People Who Avoid Confrontation Have These 18 Personality Traits

Whether that means you have a high pressure job that you like a lot, or you’re a Capricorn with years of therapy under your belt, either way, you avoid conflict because you’ve got the solution already laid out. In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, conflict is inevitable. Whether in the workplace, within families, or among nations, conflicts can arise from differing perspectives, values, and goals. While some conflicts are necessary for growth and progress, others can be damaging and destructive if not managed effectively. Some find conflict so depleting that they avoid all possibility of conflict. Their avoidance interferes with the quality of their lives, and leaves many issues unresolved.

Setting Healthy Boundaries in Relationships

It’s about giving them the space to express themselves, understanding their perspective, and responding thoughtfully. They recognize that sometimes, the cost of winning an argument can be damaging to a relationship. It allows them to keep their cool, even when faced with potential conflict. They’re skilled at maintaining balance and not letting their emotions get the best of them. Direct conflict might not be your style, especially when the room is stacked against you.

How Conflict Avoidance Can Impact a Relationship

Or maybe you begin by expressing why you haven’t mentioned your sadness over spending less time together. Also, the ideal timing and the best language choice for addressing an issue varies from couple to couple and from issue to issue. Nevertheless, there are how to deal with someone who avoids conflict some best practices to keep in mind when communicating with your partner. For more minor problems or instances when both couples aren’t able to change, confrontation involving affection and validation showed to be most effective for resolving conflict.

Treatment for Pathological Conflict Avoidance

• Accusations can lead to frustration and stress, and you might feel more like snapping back a retort than taking care to respond productively.
• You can do this by using Helpguide’s free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.
• Moreover, affiliation has been linked to better physical health.
• Conflict can sometimes escalate, though, if everyone involved wants to win, especially when no one is willing to consider other resolution methods.
• While getting out of these damaging patterns is tricky, there are ways to move forward in the face of our fears and express our emotions authentically.

You can learn to handle the feelings, allow them to pass, and move on. When we try to think our way out of bad situations to avoid getting hurt, we become engaged in trying to think of a solution rather than acting on one. These small differences in communication can make all the difference in developing a healthy and sustainable relationship.

You’re highly sensitive

Or, if employees have a conflict over space, you might consider rearranging some parts of the office, when practical, to create a layout that better suits productivity. Every conflict is an opportunity to learn, and to create a better workplace for tomorrow. Plan to check in with each party, and their supervisors (assuming the direct supervisor isn’t involved in the conflict, and if they are, contact higher management and/or HR for their feedback). Now you can gather both parties together and discuss the action everyone will take to resolve the conflict. In other cases of smaller conflicts, simply having each person apologize and move on can be an agreeable solution. It can be especially hard not to take sides when one of the people involved in the conflict is, themselves, a manager or supervisor.

Regulate your people-pleasing habits

However, it’s important that you laugh with the other person, not at them. When humor and play are used to reduce tension and anger, reframe problems, and put the situation into perspective, the conflict can actually become an opportunity for greater connection and intimacy. It occurs whenever people disagree over their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, or desires. Sometimes these differences appear trivial, but when a conflict triggers strong feelings, a deep personal need is often at the core of the problem. These needs can range from the need to feel safe and secure or respected and valued, to the need for greater closeness and intimacy.

Steps to Help Someone Through a Panic Attack With Anxiety

• Methods of doing this can include changing the subject, putting off a discussion until later, or simply not bringing up the subject of contention.
• It can be damaging to the connection of a relationship if it is left unaddressed.
• The depth, height, and reach of your very existence is limited by your day-after-day, week-after-week, year-after-year attempts to avoid feelings that are, ultimately, unavoidable,” writes McKay.
• No one style is necessarily better than the other—as long as the style works for both people.
• It’s a tough realization, but it’s important to acknowledge these experiences as they contribute significantly to your current behavior patterns.

Rather than looking to the past and assigning blame, focus on what you can do in the here-and-now to solve the problem. If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, your emotions may be “turned” down or even off. In either case, you may need help developing your emotional awareness.

Resolve issues in real-time