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Resolving Conflict in Friendships

The other day I had a bit of a falling out with my good friend Alissa. I told a guy she liked about a conversation we shared, not knowing she would be so offended by it. After my disagreement with Alissa, I realized that I had some decisions to make as to how I was going to deal with this conflict.

Yes, I had overstepped my boundaries. No, I didn’t want to lose my three-year friendship with Alissa over a comment I made to the guy she liked. So now what? In my mind, the options were to let her go in hopes the problem would go away or to try to talk it out with her. I decided to attempt the confrontation.

Conflict. It’s a fact of life. It’s a fact in friendships. You develop a friendship with someone, and conflict is sure to occur .

Many superficial friendships end up being shelved after an argument because there isn’t enough depth to warrant all the trouble it takes to smooth over the disagreement. Unfortunately, even when the friendship reaches a deeper level, conflict continues to happen and can break apart a relationship.

First and foremost, talk the situation over soon after it occurs. And do it quickly! From my experience, people begin to talk about what happened while it is still fresh in their minds. Good, step in the right direction, right? Well, not always… particularly when the talking isn’t with the person involved, but with other friends or acquaintances.

People begin to pick sides. The gossip circulates and all of a sudden, friends become enemies. Suddenly everyone is mad at everyone else. So, be sure to talk with the person with whom you are upset without the interference of people who aren’t really involved.

Resolve it the day it happens. One rule my parents follow in their marriage is that they don’t go to bed angry with each other. They always attempt to resolve things the day it happens so that in the morning, it’s a fresh start with no past grudges. I’ve found I need a short cool down period of a couple of minutes so that I don’t act in anger, and can instead act with a more rational mind. For some, counting to one hundred before saying anything may be an option. Whatever you do, don’t let things ride for too long. Even when you don’t see eye to eye, agree to disagree. Tell them that while you may not agree with what they’re saying, you still value their friendship.

Try to see the other person’s perspective. Sometimes if you sit down and talk things over, you begin to see where the other person is coming from. Realize that everyone has been created differently with various talents, abilities, and personality traits. For example, you might be a leader while your friend is more of a follower. You may be frustrated with him or her for not being very decisive. Yet it is important to understand that no matter what your quirks, each person is still unique and needs to be appreciated.

Here’s a tough one – initiate resolution. Be the first person in a fight to say sorry for your part. Even when you think the other person is wrong, it’s not a bad thing to say “I’m sorry you feel that way” or “I’m sorry if I offended you in that way.” If you’re honest, genuine, and gentle in delivering your words, there’s a good chance your friend will reciprocate positively. Use feeling words since no one can argue with your feelings. For example, “When you do this, you make me feel silly.”

Focus on the bigger picture. Successfully facing and working through the discomfort of conflict in a friendship has a worthwhile reward: a deeper relationship.

Don’t accuse by using the word, “you.”

Be sensitive. Try to offer solutions when appropriate, but know when to listen. Don’t underestimate the importance of a listening ear.

Most important, be loving in what you do. Don’t go out to “get” the other person, but try to focus on peacefully resolving the disagreement.

Resolving conflict in any friendship is not the most pleasant task, but it is worth the hassle because the result on the other end is a deeper friendship.

Reprinted with permission from Iamnext.com

This article was written by: Kristin Feenstra

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Resolving Conflicts with Best Friends: A Guide to Deepen Relationships

November 3, 2023

Sophia Foster

Learn effective strategies for resolving conflicts with your best friend and strengthening your relationship. Address issues, communicate openly, and find resolutions.

Introduction

Even with your closest friendships, conflicts can arise. Resolving conflicts with a best friend is important for the relationship to grow. This article provides a guide on how to address conflicts, communicate effectively, and find resolutions to deepen your friendship. By following the tips and strategies outlined in this article, you can navigate the storm of conflict and cultivate lasting harmony with your best friend.

Addressing the Conflict

Navigating conflicts in long-term friendships can be challenging, but with the right approach, it is possible to resolve issues effectively. Here are some key elements to consider when addressing a conflict with your best friend:

Choose the right moment : Timing is crucial when addressing a conflict. Choose a time when both you and your friend are in a calm and receptive state of mind. It’s important to respect your friend’s boundaries and give them a heads-up before diving into the discussion. If they need more time to process, be patient and allow them the space they need.

Plan out what to say : Before approaching your friend, take some time to reflect on the issue at hand. Think about what you want to express and consider their perspective as well. By planning your thoughts and being mindful of your words, you can avoid adding unnecessary drama or escalating emotions during the conversation.

Communicate openly and honestly: Engage in conversation with your friend, using a method that makes both of you feel comfortable, whether that’s through texting, calling, or meeting in person. During the discussion, it’s crucial to maintain open and honest communication. Avoid attacking their character or making accusatory comments. Instead, focus on expressing your own feelings and concerns without placing blame.

Remember, the goal is not to “win” the argument, but rather to find a resolution that promotes understanding and strengthens your friendship. By approaching the conflict with compassion, respect, and a willingness to listen, you can address the issues at hand and work towards finding a common ground.

[phrase: “Choose the right moment”, “Plan out what to say”, “Communicate openly and honestly”]

Communicating from Both Points of View

Engaging in open and honest communication is one of the key principles in resolving conflicts. When handling conflict with your best friend, it’s important to consider both points of view. Here’s how you can effectively communicate from both perspectives:

Keep an open mind : It’s essential to keep an open mind and be willing to understand the other person’s perspective. Be mindful of your own assumptions and be receptive to hearing their side of the story. By approaching the conversation with an open mind, you create a safe space for honest dialogue and increase the chances of finding a resolution.

Listen actively : Communication is not just about expressing yourself; it’s also about actively listening to what the other person has to say. Practice active listening by giving your full attention to your friend, maintaining eye contact, and asking questions for clarification. By showing that you value their input, you foster a sense of trust and openness in the conversation.

Acknowledge feelings and perspective : In any conflict, emotions are bound to arise. Take the time to acknowledge your friend’s feelings and perspective, even if you don’t necessarily agree. Validate their emotions, and let them know that you understand their point of view. This helps create a sense of empathy and fosters a deeper connection between both parties.

[phrase: “Keep an open mind”, “Listen actively”, “Acknowledge feelings and perspective”]

By incorporating these key elements into your communication, you can facilitate a healthy and productive dialogue with your best friend. The next sections of this article will delve deeper into the process of resolving conflicts and strengthening your bond. Stay tuned for more tips and strategies on addressing conflicts, conveying honest feelings, and moving on from the past. Together, we can navigate the storm of conflict and cultivate lasting harmony in our friendships.

