Fear of Conflict is Rooted in a Fear of Loss
 
By Frank Kermit
 
Are you too nice when it comes to relationships? Do you walk on eggshells because you do not want to upset your partner? Are you reluctant to enforce your boundaries with someone you care about? Are you afraid of the confrontations that would result if you communicated how you felt, even if you communicated in a compassionate and effective manner? Chances are you have a fear of conflict.
 
There are very few things more devastating to the potential for long-term relationship success than a fear of conflict. Supplicating to your partner, or anyone for that matter, when your boundaries are crossed will more than likely lead to certain consequences such as building resentment. In time, building resentment needs a release, and this is where the stereotype of the nice person going "postal" comes from. Eventually, all that resentment finally comes out in one full on explosion of emotion, and the people around that person, never saw the rage coming, because that person has always been so accommodating (read: nice) about things. As far as everyone else was concerned, there was never any issue to be worried about, because the person who is too nice, never identified the conflicts he or she was experiencing.
 
Furthermore, another side effect of a fear of conflict can be the bad habit of lying. Lies and lies and more lies, each one to help cover the last one, all in the name of trying to avoid a conflict. Not everyone who fears conflicts lies; however, some do. This is a very bad habit to be in. It gets especially bad when people convince themselves that they are lying to "spare the other person any anguish". Although the liars really do believe, and strongly convince themselves, they are lying for the good of others, the liars will only be able to break this repeating behavior pattern when they can admit they lie to help themselves avoid potential conflicts.
 
THIS is the reason that people who are too nice in relationships often find themselves not easily earning the trust of their lovers. Experience will teach many a partner to be wary of those people that come across as too nice, because new partners will be suspicious about when the next explosion of rage may hit. Caught in the crossfire are people who are very nice, but who are not afraid of conflict. The sad part is that real nice people tend to turn off high quality partners, and attract those people who are in the habit of taking advantage of nice people. Those actual nice people can sometimes feel a sense of frustration because they cannot understand why things continue to not work out in relationships.
 
At the root of fear of conflict is a fear of loss. It has nothing to do with the fear of losing an argument that the conflict might spark. It has to do with how a person will imagine they will be abandoned if they bring the conflict to light. Some people fear conflict because they are worried that having a conflict with someone they care about, might in fact, bring about the end of the relationship. Depending on what the conflict is, the cost of enforcing a boundary could very well be the relationship. In other cases, it is not the conflict that will end the relationship, but a person's inability to handle intense emotions that the conflict brings out. If the person with the conflict is not comfortable with intense emotions, they may bring up the conflict in the only way they know how, which is likely very un-calibrated and comes across as angry, and not a calm discussion.
 
Some people are reluctant to learning to accept conflicts as a part of life because they are afraid that it will cause them to see nothing but conflicts everywhere they look. I attempt to explain to people that conflicts do not just manifest out of thin air. Those conflicts were ALWAYS there and it is just that learning the ability to mange a fear of conflict, also gives the gift of developing a talent to spot conflicts that you previously did not read as conflict signals.
 
For example, part of learning to deal with a fear of conflict is to identify your deal breakers and boundaries. Once you know where your boundaries are, then you will see all those places where your boundaries are violated (thus seeing the signals of conflicts). Until you know yourself enough to be able to articulate your boundaries, you will be unable to manage your fear of conflict because you will not be able to properly put your finger on where the conflict actually exists.
 
The Irony is that you are much more likely to lose what you have if you do not allow for conflicts to surface. People who are too scared to talk it out because they are scared to lose a partner, inevitably end up in situations where they are unable to feel trust in their partners (or vice-versa) because of the silent resentment that slowly builds between them.
 
Resentment kills intimacy. If you have conflicts, you MUST communicate and work them out; otherwise, those conflicts will kill any potential that you would have originally had to make your relationships successful. To summarize, a relationship that cannot handle conflict is a relationship that is destined for doom.
 
Frank Kermit 

 
Handling The Truth About Relationships
Is All About Handling The Truth About Human Beings
By Frank Kermit
Originally published July 19, 2018, updated April 20, 2018


When someone asks to learn the single most important thing that I can think of that would ensure they have the best chance of making long term relationships succeed, time and again, when going through the practice of relationship coaching, that single most important element that keeps coming up is:


A Persons Ability To Handle Truth.


