A Therapist’s Guide to Finally Conquering Your Fear of Conflict
A five-step plan
As a therapist, I am good at managing emotions. Well, more precisely, I’m good at helping my clients learn to manage emotions. I’m much less successful with some of my own — especially when my emotions interact with another person’s.
I am deeply terrified of conflict. Throughout my life, I’ve done everything in my power to hide from it: I’d avoid friends or family members for days, hoping whatever issue we were dealing with would just fizzle away. And then I fell in love with someone who does not share these tendencies — at all.
Scenarios between my partner and I often play out like this: Something upsets him. He approaches me to discuss it, but as soon as I sense conflict looming, I freeze, unable to speak. He interprets my reaction as disinterest or manipulation, which leaves him feeling unheard and frustrated. I see this and become even more afraid and thus even more silent. The harder he tries to communicate how upset he is, the more aggressed upon I feel and the more panicked and frozen I become. Eventually, I escape, sometimes by literally fleeing the apartment.
Our differences likely stem from our upbringings: My partner grew up in a household where conflict was seen as a natural part of life while I came from a family where…