Continue reading for tips on Conveying Honest Feelings and Suggesting Solutions and Moving On from the Past .

Conveying Honest Feelings and Suggesting Solutions

While it’s important to stand by your feelings, keeping an open mind and being willing to understand the other person’s perspective can help in finding a resolution. Here are some strategies for effectively conveying your feelings and suggesting potential solutions:

Express emotions with honesty : It’s crucial to express your emotions honestly and assertively, without attacking or blaming the other person. Use “I” statements to convey how the conflict has made you feel and explain the impact it has had on your friendship. For example, instead of saying “You always ignore me,” try saying “I feel hurt when I don’t receive a response to my messages.”

Acknowledge their feelings : Just as it’s important for you to express your own feelings, it’s equally vital to acknowledge and validate your friend’s emotions. Show empathy towards their perspective and let them know that you understand how they might be feeling. By demonstrating mutual respect and understanding, you create a space where both parties can feel heard and valued.

Suggest potential solutions : Moving towards a resolution involves finding common ground and exploring potential solutions together. Brainstorm ideas with your friend and be open to compromise. Remember that finding a resolution doesn’t mean that one person wins and the other loses, but rather that both parties feel satisfied with the outcome. Working together to find a solution promotes a sense of collaboration and strengthens the bond between friends.

By conveying honest feelings and suggesting potential solutions, you take a proactive approach to resolving conflicts with your best friend. Remember, expressing yourself in a respectful and compassionate manner is key to maintaining the trust and connection within your friendship.

[phrase: “Express emotions with honesty”, “Acknowledge their feelings”, “Suggest potential solutions”]

Moving On from the Past

It’s important to accept that sometimes a friendship may reach its expiration date, and if that’s the case, it’s possible to part ways amicably. However, if both parties are committed to preserving their friendship, dedicating time to reminisce about favorite memories and focusing on the future, rather than dwelling on past conflicts, can help in moving forward. Here’s how to navigate the process of moving on from the past:

Reflect on friendship memories: Take the time to remember the positive aspects of your friendship. Reflect on the good times you’ve shared, the laughter, and the meaningful moments. Reminiscing about these memories can remind both of you of the strong bond you have and help put any recent conflicts into perspective.

Focus on the future : Instead of dwelling on past conflicts, shift your focus towards the future. Identify common goals and aspirations that you both share and discuss how you can work together to achieve them. This forward-thinking mindset can help rebuild trust and create a shared vision that strengthens the foundation of your friendship.

Let go of grudges : Holding onto grudges and resentments from the past will only hinder the progress of your friendship. Practice forgiveness and let go of negative emotions. This doesn’t mean forgetting or ignoring the past, but rather choosing to prioritize the present and future over past grievances. By releasing the weight of grudges, you create space for personal growth and the healing of your friendship.

It’s important to approach the process of moving on from the past with patience, understanding, and a willingness to let go. Remember that conflicts are a natural part of any relationship, and overcoming them can lead to a stronger and more resilient friendship.

[phrase: “Reflect on friendship memories”, “Focus on the future”, “Let go of grudges”]

Resolving conflicts with best friends is essential to deepen the relationship. By addressing the conflict, communicating openly and honestly, and moving on from the past, friends can find resolutions and strengthen their bond. Remember, conflict can ultimately strengthen relationships and improve communication if approached with respect and a willingness to find common ground.

Throughout this article, we have explored valuable tips and strategies for navigating conflicts in long-term friendships. From choosing the right moment to express your concerns, to communicating from both points of view, and ultimately finding resolutions and moving forward, these tools are designed to promote understanding and foster stronger connections with your best friends.

It’s important to remember that each friendship is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to resolving conflicts. However, by incorporating the principles of honesty, empathy, and active listening into your communication, you can create a safe and supportive environment for addressing issues and strengthening your bond.

In instances where conflicts persist or feel too challenging to navigate on your own, seeking professional help, such as couples therapy or online courses, can provide additional guidance and support. These resources offer a valuable space for exploration and growth, assisting individuals in developing the necessary skills to manage and resolve conflicts effectively.

As you continue on your journey of nurturing your friendships, remember that conflicts are opportunities for growth, understanding, and ultimately, deepening your connections. Embrace the challenges, approach them with empathy and a commitment to open communication, and watch as your friendships flourish and thrive.

So, go ahead and navigate the storm of conflict, for on the other side lies the treasure of lasting harmony and stronger relationships.

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How to Handle Friendship Conflicts Like an Adult

Friends are the best. Having people who are there for you, support you, inspire you, and send you relatable memes (“lol it’s us”) is one of life’s greatest treasures. But that doesn’t mean you’ll never experience some tension (or, worse, a full-blown fight) with your friends. And that can be a major stressor in our lives, especially since most of us aren't experts at how to handle conflicts in our friendships .

If you’d rather stick your hand in an ant hill than bring up a conflict with a friend, we get it. Our culture tends to emphasize being “cool” and letting things slide. But that’s probably not helping your bond. 

“When we turn toward avoidance, we turn away from healthier connections,” says Miriam Kirmayer, PhD , clinical psychologist and friendship expert. “The healthiest, closest friendships are ones where people will say, ‘Yeah, we have had disagreements, we've had arguments, and we've been able to work through those together.’”

Not to mention that addressing and resolving friendship issues is great practice for other areas of your life too. Navigating sticky friend situations can help you develop the skills to get through relationship issues with partners, colleagues, and even children, says Dr. Kirmayer. 

But addressing problems with friends maturely and calmly takes practice, and you might feel a little (or a lot) uncomfortable at first. Take a deep breath, be brave, and try one of these techniques.

What to do if: You don’t feel like your friendship is being prioritized.

As with most beefs, you don’t want to assume you have all the information or that you know exactly what your friend is going through. One technique that therapist Chase Cassine, LCSW , recommends for these conversations: “Name the situation, say how you're feeling, and explain how you want to resolve it,” he says.

In the case of feeling like your friend isn’t showing up for you, that might look like: “Last week we had plans to hang out and you canceled. That’s happened a few times recently, and I’m feeling hurt. Can we talk about it?”

