A good friend of mine just came in my office and gave me a big hug. I call this man a good friend because we have shared some important life experiences – some good, some not so good. In fact, recently we had a pretty major conflict, one where we disagreed pretty seriously. The good thing was that we are both savvy enough to know how to disagree. Neither of us said those kinds of things that wounded the other person. We “fought” but we fought fairly. That is one of the things you have to learn if you are going to build deep relationships. If you want to get fancy you can call it conflict resolution. I prefer calling it fighting fairly.
If you think you are going to have any relationship without conflict, you are out of your mind. Unless, of course, your relationship is with an inanimate object, human or otherwise. I had a friend years ago who was full of old countrified sayings. One day he said to me, “You will never know how good a relationship you have with anyone until you eat a bag of salt together.” Yuck! But the message is clear. You will never really know the depth of a relationship until you experience some unpleasantness together. Now that is a fact you can take to the bank.
This is true in marriages, of friendships, with working relationships, at church, everywhere. Years ago when I used to do a lot of marriage counseling I often heard from newly married couples, “We are disillusioned.” My response was, “Good. Now that the illusion is gone we can get down to reality.” The reality is that you are going to have conflicts in every relationship. The question is not how to avoid them, but how to handle them.
You have to agree to the rules of engagement before you ever have an argument. You have to realize the difference between circumstantial conflicts and personal conflicts. You have to agree to not attack one another. You have to agree to present your perceptions as just that – YOURS. That constitutes taking ownership of your own point of view, and you also need to take the same ownership of your inadequacies and mistakes. If you do those kinds of things, you will fight fairly and your relationship will survive and grow, even if it does sort of leave a salty aftertaste in your mouth sometimes.
So getting back to my friend and me, we were able to disagree seriously without attacking one another’s character. We did not call one another names. We did not allow the discussion to become a personal attack, although it was tempting for both of us. We fought fairly and today we could hug with more intensity than any time in the past because we ate a couple of big handfuls of salt and survived it. We are friends after all, good friends.
Principle Based Evaluation: The knowledge and application of conflict-resolution skills are essential to maintain and deepen all relationships. And keeping a bag of salt around helps too.
For more information on the author, Gary Cake, go to: http://www.mtwm.org/
