Ten Commandments For Dealing With Relationship Conflicts

These guidelines address relationship conflicts and focus only on simple attitudes and behaviors. While we often forget to reflect on these issues, they can really make the difference between resolving a conflict and making it worse.

Even if you really want to get along with your partner 100% of the time, there will be conflicts in the relationship sooner or later. It is inevitable and healthy. Conflict is an opportunity for analysis and decision making.

Some couples seem to argue constantly, jumping from one conflict to another, but they feel they love each other enough to stay together. Perhaps the only problem is that they have not learned how to deal with relationship conflicts.

There are some basic guidelines that should be kept in mind when dealing with relationship conflicts. These recommendations are common sense and clear, but that doesn’t mean they come naturally. It is easy to behave illogically in a relationship. It often leads to unresolved conflicts. If you do not follow these instructions, the “solution” you make may not work for both parties.

Everyone has conflicts in a relationship.

1. Calm down before you communicate or make decisions

Anger and impulsivity can damage a relationship really quickly.

However, you can teach yourself to remain quiet and calm while waiting for the anger to pass. By doing this, you can avoid many negative consequences.

2. Doubt

Not many things are certain in this life. Thus, it is important to doubt in a healthy way everything you believe to be true. Don’t automatically believe your own version of the story.

Let your partner explain his or her reasons, intentions, and actions. Open your mind to try to understand the perspectives of others. Understanding is an investment with a very high rate of return.

3. Talk honestly about your feelings

One way to deal with relationship conflicts is to focus more on how you feel than on what you think. Talking about emotions is liberating.

When you speak from your heart, you encourage understanding and strengthen the bond with your partner.

4. Do not shout or use verbal violence

Shouting and verbal violence fuel conflicts and disrespect. On a whim, it’s easy to forget how damaging it can be, but it has serious and long-term consequences.

Shouting and numbness seem to the other party the green light to do the same for you. Over time, this will push you apart and annoy you both.

5. Take responsibility for yourself

People tend to blame others for their actions. It’s easy to blame your partner for the way you act, just as if he or she were in control of your behavior.

A better and more mature reaction is to take responsibility for your own part in the conflict. However, blaming the other party will never resolve anything.

6. Do not make a victim

Making yourself a victim never helps, especially when dealing with relationship conflicts. When you make a victim, it means that your partner becomes a bully. This false dichotomy distorts the reality of the situation. Things are never black and white.

The roles of victim and bully give the other party imaginative powers and make the other a child. This only confuses the situation.

7. Listen quietly

When you are quiet, you can work on your internal dialogue. More importantly, a good and fruitful conversation requires silence.

Interrupting a partner causes a lot of tension. It’s annoying and shows a desire to bring out your own will in the conversation. Try to limit your comments and give the other party plenty of time to talk.

8. Focus on solutions

Relationship conflicts are much easier to deal with when both have a positive and constructive attitude. It can act as a difference between a fruitful discussion that produces possible solutions and an outrage on the minds of both parties. If the weight shifts to problem solving, the conflict will end sooner rather than later.

9. You cannot go back in time

If one or both of you continue the list of complaints, it will be difficult for you to move on and deal with the conflict. That’s because you tend to bring out the violations of the past as a defense mechanism for something happening in the present.

You need balance to be able to deal with relationship conflicts and clinging to old wounds upsets that balance.

10. Intimidation is a serious matter

If your partner threatens to leave you or hurt you, it is mental violence. Such threats sometimes “work” momentarily in keeping the other party in a relationship, but they are never the right solutions.

Threats in a relationship mean that one party wins and the other loses, which is probably the worst possible outcome of the argument.

It is also important to let go of resentment. Sometimes a relationship is forgiven and sometimes forgiven. Everyone makes mistakes and deserves the opportunity to fix things and say “I’m sorry”.