If this is a problem that’s been bothering you for a while, it might be worth getting a little more vulnerable about how it’s affecting your view of the friendship. Dr. Kirmayer recommends a phrase like, “The story I’m telling myself is…” 

For example: “The story I’m telling myself is that you don’t want to see me.” This allows space for you to share what you’re feeling, while also admitting that your truth is only half of the story. This way, you’re inviting them to respond just as honestly without judgment. 

What to do if: The friendship feels competitive.

If you both enjoy a little competition, then no biggie. Maybe they’re the Paris Geller to your Rory Gilmore and it just works. But if not, Dr. Kirmayer says to start with a little self-reflection. Again, it helps to hone in on the story you’re telling yourself, she says. Is there actual evidence that you two are competing in some way? Or are you maybe comparing yourself to your friend more than you should? You might just need to work on your own self-talk rather than confronting your person.

But if it does feel like an interpersonal issue—your friend can’t seem to hear your good news without trying to one-up it with her own accomplishments—address the problem as a dynamic rather than blaming your friend. “Frame it as something that's co-constructed,” Dr. Kirmayer explains. For example, you might say: “I've noticed that some of our conversations can take on a layer of competitiveness. Have you noticed that? Or does it surprise you that I’m saying it?” Your next move will depend on how your friend responds. For example, maybe your friend might explain that they’re not trying to compete with you at all—they’re super, truly, and genuinely happy for you, and they brag about how amazing you are all the time. Hopefully that helps you reframe the crummy feelings you’ve been having about it, so next time it feels less like competition and more like mutual sharing. Or maybe they explain what’s happening on their end, and you find that you’ve been playing into the dynamic too (whoops). In that case, you can brainstorm possible solutions together, like making an effort to give words of affirmation or congratulations before diving into your own good news. 

What to do if: Your friend’s comments feel judgemental or harsh lately. 

First, avoid generalizing, which is a really easy thing to do when feeling hurt. Generalizing looks like, “You’ve been really mean to me lately,” or, “You’re always saying negative stuff.” Instead, get specific and try to keep your tone calm , Cassine says. 

He recommends something like, “I want to talk to you about something that’s been bothering me. Last time we hung out, you said X. You may have meant it as a joke, but it really affected me.” The goal isn’t to punish your friend but to give concrete examples rather than being vague or passive-aggressive, Cassine says. Your friend might have questions or want to explain what they meant. To avoid a constant back-and-forth of you-said-no-you-said, try to keep the conversation geared toward the future rather than rehashing the past more than once. After you’ve both said your peace, how can you avoid these kinds of comments (or misunderstandings!) in future convos? Maybe you agree to skip sharing feedback on something that you feel a little insecure about—or you just avoid that topic altogether. 

What to do if: Your interests and opinions kinda conflict sometimes.    

Hey, friends don’t always agree on everything. Maybe it’s about what you like to do for fun (the party friend and the introvert friend), where you enjoy living (the city friend and the suburb friend), or how you approach finances (the friend who drops thousands on concert tickets and the friend who…doesn’t). When you have mismatched interests in these areas, it can be awkward to work out, and you might both end up feeling like the other one is criticizing your choices whenever they don’t align.  

Dr. Kirmayer’s recommendation: Don’t take their preferences personally, and remember that neither of you is wrong—or, rather, you’re both right. “Whatever tension arises isn't something that the other person is doing to you, it's something that they're doing for themselves,” Dr. Kirmayer says. Next comes compromise—but don’t freak out. Most people assume that compromise means one person totally loses out on what they’re looking for, says Dr. Kirmayer. But that’s a bad deal. Instead, compromise should be about brainstorming ways you can both get as much of what you want as possible.  

Let’s imagine you’re on vacation and you want to spend all your time at the beach while your BFF wants a museum buddy. There are lots of ways to solve for this that involve both of you winning. Maybe you split your time evenly, or maybe you come up with a third idea that hadn’t been on either of your radar—like a guided walk that gets you out in the sun and your friend immersed in culture. Or you can try to look at the history of the friendship and see whose “turn” it might be to pick the plan. “The important thing is that you talk about not just what the solution is but how you're coming to that solution together,” Dr. Kirmayer explains.

What to do if: You fundamentally disagree on something major. 

You probably have some friends that feel like they’re an extension of you walking around with a copy-and-paste of your exact brain. And then there are friends that you love and appreciate despite not being on the same page about some big things—like politics, religion, science, whatever. It’s absolutely possible to have friends with different viewpoints on these subjects, but if those viewpoints or actions feel discriminatory or unsafe for you or your loved ones, that can be a lot harder to work around. 

Depending on how extreme the situation is, you might be able to preserve the friendship by upping your boundaries . This might look like agreeing to avoid a certain topic, or it might mean deprioritizing the friendship so that you’re only seeing each other in larger group settings and keeping conversations more surface-level, says Dr. Kirmayer. 

But friendship should feel chosen, reminds Dr. Kirmayer, who offers a few key indicators that it might be time to choose to step away: “When the friendship comes at the expense of your well-being, when it’s a clash in values that leads you to feel chronically unsafe or unseen, [and] when you have done all you feel you can do and there doesn’t seem to be a change.” If that sounds like your situation, it might be time to let the friendship go . We’ll be blunt here: These conversations are rarely easy. Dr. Kirmayer recommends explaining what feels broken about the friendship and why the subject of this disagreement is important to you. Remember, the goal isn’t to convince the other person that your viewpoint is correct. You’re offering your perspective, acknowledging that they may have a different one, and expressing how you feel about the state of your friendship in those circumstances. 

What to do if: You’re caught in the middle between friends. 

Social media and buddy comedies might make big friend groups look ideal, but they come with their own set of issues. Like… if two of those friends are fighting, and you’re having to hear all about it. 

The good news? It’s a great time to practice boundaries, Dr. Kirmayer says. First, you’ll want to figure out what’s making you uncomfortable. Are they asking for advice? Are they forcing you to (or implying that you should) pick sides? Is it that they’re sharing information not meant for you? Is it that you just don’t feel comfortable hearing about it at all?

Once you figure that out, it’s time to tell your friends—probably separately. Be sure to remind them that you support them both and are neutral in this matter. Then explain what you are and aren’t comfortable with. For example,“I know you’re going through a hard time right now, but I’m not comfortable giving advice about our mutual friend.” Or you might say, “I love you both and I’m really not comfortable being in the middle, so I’d prefer we didn’t talk about what’s going on between you two.”

