Respecting feelings

One of the major sources of conflict in intimate relationships is the fact that two partners are likely to have quite different feelings about some things. The conflict thus serves to bring these different feelings into the open, but in many cases it will not do anything to change them. You may be tempted to assume that this means that conflict is pointless. If a husband and wife have different feelings about something, argue about it, and still have different feelings, what, you may well ask, is gained from the conflict?

To answer these questions we must first understand that changing your partner's attitudes and feeling should not be the primary goal of conflict. A person feels what he or she feels, and being told (or telling yourself) that it is wrong to feel that way doesn't do much to change it. The feelings remain, and added to them is a sense of guilt for feeling that way in the first place. If either partner were to be pressured into renouncing his or her feelings as a result of conflict, that partner would be surrendering an authentic part of himself or herself. (On the other hand, we do not mean to suggest that people do not sometimes genuinely learn, as a result of conflict, that their feelings were wrong. Most people have had the experience of getting into an argument with someone and admitting in the course of the conflict, "You know, you're right; I don't know why I let myself get so worked up about that. I guess I wasn't thinking straight; I just got carried away.")


If we cannot reasonably expect one of the partners to renounce his or her feelings, what does the conflict accomplish? If we recognize that conflict often arises from the fact that an ongoing relationship has numerous goals that sometimes are mutually exclusive, we can see that conflict can help bridge this gap as long as each partner realizes that it is important to respect the other's feelings. If the two of them simply denounce each other for being selfish, they will only make the situation worse.

But if as a result of the conflict they come to a fuller appreciation of each other's feelings, they will be better able to navigate the difficult periods in their relationship. Many situations of conflict persist throughout a relationship. The important thing is not to make conflicts go away. It is to appreciate and respect each other's feelings so that you and your partner can approach your problems as something you are struggling with together rather than as something that is driving you apart.