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Resolving Conflict


          Resolving conflict can seem like a daunting task. Though we talked mostly about resolving conflict between a husband and a wife this week, I feel as if all of the things that we learned this week could also be applied to resolving conflict in a general setting as well like work or school.

         There have been times in all of our lives where we have been caught in the middle or approached head on by conflict. In some cases, maybe we are the ones that start the conflict. After further researching the four horseman brought to light by John Gottman, it became very clear to me that those four qualities are not just brought up around those whom we are married to, but also to those in our everyday lives like co-workers and classmates. We, as humans, are emotional creatures opposed to logical. We allow ourselves to become overwhelmed with emotion to the point where we do not or cannot think straight nor correctly and effectively map out a logical and sensible idea. For some people, it is the stress of a long day at school that makes them short and rude to their older sibling as they pick them up from school. For others, it the recent illness diagnosis of a child that causes impatience and little forgiveness to be given to those who may have made a mistake filling out the tax form. Regardless of the situation, stonewalling, etc. are prevalent among humans and it is up to us to learn how to react to those that are doing it to us and control our own selves so that we don’t do it to others.

          Allowing ourselves to lose patience or say something we regret to a coworker or a fellow student is regretful, but at the end of the day, you are able to work through it because you know that you will one day not have the consistent interaction with that specific person as you do now. In a way, you know that it will one day just be “swept under the rug” or “forgotten” before real resolution ever takes place. Unfortunately, there is no room for this in a marriage.

          Gottman has given us an incredible framework to follow in order to avoid problems like this from escalating into something that may be deemed as “unsolvable”.  When a fight, disagreement, etc. takes place, here are the steps to follow to correctly and effectively find a solution:

1.  Soften your start-up

2.  Learn to make and receive repair attempts

3.  Soothe yourself and each other

4.  Compromise

5.  Process and grievances so that they don’t linger

          I know that if we are able to follow these things, we will be able to not only solve problems in our marriages, but also in our everyday lives.

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