Your friends might have follow-up questions, and together you can navigate what is and isn’t on the table. For example, one friend might want to know if they can talk more generally about the falling out (like that they’re feeling betrayed or isolated or lonely, but not giving you a play-by-play), and you’ll have to decide whether you’re OK with that.

You might have to remind your friends a few times what you are and aren’t comfortable with before it sinks in, and that’s OK, Dr. Kirmayer says. “Set and reset” boundaries, she says. “The truth is it often takes people a few times to not just hear something but really listen and be able to follow.”

Wondermind does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a replacement for medical advice. Always consult a qualified health or mental health professional with any questions or concerns about your mental health.

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What is conflict?

Causes of conflict in a relationship, how do you respond to conflict, conflict resolution, stress, and emotions, core skill 1: quick stress relief, core skill 2: emotional awareness, nonverbal communication and conflict resolution, more tips for managing and resolving conflict, conflict resolution skills.

Whatever the cause of disagreements and disputes at home or work, these skills can help you resolve conflict in a constructive way and keep your relationships strong and growing.

Conflict is a normal part of any healthy relationship. After all, two people can’t be expected to agree on everything, all the time. The key is not to fear or try to avoid conflict but to learn how to resolve it in a healthy way.

When conflict is mismanaged, it can cause great harm to a relationship, but when handled in a respectful, positive way, conflict provides an opportunity to strengthen the bond between two people. Whether you’re experiencing conflict at home, work, or school, learning these skills can help you resolve differences in a healthy way and build stronger, more rewarding relationships.

Conflict 101

• A conflict is more than just a disagreement. It is a situation in which one or both parties perceive a threat (whether or not the threat is real).
• Conflicts continue to fester when ignored. Because conflicts involve perceived threats to our well-being and survival, they stay with us until we face and resolve them.
• We respond to conflicts based on our perceptions of the situation, not necessarily to an objective review of the facts. Our perceptions are influenced by our life experiences, culture, values, and beliefs.
• Conflicts trigger strong emotions. If you aren’t comfortable with your emotions or able to manage them in times of stress, you won’t be able to resolve conflict successfully.
• Conflicts are an opportunity for growth. When you’re able to resolve conflict in a relationship, it builds trust. You can feel secure knowing your relationship can survive challenges and disagreements.

Conflict arises from differences, both large and small. It occurs whenever people disagree over their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, or desires. Sometimes these differences appear trivial, but when a conflict triggers strong feelings, a deep personal need is often at the core of the problem. These needs can range from the need to feel safe and secure or respected and valued, to the need for greater closeness and intimacy.

Think about the opposing needs of a toddler and a parent. The child’s need is to explore, so venturing to the street or the cliff edge meets that need. But the parent’s need is to protect the child’s safety, a need that can only be met by limiting the toddler’s exploration. Since these needs are at odds, conflict arises.

The needs of each party play an important role in the long-term success of a relationship. Each deserves respect and consideration. In personal relationships, a lack of understanding about differing needs can result in distance, arguments, and break-ups. In the workplace, differing needs can result in broken deals, decreased profits, and lost jobs.

[Read: Tips for Building a Healthy Relationship]

When you can recognize conflicting needs and are willing to examine them with compassion and understanding, it can lead to creative problem solving, team building, and stronger relationships.

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Do you fear conflict or avoid it at all costs? If your perception of conflict comes from painful memories from early childhood or previous unhealthy relationships, you may expect all disagreements to end badly. You may view conflict as demoralizing, humiliating, or something to fear. If your early life experiences left you feeling powerless or out of control, conflict may even be traumatizing for you.

If you’re afraid of conflict, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you enter a conflict situation already feeling threatened, it’s tough to deal with the problem at hand in a healthy way. Instead, you’re more likely to either shut down or blow up in anger.

Healthy and unhealthy ways of managing and resolving conflict

Conflict triggers strong emotions and can lead to hurt feelings, disappointment, and discomfort. When handled in an unhealthy manner, it can cause irreparable rifts, resentments, and break-ups. But when conflict is resolved in a healthy way, it increases your understanding of the other person, builds trust, and strengthens your relationships.

If you are out of touch with your feelings or so stressed that you can only pay attention to a limited number of emotions, you won’t be able to understand your own needs. This will make it hard to communicate with others and establish what’s really troubling you. For example, couples often argue about petty differences—the way she hangs the towels, the way he slurps his soup—rather than what is  really bothering them.

The ability to successfully resolve conflict depends on your ability to:

• Manage stress quickly while remaining alert and calm. By staying calm, you can accurately read and interpret verbal and nonverbal communication.
• Control your emotions and behavior. When you’re in control of your emotions, you can communicate your needs without threatening, intimidating, or punishing others.
• Pay attention to the  feelings being expressed as well as the spoken words of others.
• Be aware of and respect differences. By avoiding disrespectful words and actions, you can almost always resolve a problem faster.

To successfully resolve a conflict, you need to learn and practice two core skills:

• Quick stress relief: the ability to quickly relieve stress in the moment.
• Emotional awareness: the ability to remain comfortable enough with your emotions to react in constructive ways, even in the midst of a perceived attack.

Being able to manage and relieve stress in the moment is the key to staying balanced, focused, and in control, no matter what challenges you face. If you don’t know how to stay centered and in control of yourself, you will become overwhelmed in conflict situations and unable to respond in healthy ways.

Psychologist Connie Lillas uses a driving analogy to describe the three most common ways people respond when they’re overwhelmed by stress:

Foot on the gas. An angry or agitated stress response. You’re heated, keyed up, overly emotional, and unable to sit still.

Foot on the brake. A withdrawn or depressed stress response. You shut down, space out, and show very little energy or emotion.

Foot on both gas and brake. A tense and frozen stress response. You “freeze” under pressure and can’t do anything. You look paralyzed, but under the surface you’re extremely agitated.

How stress affects conflict resolution

Stress interferes with the ability to resolve conflict by limiting your ability to:

• Accurately read another person’s body language .
• Hear what someone is really saying.
• Be aware of your own feelings.
• Be in touch with your own, deep-rooted needs.
• Communicate your needs clearly.

Is stress a problem for you?

You may be so used to feeling stressed that you’re not even aware you  are stressed. Stress may pose a problem in your life if you identify with the following:

• You often feel tense or tight somewhere in your body.
• You’re not aware of movement in your chest or stomach when you breathe.
• Conflict absorbs your time and attention.

