Unresolved Conflict...

I've been working a lot lately with clients who have arrived in counselling due to a 'back log' of unresolved issues, offences, hurts, disappointments and frustrations.

These have either been buried, pushed away or built into a wall between the couple or had the effect of creating a massive disconnection over time.

I found it nicely summed up by Dr Margaret Paul in the following:

'Conflict occurs in all relationships, and if both people are not open to learning about themselves and each other within the conflict, the unresolved conflicts will eventually destroy the relationship.'

It's not the issue or the problem itself, but how you deal with it. The next day or week, the issue itself may be gone, but what remains is the meanness and the unkindness.

If you called each other names, swore at each other, told them to 'get over it, it's no big deal', walked out, threw something at them, told them to shut up...those are the things that stain and scar and erode the love and connection between you.

Worst of all, the initial issue which sparked the conflict remains unresolved and eventually, over time, there are so many 'crimes' between you that it is difficult to even see why you are still together anymore.

There is a limited amount of time before the relationship dies and neither partner wants to continue trying to make it work.

When a couple are in love, they are much more sensitive to each other, so when conflict is so painful, sometimes it makes it harder to go back to the original issue to resolve it after the damage of the fight when it caused so much distress in the first place.

The problem is, the issue doesn't just go away, it just goes into storage.

These issues then collect and either get taken out everytime another conflict arises as 'ammunition' or 'evidence'  as the opportunity to revisit an old wound that hasn't healed, which only worsens and intensifies the argument, or is parked and gathers impact everytime a similar 'shaped' offence arises.

We've all heard the saying, 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. There are only so many straws we can all carry before we break our relationships...The work I do is to encourage couples to put down all of their straws and then deal with them one by one.

Sometimes, all it takes is for one person to say, 'when you did..., I felt like... and I didn't like it.' And for the partner to hear them, not argue, defend, explain, shut down or attack, but simply listen, acknowledge, thank them for sharing and say, 'I'm sorry.' Sometimes that is all it takes to resolve the issue and from there you can work on how to go forward together to make changes that work for both of you.

Article quoted here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-paul-phd/meeting-the-right-person_b_873407.html