LET’S SETTLE THIS NOW!

I’ve received requests for more hints for dealing with conflicts that arise at home during Covid 19, so here’s another to consider.

Perhaps one of the most common complaints I hear is why a family member refuses to deal with the issue at hand? It’s typically an issue one family member wants to settle, but the other (usually a male) just won’t discuss.

Conflict specialists long ago identified several styles for dealing with such situations. The styles many recognize are competing, compromising and collaborating. But avoiding conflicts is also a tactic used to deal with them.

NASA engineers and scientists can send spacecrafts to Mars and one dayt might also send humans to the red planet. That possibility has led to studies of how people react to isolated, confined and extreme environments. Some of those studies have been conducted at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation facility where six-member teams have spent a full-year living and working in a 1,200 square-foot dome. And as happens with currently living at home during a pandemic, frictions did occur. For example, imagine a crew member playing the ukulele every day, so loudly that you can hear it, even through earbuds. You can’t leave the dome so what do you do? As one team member reported, when it isn’t possible to walk away or not in anyone’s best interest to have a confrontation, it’s best to simply avoid one another for awhile.

We get the same observation from noted therapist Dr. John Gottman from his work on marital stability and divorce prediction. Dr. Gottman introduced the concept of “flooding” to refer to overwhelming anger. Their bodies release excess amounts of stress hormones, which increases heart rate and respiration and the result is people feeling misunderstood, attacked and wronged. Dr. Gottman argues that the average male’s autonomic nervous system takes far longer to recover from emotional upset than does the average female.

Dr. Gottman suggests, then, that though the average female may want to get issues settled “here and now,” the average male may need to temporarily avoid the conflict by going for a run or working in the yard or garage for awhile.

We don’t always need to settle every issue immediately. Sometimes there is benefit to giving people some time and space.