In two previous blogs, I shared some of the reasons that conflicts between you and your partner can become interactions that cause harm to each of you and the relationship. Andrew Christensen and Neil S. Jacobson described these reasons in their book, Reconcilable Differences.
When conflict happens, you may try to find explanations for why this is happening. But it’s only you and your partner in this relationship, so it is easy for the search for explanations to become the battle of accusations. The search for an explanation continues when you find all the different ways that your partner is to blame for what is happening. You might even go so far to decide that your partner has some kind of emotional problem or that they just don’t have what it takes to be a good spouse.
There are two more factors that contribute to the escalation of conflicts.
The first one is what you might call the “poor me” syndrome.
If you look over the reasons listed above, you notice that they frame your partner as the source of argument and you as the victim. Now, if your partner agreed with this assessment, that might be okay. But in any conflict, you have two people insisting that they are the victim, and the other person is the source of the problem. With these stances there is no way to move toward resolving the argument; each of you will spend all of your time trying to convince the other of how you are the victim and how they need to change.
Also, it really is hard to maintain this view that you are the victim. Yes, you can spend a lot of time emphasizing your partner’s hurtful actions, but at some point, you begin to consider what it says about you? If you decide that “your partner is selfish, inconsiderate, or unfair, why did you get together? Did you exercise bad judgment?...Did you encourage or fail to discourage your partner’s flaws? Are you a coconspirator in your partner’s crimes against you?” (Christensen and Jacobson, 23)
Finally, playing the role of victim can lead you to wonder: May there really is something wrong with me. If your partner is harsh and critical, you start to wonder if you are inadequate in some way. If you partner doesn’t seem attracted to you, you start to wonder if you are unattractive. Of course, playing the role of victim doesn’t feel very good, so it is easy to go back to blaming your partner. But still, some part of you may wonder if you really are the problem.
A second factor that escalates conflict is described by the words “You always.”
This describes the tendency for each of you to insist that your explanation of what is happening between you is the right one. Why do couples do that? First of all, at some level, both of you know that there is some truth in what each of you is saying. It is easy to see the kernels of truth in the complaints you make about your partner; it is harder to see the kernels of truth in the complaints your partner offers about you. And these kernels of truth are usually exaggerated and distorted by the heat of the argument.
These “you always” statements focus only on the inadequacies and negative characteristics of your partner. You rarely hear a partner say, “You are always so kind and considerate” or “You always give me the benefit of the doubt.” All of these critical descriptions can contribute to an overall sentiment of negativity that makes it difficult for you to resolve conflicts in ways that are helpful.
Many couples are not aware of all of these tendencies that contribute to the escalation of conflict.
In marriage counseling, you will learn to identify the tendencies that you express; then you can respond to conflict in a way that fits your picture of how you want to be as loving, caring partner. I invite you to go to my marriage counseling specialty page to learn more about how I work with couples to enrich their relationship.