7 Conflict Resolution Techniques That Can Save Your Relationships
This is an excerpt from my book, Needy No More: The Journey From Anxious to Secure Attachment, available exclusively on Amazon now.
“Conflict and abandonment were synonymous to me for a really long time,” a client named Sarah once said to me. I resonated deeply with her statement and the sentiment it contained. I’ve experienced enough instability in my life to know just how often arguments lead to absenteeism. I’ve seen firsthand just how little most people know about fighting fairly. I’ve been up close and personal with enough people to understand how atrophied most of us are when it comes to conflict management and resolution.
What she said also speaks deeply to the experience of an anxious attacher. Conflict can feel incredibly triggering for folks like us, reinforcing our deepest fears and digging up our core wounds. But, as I remind folks all the time, conflict isn’t the end of the relationship; it’s actually the beginning. Disagreements are inevitable. Coming together with another human being will invariably cause friction because your unhealed parts are merging with theirs and trying to coexist. Conflict provides the opportunity to renegotiate the relationship in a healthier and more positive direction for both parties involved. It’s not whether conflict is present but how it’s handled that matters. When handled with intention, presence, and care, disagreements can actually deepen a connection, not dampen it.
There’s a magic ratio that’s present in healthy relationships and absent in unhealthy ones. For every one negative interaction, there must be at least five positive ones. Based on decades of research done at The Gottman Institute on couples who’ve sustained happy, healthy marriages over the long haul, the 5:1 ratio is an essential indicator of whether a relationship tends to last. This should come as a shock to no one. We like to be around folks who are pleasant and enjoyable to be around, and we like to avoid folks who aren’t—especially when it comes to a romantic partner. Connection sustains relationships; conflict drains them.
Below, I detail seven conflict resolution techniques that can help you shore up your relationships. Take these into account as you evaluate how best to repair your connection with anyone in your life. But especially your significant other. If you’re single, consider how you might employ these suggestions with your friends and family, or even your dating prospects. If you’re in a committed romantic partnership, contemplate how these techniques might improve your connection with your significant other. Then put them to use.
Anxious Attachment and Conflict: 7 Ways to Communicate Effectively, Deepen Your Relationship, and Push Through Fear of Abandonment
1. Devise rules of engagement.
In order to have a diplomatic disagreement, both parties need to agree upon exactly what it means to fight fair. That’s what rules of engagement are for. Guidelines for conflict that are agreed upon in advance, rules of engagement set the terms and conditions for disagreements in that particular relationship. Some rules of engagement, such as refraining from raising your voice and doing your best to maintain eye contact, are standard, and things we’ve already covered in the chapters on boundaries and effective communication. That said, do your best not to fall in the trap of automatically assuming that something is standard. If it hasn’t been explicitly agreed upon, then by definition there is no agreement. Additionally, rules of engagement are dynamic and ever-evolving. After major moments of conflict in your relationship, it makes sense to revisit and revise your rules of engagement. Keep in mind, rules of engagement are peacetime agreements, not wartime ones. That means that you need to talk about them proactively, when conflict isn’t present. Do this and watch it transform the way the two of you communicate during conflict.
2. Use safe words.
Whether it’s to denote a triggering situation, to communicate a feeling of overwhelm, or to call for a timeout, safe words can be incredibly effective at de-escalating conflict. Safe words are as bespoke as the relationship in which they’re wielded, and can mean whatever the partners within that relationship have agreed upon. As we discussed with rules of engagement, these are determined in advance of an argument or disagreement.
I’ve had clients who use a safe word to ask for reassurance, enable brutal honesty in the exact moment it’s employed, or flag to their partner that something hurtful has occurred. Keep in mind that every couple approaches safe words differently, and there’s no right or wrong way to use them. You can also select whatever words you’d like, so long as they make sense for the two of you. The word itself isn’t as important as the meaning behind it.
Here’s an example from pop culture that illustrates how to use a safe word. In the show Ted Lasso, it’s revealed that the main character, Ted, and his wife were previously in couples counseling. In that safe space, their therapist encouraged them to use the word “Oklahoma” to denote the necessity to declare the “God's honest truth.” Everytime someone says, “Oklahoma,” both parties are required to say exactly how they’re feeling without filtering their words or trying to spare the other person’s feelings. And the other person is required to hold space for that and do their best not to take things personally. In the show, it becomes so effective that it begins to bleed over into other relationships, such as the one that Ted has with his boss, Rebecca. A testament to the power of safe words, feel free to use “Oklahoma” as a template for how safe words can look in all of your relationships, especially the one with your romantic partner.
