Conflict Archives | Genius Recovery

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“If you don’t know where you are going any path will get you there, except the path leading to a rabbit hole.” – Anonymous

Addicts are forever getting hooked on issues that lead to a rabbit hole. A rabbit hole in a relationship looks like an old argument never settled where either party could avoid the front end and go to the back end of the conflict, and just fight endings. Both know the content and are stuck with no solution, ending at the same place where they started. Rabbit holes always bring you back where you began with no change in position. Rabbit hole experiences are strange, confusing, and hard to escape.

Motivated by guilt from past affairs, Tom, a sex addict, consented to late-night questions that led to an all too familiar fight with his partner. They never ended or resolved anything. By 3 am Tom was not only exhausted but felt as guilty as he ever did before the fight began. This fight is repeated regularly. The painful pattern of going down the rabbit hole late at night is common to many addicts and conflicted relationships. Addicts often think going down the rabbit hole with their partner is a form of penance they must pay because of their destructive behavior.

Annette, who found out about her sex addict husband’s numerous one-night stands, took the bait and tried to monitor his every move with trackers, cellphone finders, and all sorts of investigative techniques. Her goal was to keep him safe from any possibility of future act-outs. She never really felt safe in the relationship. She learned in the disclosure that he secretly kept a separate phone and used his regular phone as a decoy to cover his tracks. He even parked his car in a place he announced he would be and was picked up by an affair partner for a tryst that lasted about the time he said he would be at the false location. Turned out his wife’s efforts for safety took her down a rabbit hole.

How many times have partners to addicts listened to empty promises and hollow commitments that led to a rabbit hole? How can you avoid a rabbit hole in your recovery and in your relationships?

1. Be a spectator when invited to the race: Rabbit holes in relationships resemble a race. Like a race, the environment is familiar. The opponents know each other. But, unlike a race, where the goal is to declare a winner, the intent of a relationship rabbit hole is to create a game more about whiners than declaring a winner in the conversation. So when you find yourself entering a conversation about an old argument, choose to be a spectator and observe rather than going down the rabbit hole thinking you’ll win when ultimately it’s just a time to whine with nothing ever changed.

2. Detach: Rabbit holes in relationships can be like black ice. Before you realize what’s happened, you have slipped and fallen into a rabbit hole, finding yourself in an old haunted conflict engaging the same old dance with the same results, exhausted with no change. When you realize you have fallen into a rabbit hole, catch yourself in mid-sentence and stop. Detach! Simply stop in your tracks. Take a deep breath and let go of the energy. Refuse to continue. It will be awkward but the pattern interrupt will enable you to get out of the rabbit hole. This tactic can be especially helpful around conflicts that involve political disagreements and global warming conversations as well as crazy-making relationship fights.

3. Build boundaries that don’t blow others away. Today, with social media, it is popular to be rude and tell people to go to hell or to shut up. Some people identify this as disrespecting boundaries. Yet, boundaries are not designed to control someone else’s behavior with rude remarks. Boundaries are established so that you can manage your own behavior, not others. A great way to avoid a relationship rabbit hole is to establish a boundary and not engage in the verbal vitriol that is promised to ensue from incendiary language. Silence can serve as a great boundary. Rather than go down the rabbit hole that you have engaged in countless times before, simply remain silent. Smile with acknowledgment or say “I hear what you are saying.” When someone pushes you to respond, set a boundary and say no more. You don’t have a boundary without a consequence, not to punish but to take care of yourself. When things get circular so that round and round you go, simply end your part of the conversation. It’s a simple way to avoid or escape the rabbit hole in conversation with a partner or others who want to engage in unhealthy communication. Boundaries help avoid high-risk addictive behavior. Simply not showing up to a gathering where others are likely to abuse alcohol or drugs or stepping away from conversations that are unhealthy can be effective. There is no need to blow people away with judgmental remarks or accusations. Further, when high risk is unavoidable, a simple “No thank you” can be effective when offered options that trigger addictive behavior.

There are many rabbit holes in relationships that addicts must avoid. Tools are simple but require perseverance, practice, and conditioning in order to avoid, escape, and manage the many pitfalls that are present. In dysfunctional conversations, if you don’t manage the flow of your own energy well, every path you take will end in a rabbit hole.

