– The Conflict Avoidant Marriage

Last Updated on June 18, 2014 by Chris Roberts

LEARNING THE PITFALLS OF CONFLICT-AVOIDANT MARRIAGE IN MARRIAGE THERAPY IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

References “10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage.” By John M. Gottman, Ph.D.

All marriages are fraught with potentials for misunderstandings and frustrations. Marriage counseling does not have to be a place where conflict between spouses is provoked or created. Conflict is a part of every relationship, especially marriage. There are different categories of conflict in marriage. There is the marriage where one spouse is avoidant of conflict and the other loves to bring up any instance of hurt or frustration. There is the marriage where both partners love to engage in conflict and discuss ad-nauseum every detail that isn’t working between them. And then there is the marriage where both partners are equally conflict avoidant neither want to talk about misunderstandings or disagreements…EVER!!

This article will discuss those marriages where both partners are equally conflict avoidant. As a side note, almost every single person is conflict avoidant for the most part. Typically, where one spouse is more conflict avoidant, it appears that the other spouse “loves” conflict. But typically, no one “enjoys” conflict. In fact, when questioned, almost every person will state that they don’t like conflict and aren’t good at it. In a fantastic book about creating healthy marriages called, “10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage,” by Dr. John Gottman, he talks about the research surrounding couples and their ability to engage conflict. He writes, “There was a time when relationship experts believed that conflict-avoidant marriages were fraught with trouble. They believed that unless partners consistently aired their grievances and worked out their conflict, the marriage would be unstable. But research we conducted in the 1980’s comparing various styles of marriage proved this wasn’t true. We learned that as long as both partners were comfortable side-stepping difficult issues, conflict-avoiding marriages could be just as stable as marraiges where partners faced their problems head-on.” (p. 55) This is good news for those couples who equally avoid conflict and seem to have very minimal troubles in their marriage!

The reality for the example above is that these couples NEVER enter marriage counseling. Why would they, right? There are no problems. Or, at least there is no problem that is worth having a difficult conversation about. Personally, I don’t believe it is possible to have a marriage where two people interact on a consistent, daily basis and NEVER have a conflict worth discussing. However, I trust Dr. Gottman’s research, and there must be many couples out there who both implicitly agree that conflict isn’t worth endangering their shared sense of connection with each other, and therefore really avoid any conversations that might disrupt this equilibrium.   Of course, those couples wouldn’t be reading this article either!

Dr. Gottman talks about the “hidden” dangers of these conflict-avoidant marriages in this book. He writes, “…partners don’t get to know each other as well as couples do when they are more open to exploring their emotional differences. They’re more apt to keep quiet about their dissatisfactions and their unmet needs. Some may develop a secret “inner life” that they keep from their partners. And if they meet someone outside the marriage with whom they can share this hidden side, they may be at risk for an extramarital affair.” (p. 55) This is the key and major danger for conflict-avoidant marriages. It is not really the extramarital affair that Dr. Gottman points out. That is terrible for sure. The real danger is that neither partner gets to know the other very well and it leads to life sheltered from the beauty that every person has to offer. If partners aren’t willing to enter the conflict of disagreement for the sake of knowing each other better, then they will continue this pattern with ALL of their relationships, including their children, grandchildren, parents, and friends. A couple may be able to implicitly agree that they will not engage is unsettling conflict, but a child doesn’t have the mental development to agree or disagree with this position. As such, these children of conflict-avoidant parents will learn to stuff their own feelings of discontent or frustration, because those feelings obviously aren’t valued. Or those feelings are implicitly or explicitly labeled as bad or wrong.

It is not really all that hard to create a stable marriage built on conflict-avoidance. Actually, there is very little “creating” that occurs. These types of marriages usually only exist because each partner independently has decided that conflict will NEVER lead to good things and so they collude together to keep the conflict at bay. It’s a marriage of attrition and luck. Not knowing the person you have committed to spending the rest of your life with is a certain type of misery. It’s the worst kind of misery, because each partner becomes less and less in touch with the longing inside them to be known and loved. An extramarital affair actually becomes a last-gasp effort (although quite unintentional for sure) to rock the boat and get more love and care from the other spouse. Usually though, these types of affairs only lead to further distance and disconnection, because neither partner has the skills to converse helpfully with the situation.

Marriage counseling will always rock the boat. Marriage counseling wants each partner to get more in touch with what they want and what makes them come alive. If you are wanting more from your spouse, then marriage counseling in Nashville, Tn may be a good place to start this new journey with the person you love!