3. Recognize that multiple realities can coexist.
During moments of conflict, it’s essential to remember that multiple realities can be, and oftentimes are, simultaneously true. Your perspective is valid, and so is your partner’s. Taking this approach can remove the need to be “right,” as well as reduce the desire to “win” the argument. Rather than one perspective being more accurate than the other, understanding each other’s perspectives becomes the goal. Here are some examples. It can be simultaneously true that you didn’t mean what you said in the heat of the moment, and that it hurt your partner deeply. It can be simultaneously true that you felt abandoned when you didn’t hear back from them for hours, and that they were preoccupied with other tasks and had no intention of making you feel that way. It can be simultaneously true that your partner needs a lot of space and time to themselves in order to process and return to baseline, and that the space and time apart that they take is triggering for you. The benefit of remembering that multiple realities are simultaneously true is that it prioritizes the relationship itself over achieving a victory in that particular argument—over establishing a sense of personal “rightness.” The dialogue becomes less about you versus your partner and more about how each of you can acknowledge the perspective and pain of the other.
4. Utilize The Two Tokens.
Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple executive, came up with a customer service concept called The Two Tokens—the “It’s No Big Deal” token and the “It’s The End Of The World” token. Gassée theorizes that, in any interaction we have in which one or both parties are disappointed or dissatisfied, the two people involved will almost always react in a predictable pattern by selecting opposite tokens. Whichever token you choose, the other person will almost always select the other token, and vice versa.
Here’s an example. Let’s say that your significant other has a work party coming up for which they don’t believe they can bring a guest. As a result, you feel excluded and deprioritized, triggering you and reminding you of what it was like growing up or in your previous relationships. You get upset with them, telling them it’s not fair and pointing out to them that they didn’t even ask their boss if you could come. In this instance, you’ve selected the “It’s The End Of The World” token. They respond by telling you that it’s just a small work event and that no one is bringing their significant other. They’ve clearly selected the “It’s No Big Deal” token.
Here’s how you can use the Two Tokens to your advantage. When someone gets defensive with you—when someone selects the “It’s The End Of The World” token—try agreeing with, acknowledging, and validating them. You can diffuse almost any moment of conflict by saying, “You know what? I hear you. I understand that this is really important to you. How can I help?” In the moment this might feel like condoning their behavior, but it’s actually giving your relationship the lifeline it needs. When someone is triggered, upset, or dysregulated, they won’t be able to have a calm and collected conversation about what’s happening. You know this from personal experience. When you’re triggered, it’s almost impossible to have a productive conversation because your energy is frenetic and you can’t think straight. You’ve gone into survival mode. Your heart starts pounding out your chest, your palms get sweaty, and your breathing gets shallow. Your body feels threatened, and any complex thinking shuts down.
If nervous system dysregulation is met with more dysregulation on the other end, it only exacerbates the situation at hand, and both people continue to spiral downward. The “It’s The End Of The World” token is a representation of that dysregulation. In order for regulation to occur, the nervous system must be met with openness, curiosity, and safety. When it’s not, it only adds fuel to the fire and causes further dysregulation because the nervous system then has confirmation of its reaction.
Only one person gets to use each token at a time. You can use this to your advantage. The next time someone in your life is using the “It’s The End Of The World” token, take their side—take that token, too. What you find might shock you. When you do this, they’ll likely switch to the “It’s No Big Deal” token. In this way, you disarm their dysregulation. You help them feel seen, heard, understood. Regardless of its validity, their perspective gets validated. Isn’t that all we truly want? To know that we’ve made our point, that what we take seriously is being taken seriously by the other person? Take the token that the other person is using and they will automatically take the one that’s left. It’s as simple as that.
5. Practice The Three S’s.
In the context of a relationship, there are only three things we can offer someone. At any given time, we can provide them with space, support, or solutions. When it comes to granting someone space, we offer them the opportunity to regroup in solitude, without our interference. As anxious attachers, we typically don’t take enough space, as this isn’t second-nature to us, though it can help tremendously with better understanding and getting in touch with our feelings. This is a growth opportunity for us. Giving someone support, on the other hand, means hearing them out, validating how they feel, and offering your presence as a companion while they work through whatever’s happening on their end. Offering up solutions means giving advice and offering your perspective, helping them to take action to better navigate their situation.
So much of conflict and disagreement boils down to not feeling seen, heard, or understood. A lot of times, those feelings arise because someone we care about is trying to give us something other than what it is we truly desire and need, and we feel invalidated and misunderstood as a result. The Three S’s are here to help.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you return home from a hard day at the office. You open up to your partner about a situation with your boss. Immediately, your partner offers unsolicited advice for how to handle the situation and thus relieve the discomfort you’re experiencing. If you were looking for advice—for solutions—then you’ll feel heard and understood. If you were looking for your partner to hear you out and validate your feelings—to offer support—then you’ll feel invalidated and misunderstood.
