Think You Are Having a Conflict With Someone?

How many times have you heard someone say, “I am so upset with Terry for overspending,” or perhaps you’ve said something like, “Parker and I are having a conflict over keeping the kitchen clean.” When people make statements like these, it is clear they are feeling strong emotions and want something to happen (or not happen) in the way they desire.

While unpleasant, frustrating, and painful at times, conflict is necessary in close relationships. Engaging in conflict has the potential to demonstrate you care about the relationship, as well as your own needs. When we manage conflict well, we find a way to interact and come to an understanding that works as well as possible for everyone concerned. Well-managed conflict becomes a success on which we can build in the future. In contrast, we have likely all experienced trying to work out our frustrations and instead made things worse.

What Is Conflict, Anyway?

Some of the challenges related to communicating and negotiating conflict in close relationships come from a misunderstanding of what conflict is and is not. I will share a definition of conflict that I have committed to memory and find incredibly useful.

In their classic book Interpersonal Conflict, first published in 1978, Joyce Hocker, Keith Barry, and William Wilmot (2022) defined conflict as, "An expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals" (p. 4).

I added the italics in the definition to highlight terms that are particularly important to understanding this perspective on conflict. Even though we might label a situation a conflict, this definition helps us understand that just because we are upset with someone does not necessarily mean we have a conflict with that person. For our purposes today, I will focus on the first two aspects of conflict in this definition to help us understand the circumstances that need to be in play to have a conflict: (a) conflict occurring between interdependent parties and (b) conflict as an expressed struggle.

Conflict Between Interdependent Parties

First, we don’t have a conflict if we don’t have interdependence. You might say, “I have a conflict with our state’s governor over property taxes.” You may be upset with the governor and, yes, theoretically you can try and influence a politician with your vote or social media post. In reality, most citizens do not have interdependence with their governor. To qualify as a conflict, however, your outcomes and the outcomes of the other people need to be intertwined, for instance, if your partner leaves dirty dishes in the sink you may end up with ants or you may find yourself angrily cleaning up the kitchen before you can make dinner.

Conflict as an Expressed Struggle

Second, even when we have interdependence, our own negative emotion is not enough to mean we have conflict with someone. If conflict is not expressed, there is no conflict. For instance, Kim is sharing a car with their partner, Tam. Kim was recently rushing off to meet a friend for lunch and became aggravated after discovering the car was almost out of gas. Kim had to stop and add gas, which they are not fond of doing. When Kim arrived home, they did not say anything to Tam, waiting for Tam to mention it and apologize. Nothing happened and, as the hours ticked on, Kim became even more irritated.

This point bears repeating. Until the struggle is expressed, it is not a conflict. Why is this important? Reading this example, we have no idea what Tam is thinking, and Kim does not know either. Did Tam even notice leaving the gas tank low? Does Tam know that Kim is upset? Unless the struggle is expressed, there is no conflict, no matter how disturbed Kim is feeling.

What does it mean to directly express the struggle? This is an important question. Of course, we can initiate a direct conversation about our observations and feelings. At that point, this becomes an interpersonal conflict. Once the conflict is expressed, we have the option to talk about what is going on and try to work things out.

Why would we not choose to express our struggle and talk it out? So often we don’t express our feelings to the other person(s) as we fear their reaction or our own. For instance, they might downplay our concern or bring up something we have said or done that bugs them. I think we all know that talking about the conflict might be helpful or hurtful. Expressing conflict always carries some risk.

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What if we choose to express conflict indirectly? For example, we might hint around or show our displeasure nonverbally (e.g., rolling eyes, looking frustrated or angry). This may seem less risky, and even give us an opportunity for deniability, for instance if things become more heated, we can counter with, “What? No there’s nothing wrong.” However, indirect expressions of conflict also increase the chance that the other person does not pick up on our indirect cues or chooses the opportunity to ignore them. This can leave the person experiencing the negative emotions in a difficult position.

In the end, we know that there are multiple ways to communicate and navigate conflict. My main point in this blog is that one cannot have a conflict or manage the challenges that come with experiencing disappointment or disagreement without having both interdependence and expression of the struggle. Until this happens, conflict does not exist. When inevitable negative feelings commence, understanding and navigating interdependence and expression of struggle gives us a starting place toward making our best choices and attempts to communicate and negotiate conflict.