“Am I the Problem?” – How to Deal With Any Conflict

Doesn’t matter how much you try to avoid conflicts, sometimes they smack you in the face. Sometimes, they are conflicts with people we don’t even know, like that nosy lady on the street trying to tell you how to dress or whom to kiss. Other times, you fight with someone you really care about or with someone you come across often. And most of us end up fighting with our partners at least some times. In this blog, let’s talk about dealing with conflicts the mature way. Here’s what we’re going to talk about:

1. Why asking whether you’re the problem doesn’t help
2. How we unknowingly give away our power in conflicts
3. How you can deal with conflicts from a place of autonomy
4. What to do when a conflict becomes a fight
5. What to keep in mind when apologizing

What is a conflict?

Before we start, let’s define what a conflict is. A conflict is basically when you want (or wanted) something and the other person wants (or wanted) something, and those things don’t seem to be able to co-exist.

For instance, when I was in my early twenties, I went to London with a friend of mine. He wanted to do all the cultural highlights and posh clubs together, while I preferred strolling along the Thames and roaming the streets with my camera. I couldn’t simultaneously go to all the touristy places AND explore the city streets, so this was a conflict.

A conflict doesn’t have to become a fight, but if you both feel very strongly about your needs – it might. When you’re in a fight, it’s no longer a matter of conflicting interests – you’re also emotionally attached to being right. In this blog, we’ll tackle both conflicts and fights.

Who’s to blame?

One popular way to deal with conflicts is to go online, find the right FB community or Reddit, and ask: “Am I the asshole? Am I the problem? Was I wrong in this one?” Unfortunately, 95% of the time, this won’t help you. There will be three possible outcomes:

1. Everyone thinks you’re the asshole. Reading this, you’ll likely just feel misunderstood.
2. Everyone thinks the other party is the asshole. You feel supported, but there’s also not a lot you can do at that point.
3. The hive mind is undecided. Some think you’re the asshole, some think the other person is. I’m not sure how this would help you, either.

Neither outcome helps you resolve the conflict (with the rare exception of you being the asshole, realizing this and deciding to make amends). Placing the blame rarely does.

Playing the blame game

Whenever we fight with someone, we often play the blame game.

To do that, you agree: there’s a finite amount of blame and you want to divide it between the conflicting parties.

What do I mean by that? Well, if we have a conflict, we can say you’re 100% to blame, or we can say I’m 100% to blame, or we can even say it’s more like 70%-30%. But the sum of all the blame is always 100%.

This is important, because it also means that whether or not you are to blame is defined by whether or not I am to blame. In short – the more blame one of us carries for the conflict, the less blame the other person is carrying. This is why it’s so tempting to blame the other person – because it absolves you of any blame.

Unfortunately, when we do this, we lose track of arguably the most important part of our lives: autonomy.

Giving away the power

When I’m blaming you for the conflict, what I’m essentially saying is “If you act a certain way, I cannot help but act a certain way. Your actions determine/control how I act.” Doing this strips us of a large chunk of power and is the reason why we may feel like victims.

Being a victim means feeling like you don’t have control over your own life[1]. Remember how we used to act as children? We didn’t have full autonomy (for instance, we don’t decide what time we go to bed or whether we get candy), so we’d whine to try and control our parent that way. When we blame someone else in a fight, we basically do the same thing. We say: “I don’t have control in this situation, so I need you to change.”

The problem is that people in power are rarely motivated to change their behavior when they get blamed. Luckily, you don’t fully depend on them. You actually have a lot you do control, specifically how you deal with certain situations.

If you’re here – I’m guessing you don’t want to be a victim. You want to live a happy life. So let’s discuss how you do that.

Dealing with Conflicts with Autonomy

Instead of trying to figure out who is wrong and who is right, there’s a different way to deal with conflicts. It’s by holding on to your own autonomy and boundaries, ideally while holding space for the other person. In order to do this, you need to embrace these three facts:

1. You get to make choices that work for you.
2. Others get to make choices that work for them.
3. You don’t have to engage with people you’re uncomfortable with.

Start with your vision

If you already know Odder Being – you know we’re all about being clear on your personal vision. Your vision is essentially just how you want things to be. Once you get clear on that, everything else falls into place.

In the example of the London conflict I mentioned above, I’d ask myself: who do I want to be and what do I want my life to be like? This may result in the following questions and answers:

1. Q: What do I want my holiday to look like? A: I love exploration and adventure, I want to go off the beaten path. I don’t enjoy touristy places much.
2. Q: Who do I want to be as a friend? A: Autonomy is important to me in friendship, and my ideal friendship is where me and my friends find each other at the crossroads of our passions. That said, I don’t mind occasionally trying something I wouldn’t normally do to I want to please a friend, assuming this thing doesn’t clash with my values and isn’t something I’m strongly against.

Based on these answers, I could choose my course of action: letting my friend know there were a few things I definitely wanted to do, whether or not they’d join me, there were a few things I definitely wouldn’t be doing, whether or not they chose to do them, and that I’d love to find some things that work for both of us.

Incompatibility isn’t someone’s fault

You might note that my friend could have arrived at very different answers. For instance, they could have answered question #1 with “I definitely want to see all the tourist highlights” and 2 with: “A friendship is where we do everything together”. You can see how this would mean we’re not compatible (at least when it comes to traveling).

When we play the blame game, we try to make sure the conflict is someone’s fault. But when we live from our visions, it doesn’t have to be. Incompatibility simply means you need some distance so you both can do the things that make you happy.

When the conflict has become a fight

Now you might think “That’s all nice and well, but our conflict has become a fight. Now what?”

Again, start with your vision.

The first question you may ask yourself is:

“How do I want to show up in this type of conflict?”

You may find that what you answer to this is something very different from the way you’ve actually showed up in the conflict. That’s because we’re all human and we do stuff we regret later. The next question then becomes

“How do I want to act when I’ve shown up differently from who I want to be?”

This is about taking responsibility for your part in the fight. You’ll notice how both of these questions have nothing to do with the other person. You don’t look at who’s right or who’s wrong. You just ask: who do you want to be and are you embodying this? And if not – how do you want to course-correct?

Making amends

Sometimes, your answers to these questions may prompt you to apologize and/or make amends for your share of the conflict. Note that when you’re apologizing, you’re not doing this to trick the other person to take responsibility for their share of the conflict – you’re doing  it because it aligns with your vision. This is incredibly powerful, because it means you don’t depend on the other person being reasonable or rational or able to reflect on themselves.

Here’s what my apologies have sounded like in past conflicts:

“I’m sorry I contacted you despite knowing you didn’t want me to.”

“I’m sorry I raised my voice.”

“I’m sorry I was bad-mouthing you to my friends.”

Apologies are not absolving

One thing that’s important to remember is that you apologizing does not absolve the other person from their share of the conflict. After all, we’re not playing the blame game, so you apologizing for what you believe you did wrong has absolutely nothing to do with what you believe they did wrong or how they feel about the situation.

Just because you apologize, it also doesn’t mean you excuse their behaviour or have to tolerate it. You can still be very firm in protecting your own boundaries. This might look like apologizing and cutting contact. Or like apologizing for raising your voice and still arguing your case.

How will you deal with your next conflict or fight?

To sum it up, next time you’re in a conflict…

1. Don’t give away your power by blaming the other party.
2. Focus on your own vision and use this as a starting point.
3. Accept that sometimes, you’re not compatible.
4. (Only) apologize or make amends if you feel that this aligns with your vision
5. Remember that you can apologize for a specific action AND keep protecting your boundaries

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[1] In cases of power abuse or war, this fear is very much rooted in reality.