Conflict

                  I first would like to explain a time when I suppressed my feelings in a conflict. One of my siblings commonly said things that I felt were not appropriate in front of my children. In other words "I felt that this person was a bad influence on my kids". I also found them to be kind of embarrassing in social situations. Rather than say something to them and create more family problems (something I already have way too many of), I decided to just limit the amount of time that my family spends around my sibling. I do this by not inviting this person to most child related functions. I also stay mindful of where I keep this persons company. In other words, I do not bring this person around in situations where they can potentially embarrass me. I realize that I should probably say something, but I feel that a person of 25 years of age should be able to understand these types of things without me having to tell them. By not having this person around at these times I am able to be more comfortable in these situations. However, there is the latent consequences of losing individual closeness, as well as losing the potential of a close relationship between this person and their nieces and nephew.

          Next I would like to explain a time when I decided to express my feelings in a conflict. I have been married to my wife for 10 years. As time went on it seemed like we were always fighting. We eventually started to not talk about things that were bothering us with each other, which lead to a certain level of passive aggressiveness and resentfulness. It got to the point that we were on the verge of a divorce. Every little thing that we did would ultimately upset the other person and lead to more passive aggressiveness. Finally I decided to put it all on the table. I decided to speak up because she is the most important thing to me, and many of my greatest accomplishments would not have been possible without her support. We discussed all the things that were not working, and looked for ways to fix the problems. Instead of thinking in terms of "me" and "her", I made it a point to look at things from the perspective of "us". Ultimately we came to the conclusion that we were having a breakdown in communication. The messages that we were sending out to each other were not being interpreted the way that either one of us were intending. After we were again able to communicate effectively we were able to once again strengthen our marriage.