Learn how to manage stress in the moment

One of the most reliable ways to rapidly reduce stress is by engaging one or more of your senses—sight, sound, taste, smell, touch—or through movement. You could squeeze a stress ball, smell a relaxing scent, taste a soothing cup of tea, or look at a treasured photograph. We all tend to respond differently to sensory input, often depending on how we respond to stress, so take some time to find things that are soothing to you. Read: Quick Stress Relief .

Emotional awareness is the key to understanding yourself and others. If you don’t know how or why you feel a certain way, you won’t be able to communicate effectively or resolve disagreements.

[Read: Improving Emotional Intelligence]

Although knowing your own feelings may sound simple, many people ignore or try to sedate strong emotions like anger, sadness, and fear. Your ability to handle conflict, however, depends on being connected to these feelings. If you’re afraid of strong emotions or if you insist on finding solutions that are strictly rational, your ability to face and resolve differences will be limited.

Why emotional awareness is a key factor in resolving conflict

Emotional awareness—the consciousness of your  moment-to-moment emotional experience—and the ability to manage all of your feelings appropriately, is the basis of a communication process that can resolve conflict.

Emotional awareness helps you to:

• Understand what is really troubling other people
• Understand yourself, including what is really troubling you
• Stay motivated until the conflict is resolved
• Communicate clearly and effectively
• Interest and influence others

Assessing your level of emotional awareness

The following quiz helps you assess your level of emotional awareness. Answer the following questions with:  almost never, occasionally, often, very often, or  almost always . There are no right or wrong responses, only the opportunity to become better acquainted with your emotional responses.

What kind of relationship do you have with your emotions?

• Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your experiences change from moment to moment?
• Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like your stomach or chest?
• Do you experience distinct feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, which are evident in different facial expressions?
• Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your own attention and that of others?
• Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision-making?

If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, your emotions may be “turned” down or even off. In either case, you may need help developing your emotional awareness. You can do this by using Helpguide’s free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.

When people are in the middle of a conflict, the words they use rarely convey the issues at the heart of the problem. But by paying close attention to the other person’s nonverbal signals or “body language,” such as facial expressions, posture, gestures, and tone of voice, you can better understand what the person is really saying. This will allow you to respond in a way that builds trust, and gets to the root of the problem.

[Read: Nonverbal Communication and Body Language]

Your ability to accurately read another person depends on your own emotional awareness. The more aware you are of your own emotions, the easier it will be for you to pick up on the wordless clues that reveal what others are feeling. Think about what you are transmitting to others during conflict, and if what you say matches your body language. If you say “I’m fine,” but you clench your teeth and look away, then your body is clearly signaling you are anything but “fine.” A calm tone of voice, a reassuring touch, or an interested facial expression can go a long way toward relaxing a tense exchange.

You can ensure that the process of managing and resolving conflict is as positive as possible by sticking to the following guidelines:

Listen for what is felt as well as said. When you really listen, you connect more deeply to your own needs and emotions, and to those of other people. Listening also strengthens, informs, and makes it easier for others to hear you when it’s your turn to speak.

Make conflict resolution the priority rather than winning or “being right.” Maintaining and strengthening the relationship, rather than “winning” the argument, should always be your first priority. Be respectful of the other person and their viewpoint.

Focus on the present. If you’re holding on to grudges based on past conflicts, your ability to see the reality of the current situation will be impaired. Rather than looking to the past and assigning blame, focus on what you can do in the here-and-now to solve the problem.

Pick your battles. Conflicts can be draining, so it’s important to consider whether the issue is really worth your time and energy. Maybe you don’t want to surrender a parking space if you’ve been circling for 15 minutes, but if there are dozens of empty spots, arguing over a single space isn’t worth it.

Be willing to forgive. Resolving conflict is impossible if you’re unwilling or unable to forgive others. Resolution lies in releasing the urge to punish, which can serve only to deplete and drain your life.

Know when to let something go. If you can’t come to an agreement, agree to disagree. It takes two people to keep an argument going. If a conflict is going nowhere, you can choose to disengage and move on.

Using humor in conflict resolution

You can avoid many confrontations and resolve arguments and disagreements by communicating in a humorous way . Humor can help you say things that might otherwise be difficult to express without offending someone. However, it’s important that you laugh with the other person, not at them. When humor and play are used to reduce tension and anger, reframe problems, and put the situation into perspective, the conflict can actually become an opportunity for greater connection and intimacy.

More Information

• CR Kit - Covers causes of conflict, different conflict styles, and fair fighting guidelines to help you positively resolve disagreements. (Conflict Resolution Network)
• 12 Skills Summary - A 12-step conflict resolution training kit. (Conflict Resolution Network)
• Effective Communication - The art of listening in conflict resolution. (University of Maryland)
• 10.3 Causes and Outcomes of Conflict – Organizational Behavior . (n.d.). Retrieved May 25, 2022, from Link
• Başoğul, C., & Özgür, G. (2016). Role of Emotional Intelligence in Conflict Management Strategies of Nurses. Asian Nursing Research , 10(3), 228–233. Link
• Corcoran, Kathleen O’Connell, and Brent Mallinckrodt. “Adult Attachment, Self-Efficacy, Perspective Taking, and Conflict Resolution.” Journal of Counseling & Development 78, no. 4 (2000): 473–83. Link
• Yarnell, Lisa M., and Kristin D. Neff. “Self-Compassion, Interpersonal Conflict Resolutions, and Well-Being.” Self and Identity 12, no. 2 (March 1, 2013): 146–59. Link
• Tucker, Corinna Jenkins, Susan M. Mchale, and Ann C. Crouter. “Conflict Resolution: Links with Adolescents’ Family Relationships and Individual Well-Being.” Journal of Family Issues 24, no. 6 (September 1, 2003): 715–36. Link

More in Communication

Using laughter and play to resolve disagreements

Boost your emotional intelligence to help you be happy and successful

Tips and techniques for getting anger under control

How to feel and respond to the emotions of others

Tips to avoid conflict and improve work and personal relationships

How to read body language to build better relationships at home and work

Turning Off the Gas on Your Gaslighter

5 ways to deal with gaslighting

Strengthen your connections and improve your self-esteem

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Friday essay: on the ending of a friendship

Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, The University of Melbourne

Disclosure statement

Kevin John Brophy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Friendship is an incomparable, immeasurable boon to me, and a source of life — not metaphorically but literally.

