Relationship Conflict: Where Does It Come From and How Do You Fix It?

If you linger long enough in a relationship, conflict is sure to arise from one source or another. This reality isn’t something to balk at, nor should it be discouraging. Conflict is simply a part of life on this side of Eden. The question is not whether relationship conflict will happen in a given situation or relationship; it’s when it will occur, and what you will do about it when it does show up.

Since conflict is a possibility in every relationship, understanding what conflict is, how it springs up in a relationship, and knowing how best to address it constructively will help you glean the benefits of relationship conflict while avoiding the pitfalls.

What is relationship conflict, and how does it work?

As you approach conflict, it’s good to know what it is and how it works. Conflict is often labeled as a disagreement of one sort or another. However, it may help to go a bit deeper. Conflict is more than just a disagreement because what’s happening is that the two people caught up in the situation are perceiving a threat to themselves that needs to be dealt with.

This is the case whether the threat is real or not, but it’s important to see that conflict has a somewhat existential element to it. If something threatens you, you try to deal with it quickly and forcefully. This can be problematic if you’re seeing your spouse as a threat.

Because conflict arises where there’s the perception of a threat, it’s important to recognize that perceptions and reality don’t always line up. The facts of a situation may upend your perception, but that perception can powerfully shape how you respond in the moment.

Your perceptions are shaped by a variety of things, including your culture, beliefs, cherished values, and life experiences. Conflicts trigger strong emotions, and these also feed into how you perceive a situation.

When two people in a relationship have a conflict, it’s important to address that conflict instead of ignoring it. A conflict is a bit like a wound; it affects your well-being, and just because you ignore it, that doesn’t mean that it will go away.

In fact, wounds that are ignored tend to fester and are more difficult to heal. Conflict arises when there’s a perceived threat to one’s survival and well-being, and until you resolve the situation, the feeling of being under threat remains and affects how you interact with the other person.

Conflict can be tough to handle, particularly the strong emotions that come with it. It requires one to be able to handle those emotions well for successful resolution of conflict, and when one manages that, it’s possible to look at conflicts as an opportunity for growth.

Working through issues well can help to build trust, and it buoys your level of confidence in the relationship because you’ve indicated that you’re able to handle challenges and difficulties in the relationship.

Why does conflict arise in a relationship?

Knowing how conflicts arise can help you in dealing effectively with them, and in reducing the number of opportunities for misunderstandings. This doesn’t mean that conflict will be eliminated, but that you’ll understand better where it’s coming from, and that can help in resolving conflict quickly and effectively.

Each person has their own needs, wants, hopes, desires, motivations, dreams, perceptions of reality, values, and so on. When we interact with one another, these different, and sometimes opposing realities, can bring about disagreements. Whether the differences are large or small, conflict arises when someone else’s differences seem like they pose a threat to you or to your needs. Conflict triggers strong feelings because one perceives it as though their safety, security, respect, value, or other needs such as intimacy, are under threat somehow.

When a person feels that they or their needs are under threat from another person, the instinctive response is to defend themselves, often by attacking whoever may be posing the threat. When you don’t understand each other and your respective needs, arguments can arise and they have the potential of destroying a relationship.

Instead, any relationship can benefit from people growing in their ability to not only recognize their own and the other person’s needs but can do so compassionately and with a willingness to resolve any differences creatively.

How you respond to conflict matters

As long as people are wired differently from one another, the potential for conflict remains. However, this shouldn’t make you hesitate to enter meaningful relationships with others, nor should you seek to avoid conflict. Some people fear conflict, and they view it as inherently unhealthy, humiliating, or even demoralizing. This may stem from certain life experiences, including:

• Painful memories of conflict, or resulting from conflict, from early childhood or previous unhealthy relationships.
• Bad past experiences that make you expect that all disagreements will end badly.
• Past experiences that have traumatized you and left you feeling like all conflict makes you out of control or powerless.

Your life may have been marred by negative experiences of conflict, but being afraid of conflict and then trying to avoid it will most likely end in further unhealthy conflict.

Your needs, desires, and fears don’t disappear, but instead of addressing any disagreements head-on, avoiding them only masks the problem and makes you enter the situation already feeling under threat and thus more likely to either respond in anger or shut down entirely. Avoiding conflict only succeeds in compounding the problem.

There are some important differences to note between healthy and unhealthy responses to conflict. If you’re afraid of conflict, then it’s more than likely that you’ve been exposed to unhealthy responses and forms of conflict, and you need to understand what healthy conflict is and grow in appreciation of it. A healthy response to conflict includes the following:

• Holding the belief that dealing with conflict openly is best.
• Being calm, respectful, and non-defensive.
• Empathizing with the other person and their perspective.
• Being willing to reach a workable compromise.
• Avoiding attempts to punish the other person.
• A willingness to forgive the other person to get rid of any resentment that could build up.

On the other side, some unhealthy responses to conflict include:

• Avoiding conflict, or assuming the worst and assuming a negative outcome.
• Not being able to empathize or discern the other person’s need or perspective.
• An unwillingness to compromise.
• Withdrawing your love and affection from the other person by rejecting, isolating, shaming, or humiliating the other person.
• Letting anger and resentment take the lead.

Your response to conflict can be either healthy or unhealthy, and that can make the difference between the successful resolution of conflict, or deepening the conflict to the point where the relationship breaks down entirely.

Christian Counseling to Help Handle Relationship Conflict

In any relationship, some level of conflict is unavoidable. Have you ever found yourself arguing with yourself? If you can’t even agree with yourself about everything, why would you agree with everything that another, completely separate person, thinks, feels, and does?

The question is not whether you’ll have conflict in your relationship, but whether you’ve positioned yourselves to reduce conflict and handle conflict well. Someone once said that conflict simply means that you’re married; it’s part of the territory.

Conflict isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it can be a good thing. The key is not to be afraid of or try to avoid conflict but to learn how to resolve it in a healthy way. Christian counseling can help you gain a healthy appreciation for conflict by working through the ways conflict affects a relationship.

For instance, conflict forces a couple to gain a new perspective of one another, and it helps them examine a problematic situation and work toward a solution. This can deepen the relationship as you share your thoughts and needs with each other. They get to know you better, and you get to know them better as well.

Additionally, resolving conflicts successfully allows you to work together toward achieving your other relationship goals. If you’re mired in conflict, it’s difficult to work together in other areas to meet your common goals.

Your counselor can help you grow in your ability to handle conflict in a healthy way. They can walk with you to help you learn how to better control your emotions so that you can communicate your needs without the need to intimidate or threaten others. Additionally, other goals that your counselor can help you achieve include:

• Helping you learn to listen attentively to the feelings and needs being expressed.
• Becoming more aware of differences between you, and learning how to respect those differences by avoiding any disrespectful actions or words which often only escalate conflict unnecessarily.
• Helping you stay calm and alert enough to read and properly understand emotional cues as well as verbal and nonverbal communication.

If there is a lot of conflict in your relationship, or if you find that you’re avoiding conflict in your relationship, you may derive much benefit in speaking with a counselor about it.