

Backstories are your previous attempts to resolve an issue. You may have had the same conversation more than several times and been unsuccessful.

Or worse, you’ve been upset about something for a long time and not verbalized it. So, by the time the subject finally surfaces, you’ve built up a vault of resentment and anger that will likely spew once you allow yourself to express it.

The best approach to preventing this is to discuss and resolve problems when they arise rather than allowing them to build up.

If you have difficulty resolving an issue, dedicate yourself to pursuing it until you meet success.

Get help if needed, or divide your attempts to discuss the problem over several talks rather than all at once.

However you decide to do it, the goal is not to let it sit and fester.

Conflicts with long backstories are much more complex to resolve.

4. Resentment and Grudges

Built-up resentment can morph into grudges. And grudges are destructive – to you and the person you have a grudge against.

When you hold a grudge against someone, you ruminate about it.

You review the offending incident repetitively in your mind, building and embellishing the story each time, focusing on how you were mistreated. With each review, your anger builds.

People can hold grudges for years.

The problem is that ruminating about what happened doesn’t affect anyone but you. You feel miserable and more as time passes.

It spills into other interactions you have, either with the same person or in similar circumstances.

Grudges don’t offer anything of value. They hurt you and may hurt your future relationships.

If you can’t resolve them with the offending person, you need to work on letting them go for your own sanity and mental health.

Part of that entails recognizing the other person’s issues that led to their behavior and maybe empathizing with them.

It also requires you to dispel some of your assumptions and cognitive distortions about what happened.

We’re storytellers, and we can turn a single incident into a novel that’s unrelated to what originally happened.

Watch your grudges and resolve them before they grow.

5. Assumptions

Many conflicts arise or are exacerbated by your assumptions about what someone is thinking, feeling, or doing.

Before jumping to conclusions, assume the role of an investigator and gather the facts without prejudice before deciding what’s going on or what the other person or persons are thinking and intending.

Slow down the process.

When you investigate, you move from emotional mode to thinking mode. You become calmer, gain emotional distance, and create mental space to examine what’s happening.

Being an investigator and listening are the two most essential skills for successfully approaching and resolving conflicts. And they go together.

You listen, ask questions, dig deeper, and get a complete picture of the other person’s feelings and thoughts. You find out how they arrived there, what they’re afraid of, and their intentions.

When you have all of that information, your response will be thoughtful and informed. You’ll be able to connect even when you strongly disagree.

That’s because instead of focusing only on what you disagree with, you’ll focus on the whole person. This will allow you to protect the relationship while working through the conflict.

Or, if you know you don’t want to continue a relationship, you can leave it with resolve and know you did your best to make it work.

6. All-or-Nothing Thinking

All-or-nothing thinking implies two opposing sides: one is right, and one is wrong.

To resolve conflicts in a way that protects the integrity of the relationship, you need a win-win. Both people should feel heard, respected, and understood.

Even in cases where you agree to disagree, there must be a mutual sense that each person’s point of view is understood.

Keep that in the front of your mind when you’re approaching a disagreement or conflict, and practice maintaining respect throughout and giving the other person plenty of time to explain what’s on their mind.

Ask questions with curiosity and show empathy for their feelings.

If you do that, along with being a good listener and investigator, you’ll get good at negotiating and resolving contentious issues.

You’ll also preserve and deepen your relationships.

That’s all for today!

Have a great week!

All my best,

Barbara

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