Conflict will always destroy, distort and manipulate our reality

BY STEVEN KASZAB

My first thought goes to Pat Benatar’s song, “Love is a Battlefield!” Well, many situations we find ourselves in, particularly with regards to relationships, do become a battlefield. Relationships where a couple may be great together physically, in light moments, and in front of friends and family, but hidden from view, or perhaps right out front of all to see are two battling personalities. Why?

Psychologists claim that couples are often drawn to a situation where they bang their heads together in personal competition due to finances, personal space, ownership, competitive opinions, emotional investments, and once the fight lightens there is the expected: peacemaking, love making, making up with promises that such a situation will not happen again. Yet it often does.

Look to your own experiences within the family and friends, to the moments when people who obviously love and care for each other go to war. What causes this conflict is too numerous to mention, but what happens is more important to consider. We live in a materialistic world where acquiring things has become an essential pass time and objective in our lifestyle. Finances often instigate conflict between us too. Who is the spender, and who is the saver, financial manager of the group?

Battlefields bring with them emotional baggage that helps fuel conflicts, leading to words and actions we wish we could take back at a later point. Proving a point, being right in front of others, maintaining one’s presumed importance before others all shift conflict into high gear, often resulting in an escalation of negative emotions, shattered pride and trust, and a building up of possible out right hatred of others.

Divorce in North America is at an all-time high, and sacramental marriage at an all-time low. Religious, spiritual, or even civil commitments are being set aside for convenience’s sake, and as a tool allowing people to ignore long term commitments to others in their lives. “Oh, it’s just a paper,” some say. The law follows up with rules placing common law relationships into a legal commitment with consequences. A marriage falling apart can tear families apart, changing someone’s life immeasurably.

Some say that life is a struggle, a combat zone that challenges each of us to act before we are acted upon. Legalities may protect your stuff, but what about your: emotions, self-respect and mental health? What about your lived perspective? Loving someone can be seen just like what a capitalist may see, an opportunity with financial investment made, bringing in net returns. Businesses just like relationships face insolvency and bankruptcy too. Ending one struggle, many simply begin again with a re-due, hoping they have learnt something from their experiences.

Conflicting parties often call upon a go-between, and that is where you come in. An objective mind, empathetic and caring can communicate with the two parties involved, knowing where each is coming from, and finding the middle ground needed to pull off peace talks and a truce. Simply being a mirror to the two combatants will show them just how they are acting. We all have some form of pride and self-respect, so how we present ourselves before others may just be the trick. Many ways exist to bring warring parties together. Communication is key. If there is no talking, there will continue to be injured emotional pride. Kick it up a notch and offer yourselves as the needed: mediator, friend, and objective sacred goat within the communal conversation. The injured parties usually show they cannot carry out civilized actions, so get involved for their sake and the sanity of others (family/community/work fellows).

I have found an effective way to initiate a change in someone’s attitude. Remind them they are not an island, isolated from others, but part of a group that cares for them. Conflict can be diverted, solved, and stopped in its tracks, but conflict will always destroy, distort and manipulate our reality.

Remember conflict is often inevitable, but combat is always optional.