The willingness to listen to the truth about your relationship situation and handling the truth in a mature and reasonable manner can be the key difference between a long term marriage-‘til-death-do-you-part or a quickie-divorce. It is that key.


Frank's Rule of Honesty is that people will only tend to be as honest with you as much as you give the image of what you can handle.


If you present yourself as someone that will not be able to handle the truth, or you have a reputation of freaking out when you hear a truth that you do not like, it is pretty well guaranteed that you have taught the people around you that it is in their best interest, and yours, for them to lie to you when they can.


During my own personal development, something that I learned when I wanted to encourage honesty from others is that I taught myself how to handle truth.

Meaning,

that regardless of how bad the news, I would hold off acting on any emotion until I could be alone later.

So when I get told really shocking news, I do withdraw, but I do not act out and explode.

This has been KEY in getting people to talk to me with their truths.

I don't promise not to get mad, I just promise not to act on that anger right away.

I control the behavior, not the emotion.
It has strengthened my connections with others.

Succeeding at making long term relationships work can depend greatly on being the kind of person that people felt they could be completely honest about regarding their secrets, their vulnerabilities and their sexual histories.

If you can make people feel that safe with you, then you will always be in a position to know the truth of your relationship situation, and that is what puts you in control of being able to manage your relationships, and the potential threats to it.

You can never allow yourself to be in the position to fear truth. When it comes to the truth about your relationship, you simply must learn to handle things that you likely would rather not want to hear.

For example, a truth in relationships that most people would rather not acknowledge is that even if you are happily involved with someone in a serious and exclusive relationship, you are STILL going to be attracted to other people.

It has NOTHING to do with how much the partners love each other.

It has nothing to do with how the partners treat one another.

It only has to do with basic sexual orientation.

If a person had the capacity to feel attracted to and/or fall in love with a human being once, they will likely do so again and again, no matter what they have committed too.

To be clear, we are talking about how you do not control how you feel (attraction for another person that is not your partner) which is a completely separate issue from acting on that attraction if you have made a commitment not to act on them.

Now, let’s take that example and see what is the real dangerous.

Some people feel that expressing to your partner that you are attracted to another person is a direct threat to that relationship.

Actually, it is not.

It is just a truth about your relationship.

The FEAR of expressing yourself to your partner, or the fear of your partner expressing a truth to you, is the real threat to your relationship.

It is those couples that understand that knowing the truth, no matter how much it can ding the ego, is always the best means of helping to preserve the relationship, that have the best chance of lasting through the rough times together.

Relationship Skills Mastery, at its core, is the embracement of the full truth about your partner and yourself.

Relationships based on intellectual constructs and ideals, which prevent couples from being completely honest with each other about how they are feeling, is the real danger.

It is in those omissions of truth that the cracks in the foundations of the trust that is the basis of a relationship may start the tower of love to crumble.

Although many people claim they want a partner who will be honest, a number of those same people simply cannot handle a partner being honest.

(How often do you actually tell a partner if that outfit makes them look fat?).

Don't ask for the truth if you cannot handle it.

If you really want honesty, be strong enough to take it.

This is the real world.

There is no having it both ways.

If you ask for honesty but you react out of control, like you cannot handle honesty well, you are going to train everyone to start lying to you.

Sorry, but you need to keep things in perspective.

If you are losing yourself in your rage,
you will destroy everything you love.


Frank Kermit

 

The Attraction Theory
Originally published July 18, 2018, updated April 20, 2018
By Frank Kermit
 

There is an attraction theory that states,


"How you do one thing,

is representative of how you do

all other things."
 

Although this particular theory is not realistic and cannot be applied across the board in any tangible and measureable way, it does have some merit when it comes to the Emotional Interpretations.

Basically, the theory claims that if you are looking for signs as to what kind of partner someone would be for you in a relationship, look at how a person conducts him or her self, to give you an idea, of what kind of partner someone would make.
 

On some level, this does make sense, as people generally are their repeating behavior patterns.

Someone whose repeating behavior pattern is to lie, lie and lie some more, may be very incapable of being honest with anyone, including the people he or she dates.
 
On the other hand, the theory that how you do one thing represents how you do all things is not correct when it comes to all things.

How someone acts in one context may be very specific to that context.

Just because someone puts in the time to take care of her health, does not mean she will put time into taking care of her family connections.