• Simone Weil

About eight years ago, I went to dinner with a dear friend I had known for more than 40 years. It would be the last time we would see each other and by the end of that evening I was deeply shaken. But more lasting and more unsettling than this has been the feeling of loss without his friendship. It was a sudden ending but it was also an ending that lasted for me well beyond that evening. I have worried since then at what kind of friend I am to my friends, and why a friendship can suddenly self-destruct while others can so unexpectedly bloom.

My friend and I were used to going to dinner together, though it had become an increasingly tricky matter for us. We had been seeing each other more infrequently, and our conversations had been tending towards repetition. I still enjoyed his passion for talk, his willingness to be puzzled by life’s events, our comically growing list of minor ailments as we entered our sixties, and the old stories he fell back on — usually stories of his minor triumphs, such as the time his car burst into fire, was declared a write-off by insurance, and ended in an auction house where he bought it back with part of the insurance payout and only minor repairs to be made. There were stories of his time as a barman in one of Melbourne’s roughest pubs. I suppose in a lot of long-lasting friendships it is these repeated stories of the past that can fill the present so richly.

Nevertheless, both his opinions and mine seemed to have become too predictable. Even his desire to come up with the most unpredictable viewpoint on any problem was a routine I expected from him. Each of us knew the weaknesses in the other’s thinking, and we had learned not to go too far with some topics, which were of course the most interesting and important ones.

He knew how politically correct I could be, and shrewdly enough he had no time for my self-righteousness, the predictability of my views on gender, race and climate. I understood this. He knew too that his fiercely independent thinking was often just the usual rant against greenies or lefties. Something had begun to fail in our friendship, but I could not properly perceive this or speak of it.

We were a contrasting pair. He was a big man with an aggressive edge to his gregarious nature, while I was lean, short and physically slight next to him, a much more reserved person altogether. I liked his size because big men have been protective figures in my life. At times when I felt threatened I would ask him to come with me to a meeting or a transaction, and just stand next to me in his big way. During one long period of trouble with our neighbours he would visit when the tension was high to show his formidable presence and his solidarity with us.

I was always reading and knew how to talk books, while he was too restless to read much. He knew how to sing, bursting into song occasionally when we were together. He had been unable to work professionally since a breakdown that was both physical and mental. By contrast, I was working steadily, never quite as free with my time as he was.

Nearly two years before our last dinner together his wife had suddenly left him. As it turned out, she had been planning her departure for some time, but when she went he was taken by surprise. I saw a more confused and fragile side of him during those months when we would meet and talk through how he was dealing with their counselling sessions, and then how the negotiations were proceeding over belongings and finally the family house. He was learning to live alone for the first time since he had been a young man, and was exploring what it might be like to seek out new relationships.

Read more: Research Check: is it true only half your friends actually like you?

A safe haven

We had met when I was a first-year university student boarding at my grandmother’s home in an inner Melbourne suburb. I was studying for a Bachelor of Arts, staying up through the nights, discovering literature, music, history, cask wine, dope, girls and ideas.

He lived in a flat a few doors away in a street behind my grandmother’s place, and I remember it was the local parish youth group, or the remnants of one, that used to meet in his flat. In my friend’s flat we would lie around the floor, half a dozen of us, drinking, flirting, arguing about religion or politics until the night was strung out in our heads, tight and thin and vibrating with possibilities. I loved that sudden intimate and intellectually rich contact with people my own age.

My friend and I started up a coffee lounge in an old disused shopfront as a meeting place for youth who would otherwise be on the street. I was the one who became immersed in the chaotic life of the place as students, musicians, misfits, hopeful poets and petty criminals floated through the shop, while my friend kept his eye on the broader picture that involved real estate agents, local councils, supplies of coffee, income and expenditure.

Perhaps the experience helped delay my own adulthood, allowing me time to try out a bohemian, communal alternative lifestyle that was so important to some of us in the early 1970s. My friend, though, was soon married. It was as if he had been living a parallel life outside our friendship, outside the youth group, coffee shop, jug band, drugs and misadventures of our project.

This did not break us up, and in fact after his marriage he became another kind of friend. I was at times struggling to find some steady sense of myself. Sometimes in those years I would not be able to talk or even be near others, and I remember once when I felt like this I went to my newly married friend’s home, and asked if I could lie on the floor in the corner of their lounge room for a few days until I felt better.

They indulged me. I felt it was this haven that saved me then, giving me the time to recoup and giving me a sense that there was somewhere I could go where the world was safe and neutral.

In time, and more bumpily and uncertainly than my friend, I was with a partner raising a family. He was often involved in our children’s birthdays, other celebrations, our house-moving, and just dropping in on family meals. It worked for us. I remember him lifting our cast iron wood-burning stove into its place in our first renovated Brunswick cottage. He lived in a more sprawling home near bushland on the edge of Melbourne, so one of my pleasures became the long cycling trips out to see him.

My partner and I were embraced by a local community thanks to the childcare centre, kinders, schools and sport. Lasting friendships (for us and for our children) grew in the tentative, open-ended, slightly blindly feeling way of friendships. Through this decade and a half though, the particular friendship with my songful friend held, perhaps to the surprise of both of us.

‘Tolerating much, for the sake of best intentions’

In his thoroughly likeable 1993 book on friendship , the political scientist Graham Little wrote under the bright light of writings by Aristotle and Freud, that the purest kind of friendship “welcomes the different ways people are alive to life and tolerates much in a friend for the sake of best intentions”.

Here perhaps is the closest I have seen to a definition of friendship at its best: a stance imbued with sympathy, interest and excitement directed at another despite all that otherwise shows we are flawed and dangerous creatures.

On that evening, the evening of the last time we went out to dinner together, I did push my friend towards one of the topics we usually avoided. I had been wanting him to acknowledge and even apologise for his behaviour towards some young women he had spoken to, I thought, lewdly and insultingly nearly a year before in my home at a party. The women and those of us who had witnessed his behaviour felt continuing tension over his refusal to discuss the fact that he had wanted to speak so insultingly to them and then had done it in our home in front of us. For me, there was some element of betrayal, not only in the way he had behaved but in his continued refusal to discuss what had happened.