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.” —Dorothy Thompson

Most people try to avoid conflict at all costs. It is a dreaded predicament in human relationships. Thinking about what you said has kept many people awake at night. Couples whom I work with in therapy play games, lots of different types of games, in order to avoid conflict. It is common for one or both to be passive, passive-avoidant, or passive-aggressive to avoid addressing conflict.

In every organization, there are unspoken rules that govern the way to deal with conflict. It is important to know the rules, unspoken and unwritten, within the organization in order to navigate conflict. You will need to know who has the power and what is expected within the organization when there is disagreement. Unspoken assumptions usually result in hurt feelings. People who don’t know the cryptic rules in the game of conflict often find themselves scrambling for a light switch in a dark room, trying to figure out the blueprint for conflict resolution. It can be frustrating and humiliating.

Conflict requires direct communication. Contrary to common consensus, fighting is an important component in the cultivation of healthy connections through communication. The operative understanding is a focus on fair, not unfair, fighting. Agree on the subject, share concrete observations, thoughts, and interpretations, clarify feelings, emphasize wants, needs, expectations, listen, summarize, and you have a great start toward conflict resolution. The more direct you are the better the possibility of resolution.

Conflict requires rules for fair fighting. You create them with the person you want to communicate. You can make the rules with one or many, depending on the context. The governing principle is preserving an “I care about you” environment. If you don’t care about the other person don’t have the conversation. Fight fair rules include avoiding name-calling, voice tones, body language, words that connote condescension, domination, interruption, finishing sentences, grand exits, anger/rage explosions, threat talk, etc. Each entity can determine its own rules to guide the communication about conflict. The idea is simple. Not if, but when a rule is broken, the conversation is stopped until the offending party makes amends for the infraction and then you continue. With highly contested issues, the conversation may go slow. However, it often results in a shortcut, given the prospects of unfair fighting.

Once each party has been heard, mutual understanding is the common result. Then, two parties can brainstorm separately, then together, a collaboration or compromise that resolves the conflict. It is simple, not easy.

Codependency is a common flaw that disrupts the process of conflict resolution. Essentially, trying to control what other people think or feel usually accelerates the conflict without resolution. Fearing rejection, desperately wanting approval, and trying to avoid facing difficult emotions are often like pouring gasoline on the fires of stress and tension in a relationship conflict.

Here are a few considerations to prepare you to successfully address conflict:

1. Cultivate a proper attitude toward relationship conflict. If your position is to avoid relationship conflict at all costs, you will most likely be plagued with some degree of intimacy disability throughout your life. If you are charismatic, progressive in thought and manner, and articulate with those thoughts but overwhelmingly concerned with what other people think and can’t stand disapproval, please avoid positions of leadership. Positions of influence require that you stand for principle in the presence of disapproval. It requires that you cultivate acceptance that conflict resolution is a significant responsibility at every level of leadership. Conflict resolution requires that you let go of control of others, places, and things. No small task.

2. Surrender willfulness and embrace willingness. Addicts are not the only people who want what they want when they want it. Willfulness expresses my way or the highway. Some people use nice agreeable language to hide their willfulness. It just doesn’t solve a conflict. An attitude of willingness lessens the grip of control and opens one’s heart to understanding and the desire to brainstorm collaboration and possibility.

3. Let go of power over and incorporate power within and power with. Power-over uses coercion, force, and domination to accomplish its end. It’s like throwing a 5-gallon bucket of dirt on one small weed, thinking that you have solved your weed problem. Sooner or later, not one but many weeds poke their head to the surface of the dirt. Power-over dynamics creates “haves” and “have-nots” and fuels resentment and discord. Power within involves people having a sense of their own capacity and self-worth. Power-with is energy when faced with conflict. It is a concept that sustains community and cultivates conflict resolution. It is a shared power that grows out of collaboration and relationships. It is built on respect, mutual support, shared power, solidarity, influence, empowerment, and collaborative decision-making. It helps to resolve conflict and build bridges within families, organizations, and social change movements across differences (e.g., gender, culture, class). It cultivates the concept of power within.

Conflict is a necessary reality in the community of human relationships. Rather than ignore, avoid, or minimize its presence, may we learn to embrace it and direct its energy toward healing connection in relationships in families, organizations, and communities around the world.

Connect To The Conversation

Are you making the most of your recovery?

Take our short quiz and find out.