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You and your mother suffer a disagreement that threatens to tear your family apart. So you text her and schedule a lunch date. Sitting down face-to-face, you both express love and admiration for each other, and you agree that the conflict should be resolved in a mutually satisfying fashion. You then collaboratively brainstorm ideas, and voila!—the perfect solution is discovered! You smile, hug, and part ways, each feeling satisfied with the relationship and contented with the resolution.

Yeah, right. If only resolving conflict could be so easy! Unfortunately, conflict in close relationships is rarely (if ever) as streamlined and stress-free as cooperative partners joining forces to reconcile surmountable differences. Instead, close relationship conflict is typically fraught with challenges. Let’s take a look at some of the most potent: self-enhancing thoughts, destructive messages, serial arguments, physical violence, and unsolvable disputes.

SELF-ENHANCING THOUGHTS

Arguably the biggest challenge we face in constructively managing conflict is our own minds. During conflicts, we think in radically self-enhancing ways. In a detailed study of conflict thought patterns, scholar Alan Sillars and his colleagues found that during disputes, individuals selectively remember information that supports themselves and contradicts their partners, view their own communication more positively than their partners’, and blame partners for failure to resolve the conflict (Sillars, Roberts, Leonard, & Dun, 2000).

Sillars and his colleagues also found little evidence of complex thought. While conflicts are unfolding, people typically do not consider long-term outcomes (“How is this going to impact our relationship?”) and do not perspective-take (“How is she feeling?”). Instead, their thoughts are locked into simple, unqualified, and negative views: “He’s lying!” or “She’s blaming me!” (Sillars et al., 2000, p. 491). In only 2 percent of cases did respondents attribute cooperativeness to their partners and uncooperativeness to themselves. This means that in 98 percent of fights, you’ll likely think, “I’m trying to be helpful, and my partner is being unreasonable!” However, your partner will be thinking the exact same thing about you.

Self-enhancing thoughts dominate conflict encounters, stifling the likelihood of collaboration. Consequently, the most important thing you can do to improve your conflict-management skills is to routinely practice critical self-reflection during disputes. Although you might not ever achieve objectivity or neutrality in your thoughts, you can work toward this goal by regularly going through this mental checklist:

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DESTRUCTIVE MESSAGES

Think back to the chapter opener when Amy Chua had a fight with Lulu in a restaurant. They both were so irate that they said horrible and unforgivable things to each other. When conflicts escalate and anger peaks, our minds are filled with negative thoughts of all the grievances and resentments we feel toward others (Sillars et al., 2000). These thoughts often leap out of our mouths, in the form of messages that permanently damage our relationships (McCornack & Husband, 1986).

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Sudden-death statements occur when people get so angry that they suddenly declare the end of the relationship, even though breaking up wasn’t a possibility before the conflict. When my wife, Kelly, and I had been married for two years, we had a major argument while visiting her parents. A small dispute over family differences quickly escalated into a full-blown conflict. After flinging a number of kitchen-sink messages at each other, we both shouted, “Why are we even together?! We’re so different!” Fortunately, this sudden-death statement caused us to calm down. But many couples who blurt out such things during escalation follow through on them.

Perhaps the most destructive messages are dirty secrets: statements that are honest in content, have been kept hidden to protect a partner’s feelings, and are designed to hurt. Dirty secrets can include acts of infidelity (“I cheated, and it was great!”). They can also include intense criticism of a partner’s appearance (“You know how I’ve always said I like your nose? Well, I hate it!”), and even a lack of feelings (“I haven’t been in love with you for years!”). Dirty secrets are designed to hurt, and because the content is true, they can irreparably damage the recipient and the relationship.

Needless to say, destructive messages can destroy relationships. Couples who exchange critical and contemptuous messages during the first seven years of marriage are more likely to divorce than couples who refrain from such negativity (Gottman & Levenson, 2000). Thus, no matter your level of anger or the caustic thoughts that fill your head, it’s essential to always communicate toward your partner in a civil, respectful fashion.

SERIAL ARGUMENTS

Another conflict challenge we face in close relationships is serial arguments: a series of unresolved disputes, all having to do with the same issue (Bevan, Finan, & Kaminsky, 2008). Serial arguments typically stem from deep disagreements, such as differing relationship expectations or clashes in values and beliefs. By definition, serial arguments occur over time and consist of cycles in which things “heat up” and then lapse back into a temporary state of truce (Malis & Roloff, 2006). During these “quiet” periods, individuals are likely to think about the conflict, attempt to repair the relationship, and cope with the stress resulting from the most recent fight (Malis & Roloff, 2006).