Here’s another example that crops up all the time in the relationship between someone with an anxious attachment style and someone with an avoidant one. Let’s say the avoidant partner encounters a challenging situation with a sibling. As is often the case, they get triggered and need space and time by themselves to process and return to baseline. As the anxious attacher, you’re left in the dark, feeling anxious at their absence and helpless to aid them. You reach out and offer support, only to be met by more silence and space from your avoidant partner, causing you to get triggered. What you fail to realize in that moment, though, is that your partner doesn’t need or want your support. They need their space. Not honoring that need feels invalidating to the avoidant partner and makes them shut down even more. Stalemate.
The best way to utilize the Three S’s is to ask your partner what they need from you at that time. When your partner shares something with you, before responding, it’s always most effective to ask, “Are you looking for space, support, or solutions from me?” Wait for their answer. And respect it. Don’t try to change their mind or force your preference onto them.
Another way to describe the Three S’s is as the Three H’s: Healing time, a hug, and a helping hand. In this interpretation, healing time represents space, a hug represents support, and a helping hand represents solutions. Either way, these three offerings remain. Try interpreting your partner’s requests in this way and see if you can identify their underlying need. When in doubt, ask them to self-identify. Put this powerful framework to use for you and see how it improves all of the relationships in your life.
6. Check in proactively and regularly.
One of the best ways to address conflict is to prevent it before it happens. Checking in consistently and proactively with one another can help do just that. Some folks I’ve coached have weekly check-ins with their partner, where each of them express what they feel is going well and what could stand to improve in their relationship. Others check in every other week or once a month. The cadence isn’t as important as the clarity these check-ins provide, though more communication is rarely a bad thing and often helps clear the air. Use these as an opportunity to connect and release—to diffuse any conflict before it can bubble up and boil over. In order for these check-ins to be most effective, make listening the goal and creating a safe space to be heard the priority. And watch them bring back and sustain the intimacy between you both.
7. Continue to date one another.
A lack of feeling connected to a romantic partner is one of the primary reasons that moments of conflict and disagreement arise. That includes not feeling heard or understood, a lack of physical or emotional intimacy, and feeling like you’re not a priority to your partner. We tend to experience these feelings when day to day life takes over, when the relationship hits a plateau or gets into a slump. An effective way to counter these feelings is to continue dating one another. The more consistent each of you are about carving out time for the relationship, the more you’ll each feel prioritized, heard, and connected. And the less likely each of you will be to nit-pick, criticize, judge, and project. Connection is the antidote to conflict. Create it through regular romance and consistent dates just like at the beginning of your courtship. The longer you’ve been together, the more important this becomes. Be sure to make it a priority. Trust me when I say you’ll be glad you did. It feels a lot better to date your mate than diffuse a bomb. Spend your time and energy wisely.
Further Notes on Conflict Resolution
From safe words to The Two Tokens and from acknowledging one another’s realities to The Three S’s, there are myriad conflict resolution techniques to consider employing in all your relationships, especially those that are romantic in nature. But remember this: No matter the technique, their end goal is the same—to enable both partners to feel seen and heard, understood and appreciated. In other words, they serve to increase connection. Here are some additional tips that can help you do the same:
Always ask for more of what you want instead of less of what you don’t. Trust me when I say that this will change your relationships—for good.
Express appreciation first. Too many of us rush to criticism. Before talking about what you feel needs improvement, I find it helpful to acknowledge the things that are already going well. People are much more likely to make adjustments when they feel their current efforts are recognized—and appreciated. Appreciation is the currency of connection.
Take accountability when you make a mistake, even if it was unintentional. Drop the need to defend your intentions and instead validate the other person’s feelings. They need acknowledgement, not an explanation.
When apologizing, be specific about the hurt you caused and how you plan to be more mindful in the future. Don’t give an overgeneral apology such as, “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” Drill down to what you did that specifically caused the other person harm. Recognize the role you played and own up to doing better in the future.
A final note on conflict: There may be some disagreements that are never resolved, core issues that regardless of technique can’t or won’t be reconciled. Please know that this is not only common, it’s natural. Do your best to center a sense of safety and connection rather than someone being “right”and someone else being “wrong.” Fundamental differences can coexist without needing to be changed in order for the relationship to function and be fruitful.
They aren’t you and you aren’t them. That’s the beauty in all of this.
To preview even more content from Needy No More, check out these posts:
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