Tips for Positive Relationship Conflict

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In this video, I'll give my tips on engaging in healthy and positive conflict in your important relationships

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Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll give my tips on engaging in healthy and positive conflict in your important relationships

Okay -- in previous videos, I talked about maintaining boundaries to prevent relationships from blowing up and how to determine whether your relationship is even worth the energy that conflict requires. In this one, let’s talk about how to ensure that you are engaging in conflict in the most positive, constructive way. First of all, Check Your MotivationsPresumably the reason that you are engaging in conflict at all is because you care about the relationship and something happened that bothers you, offends you, or otherwise makes you uncomfortable. It’s very possible that you are pretty angry over this incident. Remember, the main reason you are doing this to help heal your relationship. So, if, when you check in with yourself, you find that your primary motivation is to scold, reprimand, defend yourself, or otherwise rant — your motivations are all wrong and it’s too early to have this conversation. Keep checking in until you have gotten past a need to lecture your friend on their wrongdoing. This isn’t about fixing their general behavior, this is about addressing where they stepped over YOUR boundary. After all, they may have other friends who are fine with this behavior, so they only thing that should concern you is how they behaved towards you and limiting that in your future interactions. In order to get to a place where you are not lecturing them, you may need to Take Some TimeSome people have the mistaken impression that if you don’t say something in the moment, then you’ve lost your opportunity. I disagree. In fact, many times I think that it is kinder to go away, process the event, and get into a better frame of mind before bringing it up. Even if you have expressed your displeasure in the moment, you may need to circle back around and address it again to make sure your friend or family member understands the significance to you. It might take you a good, long time to get to a point where you aren't super emotional. That is okay too. There isn’t a statutory limit on addressing problem areas. That said, here is what you should NOT do. Don’t be angry, let it fester, and then at some point when you are having an argument about a totally different topic, bring it up to stick it to them. That is cowardly and playing dirty. It means that you hadn’t managed to muster up the courage to bring it up before, but you also weren’t willing to let go of it, so it became a booby trap for your unsuspecting friend. It’s not fighting fair, so don’t do that. Take the time you need to calm down, be less angry, andBe Empathetic This can be so difficult in the moment when you feel wronged. After all — how dare they? But in the end, you care about this person or you wouldn’t even bother to go through the trouble of healing the relationship. Generally, people don’t mean to be cruel or neglectful or rude — they are just walking their own journey, which can also be complicated and messy. Give them the benefit of the doubt. If you find that they DID mean to be cruel or neglectful or rude — well, maybe you need to create some distance with this person.