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According to the serial argument process model, the course that serial arguments take is determined by the goals individuals possess, the approaches they adopt for dealing with the conflict, and the consequent perception of whether or not the conflict is resolvable (Bevan, 2014). Specifically, when individuals in close relationships enter into serial arguments with positive goals, such as “creating a mutual understanding” or “constructively conveying relationship concerns,” they’re more likely to use collaborative conflict strategies for dealing with the argument (Bevan, 2014, p. 774). As a result, the conflict is more likely to be perceived as eventually resolvable in the aftermath, and people are less likely to ruminate about it. In contrast, when individuals enter into serial arguments with goals such as “gaining power over the partner” or “personally wounding the partner in order to win,” they’re more likely to use competitive strategies, the conflict is more likely to be perceived as unresolvable, and they’re more likely to stew about it afterwards.

Serial arguments are most likely to occur in romantic and family involvements, in which the frequency of interaction provides ample opportunity for repetitive disagreements (Bevan et al., 2008). They are also strongly predictive of relationship failure: couples who suffer serial arguments experience higher stress levels and are more likely to have their relationships end than those who don’t (Malis & Roloff, 2006).

Although many serial arguments involve heated verbal battles, others take the form of a demand-withdraw pattern, in which one partner in a relationship demands that his or her goals be met, and the other partner responds by withdrawing from the encounter (Caughlin, 2002). Demand-withdraw patterns are typically triggered when a person is bothered by a repeated source of irritation, but doesn’t confront the issue until his or her anger can no longer be suppressed. At that point, the person explodes in a demanding fashion (Malis & Roloff, 2006).

If you find yourself in a close relationship in which a demand-withdraw pattern has emerged, discuss this situation with your partner. Using a collaborative approach, critically examine the forces that trigger the pattern, and work to generate solutions that will enable you to avoid the pattern in the future.

PHYSICAL VIOLENCE

The most destructive conflict challenge is physical violence, a strategy to which people may resort if they cannot think of a better way to deal with conflict or if they believe no other options are available (Klein, 1998). In the National Violence Against Women Survey (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), 52 percent of women and 66 percent of men reported that at some time in their lives they had been physically assaulted during conflicts. Both men and women use violence as a strategy for dealing with conflicts. Approximately 12 percent of women and 11 percent of men surveyed reported having committed a violent act during conflict with their spouse in the preceding year (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 1997). Moreover, in an analysis of data from 82 violence studies, researcher John Archer found no substantial difference between men and women in their propensity toward violence as a conflict strategy (2000). At the same time, however, women are substantially more likely to be injured or killed, owing to their lesser physical size and strength (Archer, 2000; O’Leary & Vivian, 1990). Physical violence doesn’t restrict itself to heterosexual relationships; nearly 50 percent of lesbian and 30 to 40 percent of gay respondents have been victims of violence during interpersonal conflicts at some time in their lives (Peplau & Spalding, 2000).

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One outcome of physical violence in close relationships is the chilling effect, whereby individuals stop discussing relationship issues out of fear of their partners’ negative reactions (Solomon & Samp, 1998). In these relationships, individuals who are “chilled” constrain their communication and actions to a very narrow margin, avoiding all topics and behaviors they believe may provoke a partner (Afifi et al., 2009). The result is an overarching relationship climate of fear, suppression, anxiety, and unhappiness.

If you find yourself in a relationship in which your partner behaves violently toward you, seek help from family members, friends, and law enforcement officials. Realize that your best option might be to end the relationship and avoid all contact with the person. We discuss tactics for dealing with relational violence in more detail in Chapter 10.

If you find that you are inclined to violence in relationships, revisit the anger management techniques described in Chapter 4 as well as the suggestions for constructively handling conflict described earlier in this chapter. Most aggression during conflicts stems from people’s perception that they have no other options. Although situations may exist in which there truly are no other options—for example, self-defense during a violent assault or robbery—within most encounters more constructive alternatives are available. If you are unable to control your impulses toward violence, seek professional counseling.

UNSOLVABLE DISPUTES

A final conflict challenge is that some disputes are unsolvable. In the climactic scene of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War classic Gone with the Wind, the principal character, Scarlett O’Hara, declares her love for Rhett Butler, only to find that he no longer feels the same about her (Mitchell, 1936).

As this famous fictional scene illustrates, if one person loves another but the feeling isn’t reciprocated, no amount of collaborating will fix things. Part of effectively managing conflict is accepting that some conflicts are impossible to resolve. How can you recognize such disputes? Clues include the following: you and the other person aren’t willing to change your negative opinions of each other; your goals are irreconcilable and strongly held; and at least one partner is uncooperative, chronically defensive, or violent. In these cases, the only options are to avoid the conflict, hope that your attitudes or goals will change over time, or abandon the relationship, as Rhett Butler did.