Just because someone makes the extra effort at his job, does not mean they will be able to put in that same effort in managing his own business.

In both those examples, there could be extraneous circumstances to explain how one behavior does not represent a predictable behavior in another context.
 

For example, the woman in the above example may be overly preoccupied with her appearance such that she focuses on her own health and beauty, and does not focus on the emotional fulfillment of her family, and the man in the example works hard because he responds to authority checking up on him, but would not be assertive for himself if no one is there to scold him for being less pro-active.

 
However, when it comes to dating, many people look for those “signs” that someone is meant to be your best potential soul mate.


They look at status symbols that may include education level, wealth, social connections, and even wearing white after Labor Day, none of which is a direct indicator of how well someone treats a partner in a relationship.

 
Those “signs” can serve as indicators of some kind of significance, but if you really want to safeguard yourself from being mislead by “signs”, then remember this one point:

How someone treats you must be your most important criteria.

If you plan to have children, or already have children, then your most important criteria should also include an analysis of what kind of parent someone would be.
 
Frank Kermit

Ultimatums In Love
By Frank Kermit
 
Ultimatums can come up in any and all relationships. Even the best relationships can face a crisis point where an ultimatum is necessary and uttered.
 
Ultimatums are not pleasant, neither for the person issuing it, nor for the person on the receiving end of it.

However, if a relationship can get past the ultimatum, and resolve the crisis point, it can be one of the hurdles that will help the relationship survive into the future.

 
An ultimatum is NOT a sign that you are with the wrong partner.

If you find yourself in a position where you feel the need to issue an ultimatum to your partner, it tends to be a sign that you have not communicated your needs and boundaries directly enough.
 
This is especially the case when the resentment or the desire to make the ultimatum has been brewing for quite some time.

I often find in my practice that those people who fall into the category of "people pleasers" tend to shy away from conflict and then, after the frustration builds up, will explode with anger and ultimatums, in part because, the build up became so overwhelming it was too painful not to deal with their fear of conflict.
 
If these individuals would have communicated with their partners as the issues came up, instead of shying away from discussing topics that may be momentarily unpleasant, the entire blow up process may have never come to pass.
 
Some of the more common ultimatums that I see in my practice are with couples that are either struggling to move to the next level of commitment (becoming exclusive, start living together, getting engaged, setting the wedding date, having children) or those couples that are facing some kind of perceived threat (staying in touch with an ex who will not give up trying to rekindle).
 
However, an ultimatum can be about anything that one partner seriously requires a change with that without complying with said ultimatum, might bring about the desire to end the relationship.

Some couples want a partner to take better care of health issues (like quitting drugs) and others demand a change in lifestyle, and even a move to a completely different home.

 
The ultimatum itself is actually less important than the way it is communicated.
 

If you are going to issue an ultimatum, be sure to stay calm, be direct, be clear and firm about what you need changed and why it is very important to you.

No screaming, no name calling, no personal attacks.
 
Start off by telling your partner that you want to set aside some time to talk about something important to you and to schedule it when you feel your partner would be most receptive (such as a Saturday night after a day of rest, instead of a Monday morning just before a big presentation at work).
 
If you are on the receiving end of an ultimatum, be sure to stay calm, listen, ask questions to be sure you are clear about what your partner needs and why it is important, listen some more, and leave your ego at the door as much as you can.
 
Even if your partner is not saying it in a way that you are happy about, try to put your compassion for your partner ahead of your offended ego.

When your partner is communicating an ultimatum to you, your partner is in fact acting like your best friend.

Your partner is giving you a full chance to take control of a situation by bringing his or her discontentment to your attention.
 
This is actually much better than a partner deciding not to confront you, and potentially doing something behind your back out of emotional vengeance, or simply surprising you with a break up, without ever giving your relationship a chance.

That is why you have to be grateful for the ultimatum, even if you despise what you may be hearing.
 
Now, what if you and your partner have reached an impasse?

What if the ultimatum is about something that you either are not sure is a good idea to agree too, or if it is something that is completely against your value system.
 
For example, your partner cannot abide any longer having your aging and ill health parent live in the same house as your family, but you do not want to relocate your parent to a special care senior’s residence.

What do you do then, when your values have reached a crisis point of incompatibility?
 
In situations like this, it is often a good idea to seek out the help of a professional who can offer an objective point of view and can assess if anyone is being unreasonable.
 
Frank Kermit