The women were drunk, he said, just as he had said the last time I tried to talk to him about this. They were wearing almost nothing, he said, and what he’d said to them was no more than they were expecting. My friend and I were sitting in a popular Thai restaurant on Sydney Road: metal chairs, plastic tables, concrete floor. It was noisy, packed with students, young couples and groups out for a cheap and tasty meal. A waitress had put menus, water and beer on our table while she waited for us to decide on our meals. Wanting to push finally past this impasse, I pointed out to him that the women had not insulted him, he had insulted them.

If that’s the way you want it, he replied, and placed his hands on each side of the table, hurling it into the air and walking out of the restaurant as table, bottles, glasses, water and beer came clattering and smashing down around me. The whole restaurant fell silent. I could not move for some time. The waitress began mopping up the floor around me. Someone called out, “Hey, are you all right?”

This was the last time I saw or heard from him. For many months, I thought of him every day, then slowly I thought of him less often, until now I can think of him more or less at will, and not find myself ashamed of the way I went for him in a conversation where I should have been perhaps more alive to whatever was troubling him.

Improvised, tentative

For some years after this, I felt I had to learn how to be myself without him. I have read articles and essays since then about how pitiful men can be at friendship. We are apparently too competitive, we base our friendships on common activities, which means we can avoid talking openly about our feelings and thoughts. I don’t know about this “male deficit model”, as some sociologists call it, but I do know that the loss of this friendship took with it a big part of my shared personal history at that time. It dented my confidence in ever having properly known this man or understood our friendship — or in knowing how secure any friendship might be.

I was drawn to read and re-read Michel de Montaigne’s gentle and strangely extreme essay on friendship where he was so certain that he knew with perfection what his friend would think and say and value. He wrote of his friend, Etienne de Boëtie, “Not only did I know his mind as well as I knew my own but I would have entrusted myself to him with greater assurance than to myself.”

Against this perfection of understanding between friends, there is George Eliot’s odd excursion into science fiction in her 1859 novel, The Lifted Veil . Her narrator, Latimer, finds he can perceive perfectly clearly the thoughts of all the people around him. He becomes disgusted and deeply disturbed by the petty self-interest he apparently discovers within everyone.

After 40 years of shared history, there was not the disgust Eliot writes of, nor Montaigne’s perfect union of mind and trust between me and my burly friend, but there was, I had thought, a foundation of knowledge whereby we took each other’s differences into ourselves, as well as our common histories of the cafe we had run, and as it happened our common serving of time in semi-monastic seminaries before we’d met — differences and similarities that had given us, I thought, ways of being in sympathy with each other while allowing for each other.

Read more: Guide to the classics: Michel de Montaigne's Essays

Montaigne’s dearest friend, Etienne, had died, and his essay was as much about the meaning of this loss as about friendship. His big idea was loyalty, and I think I understand that, though not in the absolute way Montaigne wrote of it.

Loyalty is only real if it is constantly renewed. I worry that I have not worked enough at some friendships that have come into my life, but have let them happen more passively than the women I know who spend such time, and such complicated time, exploring and testing friendships. The sudden disappearance of my friend left me with an awareness of how patched-together, how improvised, clumsy and tentative even the most secure-seeming friendship can be.

When the philosopher and brilliant essayist, Simone Weil wrote shortly before she died in 1943,

I may lose, at any moment, through the play of circumstances over which I have no control, anything whatsoever that I possess, including things that are so intimately mine that I consider them as myself. There is nothing that I might not lose. It could happen at any moment ….

she seemed to be touching on the difficult truth that we run on luck and hope and chance much of the time. Why haven’t I worked harder at friendships, when I know that they provide the real meaning in my life?

Some years ago, when I was told by a medical specialist that I had a 30% chance of having cancer, as I waited for the results of a biopsy, I remember that in response to these dismal odds I had no desire to go back to work, no desire to even read — all I wanted to do was spend time with friends.

Inner worlds laid waste

To know what it is we care about, this is a gift. It should be straightforward to know this and keep it present in our lives, but it can prove to be difficult. Being the reader that I am, I have always turned to literature and fiction for answers or insights into those questions that seem to need answering.

I realised some time after the ending of my friendship that I had been reading novels dealing with friendship, and was not even sure how consciously I had chosen them.

For instance, I read The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, a novel about a Christian preacher, Peter Leigh, sent to convert aliens in a galaxy ludicrously far from earth on a planet with an equally unlikely atmosphere benign to its human colonisers.

It is a novel about whether Leigh can be any kind of adequate friend to his wife left behind on Earth, and whether his new feelings for these aliens amounts to friendship. Though my suspension of disbelief was precarious, I found myself caring about these characters and their relationships, even the grotesquely shapeless aliens. Partly I cared about them because the book read like an essay testing ideas of friendship and loyalty that were important and urgent to the writer.

I also read at that time Haruki Murakami’s novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage , a book that came with a little game of coloured cards and stickers, and I found that I cared about Tsukuru Tazaki too, for I felt all along that Murakami’s character was a thin and endearing disguise for himself (what a beautiful word that is, “en-dearing”).

The novel centred on lost friendships. I heard a tone in its voice that was the oddly flat, persistent, vulnerable and sincere searching of a man for connection with others. If Murakami’s novel has a proposition it wishes to test it would be that we only know ourselves in what images of ourselves we receive back from our friends. Without our friends we become invisible, lost.

In both those novels, the friendships are crashing to pieces in slow motion in front of the reader’s helpless eyes. I wanted to shake those characters, tell them to stop and think about what they were doing, but at the same time I saw in them mirrors of myself and my experiences.

I read John Berger too , on the way a human looks across an abyss of incomprehension when looking at another animal. Though language seems to connect us, it might be that language also distracts us from the actual abyss of ignorance and fear between all of us as we look, across, at each other. In his book on the savage mind , Lévi-Strauss quotes a study of Canadian Carrier Indians living on the Bulkley River who were able to cross that abyss between species, believing they knew what animals did and what their needs were because their men had been married to the salmon, the beaver and the bear.

I have read essays by Robin Dunbar on the evolutionary limits to our circles of intimacy , where he suggests that for most of us there needs to be three or maybe five truly close friends. These are the ones we lean towards with tenderness and open ourselves to with endless curiosity — those in whom we seek only the good.

My partner can name quickly four friends who qualify for her as part of this necessary circle. I find I can name two (and she is one of them), then a constellation of individual friends whose closeness to me I can’t easily measure. It is this constellation that sustains me.

