Consequences of Conflict Avoidance

Just have the conversation already. It's healthier than building resentments.

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Very Narrow Training

It would have been nice if Byron, my first stepfather, had used his talent for negative reinforcement training to teach me something useful while he was training me to be a conflict-avoidant, people-pleasing, non-decision-maker without boundaries. Practical skills, like money management, gardening, or how not to be a slob, would have made a positive impact on my entire adult life. Unfortunately, he kept the scope of lessons down to the characteristics we now know as “codependent behaviors.” What a wasted talent.

What I did learn from Byron, though, has been as solid as cast iron and has cost me dearly. Half a century later, I’m still discovering ways I have been fucked over by my own damn codependent behaviors. The latest discovery: conflict-avoidance ruins relationships and I’m far more complicit than I realized.

For the past six months, I’ve spent every available moment examining my part in the demise of my marriage and I have discovered that the way I tip in restaurants is very similar to the way I compensate for conflict avoidance in relationships. The main difference is that there’s no upside to conflict avoidance.

My Tip Philosophy

The customary percentage for a tip is 10%. When I sit down, I anticipate I’ll get great service, so I plan on leaving a 20% tip. If the service is terrible, I deduct from the 20% accordingly, but never to below 10%. Likewise, if the service is exceptional, I increase the tip. The only limit to the increase is my budget. Of course, I don’t dock the tip for anything beyond my server’s control. In fact, the main driver of an adjusted tip is attitude, which means the server could accidentally dump a pitcher of tea on the table and get a 50% tip or more.

I do the same thing in my relationships, but I don’t do it consciously. It’s a pattern that’s developed over time and I give all the credit to Byron. This is what the pattern looked like in my relationship with George.

Early days, I show up doing all of the things, putting in all the effort, going above and beyond in any way I can, because I anticipate that my partner is doing the same on my behalf. If that turns out to not be the case, I adjust.

One Petty Example

When George and I got married, we had been living with his brother who is super tidy. The three of us shared cooking and cleanup duties, always making sure our own dishes made it to the dishwasher after meals. Generally, whoever cooked got out of cleanup. Dishes used for snacks while watching TV or outside on the patio were promptly carried to the dishwasher. If you dirty pots and pans for something only you eat, you cleanup as soon as you are done eating.

Imagine my surprise when George and I moved into our own place, discovering that George only adhered to those standards out of respect for his brother and his brother’s house, but doesn’t have the same respect for me and our house. I can prepare and serve a complete dinner and leave the cleanup for George, but I will be the one cleaning before I go to bed. Then I’ll wake up to a kitchen with pots and pans in the sink from George’s late-night feast or his breakfast, food on the stove, a mess on the counters and a spilled bowl of ice cream on the table or floor near George’s recliner, surrounded by beer cans. And it will all stay until I take care of it.

A normal person would say something, right? Maybe something like “The kitchen was spotless when I went to bed. Do you think you can clean up the mess you left so I can get in there?” I’m not a normal person, though. I just fume over it for a bit then handle it. And I adjust the amount of effort I put into the relationship accordingly, and the first place I deduct from is probably going to be in the sex department. Seems fair and reasonable because I hate cleaning the kitchen and he loves sex.

And it spirals from there. Because I never speak up about the little things, they grow into big things. We both end up frustrated and eventually, George gets drunk and throws a tantrum. He’ll insult me, call me names, threaten to leave me, intimidate me with his physical presence or with guns, and sometimes it gets physical. As I’ve mentioned before, these fits trigger me and I shut down because they remind me of Byron insulting me, calling me name, threatening and intimidating me. If and when the situation becomes physical it’s because I can’t withstand the verbal and emotional trauma and I make it physical. I’ve said before that emotional conflict is much worse than physical conflict. I will lash out just to get it all over with.

A Less Than Perfect World

In a perfect world none of the above would have happened, but if it did, I would wake up the next morning to an apology. In the world I actually live in, an apology never comes. At this point, I think a normal, well-adjusted person would see an opportunity for a conversation and a chance to set a boundary. It might sound like this: “Do you want to tell me what the actual fuck happened last night? Because it looked to me like you got drunk and said a lot of things I hope you didn’t mean. I deserve better than what you said to me last night and I’m not going to sit here and let you bait me into hitting you. If you can’t control yourself when you’re drunk, you’ll need to get drunk away from me. If there’s something we need to fix to prevent that from happening again, let’s talk about it now, while you’re sober, and fix it.”

That seems reasonable and looks really easy on paper. I just can’t make the words come out of my mouth. I can’t express my needs that way. I express my needs by doing, by effort, by energy. I expect reciprocation. Just the idea of starting the conversation takes me right back to Byron training me to not express my needs because my needs aren’t valid and I don’t deserve to have them met. Instead of giving George a chance to bring me back into him, I withdraw further or shut down completely.

A Breaking Point

We circle the drain until I am so emotionally drained and can’t imagine another explosion that doesn’t end in one of us literally shooting the other that I call the county attorney and apply for a temporary restraining order to get George away from me for a while. That’s what happened last October.

Historically, I would have just vanished. I would have gone to work and not come home or waited for him to go to work and been gone when he returned. This time, against my better judgement, I involved the law. The county attorney heard me out then enhanced everything, including making the restraining order a protective order. When I learned George was going to be arrested, I tried to get out of the whole thing, but the prosecutor was filing criminal charges whether I was issued protection or not. I was obviously unaware that the county attorney had gone to school with George and has been holding a grudge against him for a very long time.

Moving Forward

It’s been over six months since I was granted a 12 month protective order preventing communication between me and George. I’ve lived by myself for the first time in my life and gotten to know myself. I’ve worked really hard to identify my patterns and change my default behaviors.

Now I want to reconcile my marriage.

Photo by Farrinni on Unsplash

I want George to come home eventually. I believe we want the same things, but we have to talk things out. We have to establish boundaries. We have to know the other’s expectations and limits. We have to both know that we can have our needs met. We have to know that we can communicate.

A lot of trust has been broken. There’s hard work ahead for us, but we’re going to try.

I had the protective order vacated two weeks ago. George is going to be here tomorrow and stay a few days so we can figure out how to make this work. We’re both willing to fight for the marriage. We’re willing to go to therapy, individually and as a couple. I believe we’re both ready to do whatever it takes to make this love we’ve shared since 1989 finally work.