Relationship. One word that brings to mind love, laughter, tears, fun, and jeers. But where there’s love, there’s also conflict. Conflict is almost intrinsic to family relationships. Despite all the love, we often argue and fight in several of our relationships—especially those within our families. Even the art of storytelling uses it as a popular central motif. Fairy tales and mythologies have time and again demonstrated this recurring theme. For instance, Cinderella and Snow White had evil stepmothers; the Hindu epic Mahabharata saw the great war between the cousins Kauravas and Pandavas; the Norse gods Loki and Thor could never see eye-to-eye.
However, renouncing a legacy or waging a huge war might not be the wisest thing to do today. So, how do we diffuse conflicts in family relationships? Let’s find out.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a relatively new approach to teach people how to best regulate their emotions and reduce conflict within families. Dialectical essentially means that two extreme opposites can be true; that there is more than one way to see a situation or to find a possible solution. The opposite of dialectical, would be, seeing things as all or none, or believing that there is only one right way. When we walk the middle path between these two, we change our attitude to the situations we encounter. This change encourages us to be more flexible and approachable to others, which results in fewer disagreements and conflicts. It can also help us avoid making assumptions and blaming others.
Imagine this: At a family gathering, skeletons get dragged out of the closet. Issues that were considered insignificant before, suddenly stare you in the face.
This can happen when people carry baggage from the past. Maybe, if we let each other vent out our feelings—hopefully privately—an impending scene might be avoided. Initiate a dialogue and nip all misunderstandings in the bud before things get out of hand.
Consider this: Someone in your family has scratched your car in an accident and is not ready to accept it. Maybe they are afraid or maybe they don’t want to pay for the damages. Either way, you are furious and are minutes away from blasting them off.
While the anger and frustration you feel in the given situation are valid, what the person is doing by not taking up the responsibility for their actions is sheer disrespectful. But, if you let this issue into your relationship, it will change your equation with them forever. It is important you keep the problem separate from your family relationship, otherwise, you risk having the conflict overtake your life. When two people are at odds, they sometimes say and do all sorts of irrational things, project, deny and shift blame. Handling such individuals and situations with calmness and rationality helps save family relationships.
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