Compromise

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You may buy into the idea that compromising is always the easiest and best way to resolve a conflict. Sometimes that may be true, as when a compromise involves sharing a piece of pie; other times, however, it may prove more challenging, as when you must set up a schedule for using a jointly owned computer or split the cost of some shared item with a roommate or neighbor. With most compromises, both sides give up a little to gain a little.

Compromises can be arrived at through trading, whereby one partner offers something of equal value in return for something he or she wants. Separated parents who must navigate joint custody arrangements might strike compromises regarding time spent with their children: Maggie offers Sean extra weekends with their boys in the spring if he’ll let her have them for Christmas for the second year in a row.

Other options might include random selection (for example, Maggie and Sean could flip a coin to decide who gets the kids for Christmas) or, when appropriate and practical, a vote (having the kids weigh in on where they want to go and when).

The advantage of compromise is that it lets you and the other person quickly resolve or avert a conflict by agreeing on a decision-making method. However, important relationships can suffer if the people involved are always making compromises. That’s because compromising means giving up some of what you want, even though you’re getting a little of something else in return. After a while, that can get tiresome. With romantic partners, close friends, and family members, it often feels better to come up with more creative, thoughtful approaches to ongoing conflicts that lead to “win-win” resolutions.

¹ Research on conflict types has been conducted in the communication field for many years, and many terms are given for the types you will read about in this section. An excellent source that describes these conflict types (using many different terms) is the comprehensive review by Oetzel and Ting-Toomey (2006).