Perspective on relationships and conflicts
Conflicts are essential to calibrate your relationship model with the people you value the most they create trust and are vital for a progressive relationship. Through conflicts, you create a shared understanding of what you can expect from your relationship.
A shared understanding of what you can expect is an operating model of your relationship. For example, your relationship with a cashier is that you expect them to process your payment. For a romantic partner, this model depends on how you define it. Conflicts will raise when you and your partner have a different definition of the relationship's model (i.e., what to expect from the relationship). You typically come up with a shared model when you start dating. First, you evaluate each other's thoughts on values most important to you: religion, culture, politics, social norms, etc. If those thoughts line up, you generally experience great harmony and thus fall in love. A model that predicts your partner's behavior gives you a lot of trust, and lets you lead a mutually beneficial relationship.
Now every person changes their views or priorities, and you will run into situations that you previously did not evaluate where values do not align. You cannot predict the other's behavior, which raises conflicts where your partner's behavior is not in line with your expectation. There is a spectrum to these conflicts. For example, on the one hand, you can disagree on fundamental issues:
- Where to live.
- How much time you dedicate to a relationship.
- How you address basic needs (financial expenditures, what to eat, where to sleep, etc.). On the other hand, you can have conflicts that are second-order effects of the fundamental issues:
- Jealousy and attraction (driven by trust, driven by interactions with other people, driven by time dedication, driven by location, etc.)
- Personal beliefs and philosophies (the value of religion, social norms, politics, etc.)
- With a deteriorated trust in each other, you end up lying, and fighting
Hence conflicts exist in all forms and flavors, and they depend on what each partner expects from the relationship.
You should be happy with yourself before trying to find a partner. Relationships are not going to make your life easier but more complex!
A partner can expect you to care for aspects of their lives not agreed upon by the other partner, which leads to significant disappointment and frustration.
- Introducing these complexities, you are more likely to run into conflicts and long-term mistrust. A simple relationship model requires each partner to be responsible for their own happiness while contributing to a serious relationship.
Avoid frequent second-order conflicts (i.e., emotional conflicts), but try to get to the bottom of your conflict and spend time identifying the problem.
- You can fight with your partner every weekend over jealousy, but if this jealousy is grounded in the fact that you are not living in the same city, you will not get to the bottom of the issues.
- It's okay to acknowledge emotional conflicts and surfaces them as symptoms of a bigger problem. However, to progress in a relationship, you must consider why you have these emotional conflicts. Sometimes your partner is not even the reason why you are frustrated. Hence, before raising an issue, ask yourself whether you are responsible for how you feel. Getting to the bottom of a conflict requires time and requires you to talk to your partner with focus. I like to go for walks to discuss any significant issues.
- The more you fight second-order problems, the more distrust you will create. These fights are unproductive; the more often you raise them, your partner will want to avoid them because they create stress and discomfort. Try to talk and understand the fundamental conflict behind your emotions, and have talks that help you better understand the other's perspective. Talking about the real issues will, in turn, create trust and help to build a better relationship.
Identifying a fundamental problem is more important than solving many emotional issues.
- You can agree to dance the next time at a party to resolve a conflict over a partner not feeling wanted enough, while the real issue could be that you are not spending enough time with your family.
- Talk about the problem before you jump to solutions! Identifying a fundamental problem is more complicated and vital than finding a solution for only a symptom of the problem. You need to pick the fights you want to fight, and focusing on only the conflicts that are worth fighting is ultimately better in the long term.
Timing is key. Conflicts grow and become disastrous over time.
- If your partner wants to move to another continent, but you don't want to, then you can postpone talking about the issues. But ultimately, when your partner wants to move, it will cause a massive fight and blow up.
- Conflicts grow, and you need to make sure that you are not getting blindsided. Fighting over the wrong things, avoiding fundamental disputes, and not taking responsibility for your own happiness will lead to disastrous fights that can end relationships. As everyone is constantly changing, conflicts will be unavoidable.
This post leans on anecdotes and reflects my own philosophy on conflicts that is inspired by different books etc.