Recently I was away from home for three months. After two weeks away I wrote a list in the back of my diary of the friends I was missing. A little more than a dozen of these were the friends, men and women, with whom I need contact, and with whom conversations are always open-ended, surprising, intellectually stimulating, sometimes intimate, and often fun. With each of them I explore a slightly different but always essential version of myself. Graham Little wrote that “ideal soulmates are friends who are fully aware that each has himself as his main life project”.

To live this takes some effort of imagination, and with my friend at dinner that night I might in myself have been refusing to make this effort.

There are also, it occurs to me, the friends who came as couples, with whom my partner and I share time as couples. This is itself another manifestation of friendship, one that crosses over into community, tribe and family — and no less precious than the individual intimacy of a personal friendship. For reasons I can’t properly fathom, the importance of this kind of time with coupled friends has deepened as I have grown through the decades of my fifties and sixties.

Perhaps it is that the dance of conversation and ideas is so much more complex and pleasurable when there are four or more contributing. It could be too that I am absolved from the responsibility of really working at these friendships in the way one must when there are two of us. Or it might be the pang and stimulus of the knowledge that opportunities to be together are brutally diminishing as we grow older.

But to lose an individual friend from one’s closest circle is to have large tracts of one’s inner world laid waste for a time. My feelings over the end of this particular friendship were a kind of grief mixed with bewilderment.

It was not that the friendship was necessary to my existence, but that perhaps through habit and sympathy it had become a fixed part of my identity. Robin Dunbar would say that by stepping away from this friendship I had made room for someone else to slip in to my circle of most intimate friends, but isn’t it the point of such close friends that they are in some important sense irreplaceable? This is the source of much of our distress when such friendships end.

Still learning

When I told people about what had happened in the restaurant that night, they would say, reasonably, “Why don’t you patch things up and resume your friendship?”

As I imagined how a conversation might go if I did meet my friend again, I came to understand that I had been a provocation to him. I had ceased to be the friend he needed, wanted or imagined.

What he did was dramatic. He might have called it merely dramatic. I felt it as threatening. Though I cannot help but think I provoked him. And if we had “patched” a friendship back together, on whose terms would this have been conducted? Would it always be that I would have to agree not to press him on questions that might lead him to throw over some table between us again?

Or worse, would I have to witness his apology, forgive him myself, and put him on his best behaviour for the rest of our friendship?

Neither of those outcomes would have patched much together. I had been hurting too over what I saw as his lack of willingness or interest to understand the situation from my point of view. And so it went inside me as the table and the water and the beer and the glasses came crashing down around me. I had been, in a way, married to my friend, even if he was a salmon or a bear — a creature across an abyss from me. Perhaps this was the only way out of that marriage. Perhaps he had been preparing for (moving towards?) this moment more consciously than I had been.

The ending of this friendship, it is clear, left me looking for its story. It was as if all along there must have been a narrative with a trajectory carrying us in this direction. A story is of course a way of testing whether an experience can take on a shape. Murakami’s and Faber’s novels are not themselves full-blown stories, for there is almost no plot, no shape, to their stumbling episodic structures, and oddly enough in both books the self-doubting lovers might or might not find that close communion with another somewhere well beyond the last page of each novel.

These novels cohere round a series of questions rather than events: what do we know and what can we know about others, what is the nature of the distance that separates one person from another, how provisional is it to know someone anyway, and what does it mean to care about someone, even someone who is a character in a novel?

When an Indian says he is married to a salmon, this can be no stranger than me saying I spent a couple of weeks on a humid planet in another galaxy with an astronaut who is a Christian preacher and an inept husband, or I spent last night in Tokyo with an engineer who builds railway stations and believes himself to be colourless, though at least two women have told him he is full of colour. But do I go to this story-making as a way of keeping my experiences less personal and more cerebral?

When I got home that night eight years ago, I sat at my kitchen table, shaking, hugging myself, talking to my grown-up children about what happened. It was the talking that helped — a narrative taking shape.

Dunbar, like me, like all of us, worries at the question of what makes life so richly present to us, and why friendships seem to be at the core of this meaningfulness. He has been surveying Americans with questions about friendship for several decades, and he concludes that for many of us the small circle of intimate friendships we experience is reducing.

We are apparently lucky now, on average, if there are two people in our lives we can approach with tenderness and curiosity, with that assumption that time will not matter as we talk in a low, murmuring, hive-warm way to a close friend.

My friend cannot be replaced, and it might be that we did not in the end imagine each other fully enough or accurately enough as we approached that last encounter. I don’t know precisely what our failure was. The shock of what happened and the shock of the friendship ending has over the time since that dinner become a part of my history in which I remember feeling grief but am no longer caught in confused anger or guilt over it. The story of it might not have ended but it has subsided.

Perhaps in all friendships we are not only, at our best, agreeing to encountering the unique and endlessly absorbing presence of another person, but unknown to us we’re learning something about how to approach the next friendship in our lives. There is something comically inept and endearing about the possibility that one might still be learning how to be a friend right up to the end of life.

• Friday essay
• Michel de Montaigne
• Peer relationships

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“Treat your friends like you do your best pictures; place them in the best light.” ~Unknown

I recently had a disagreement with a close friend.

There was a good deal of uncontrolled emotion on my side. I wasn’t expressing myself well and I knew it. I became more and more frustrated and less effective at explaining my feelings.

I found myself laying unwarranted blame on my friend rather than admitting openly that something was hurting me and I was feeling vulnerable.

Ultimately, he said the words I was having trouble finding for me, and that resolved the situation.

I was embarrassed and grateful, but I realized I needed to evaluate a few of my shortcomings to avoid making the same mistake again.

I also realized that what I was feeling wasn’t the problem.

It was my inability to effectively convey what was in my heart and on my mind that led to hurt feelings and further misunderstanding.

After much self examination, I’ve come up with a few tips to communicate effectively during a conflict.

1. Think about whether this needs to be said right now, in this moment.

Sometimes the opportunity will be missed if not.

In my case, I felt I needed to bring the subject up right then or I might not have gotten the nerve again. I went for it, but it could have gone better if I’d waited to form a well organized idea of what I wanted to say.

2. Think about the other person’s state of mind.

Is he/she tired, under other stress, or not in an ideal place right now to have a heartfelt talk?

3. Consider if you have a good handle on your emotions.

Also, consider if you have the proper perspective to deal with the potential consequences.

Email, texts, and cell phone calls are not an ideal way to introduce the need to talk about something substantial.

4. Hold off on the confrontation if you feel the time is not right.

There is a marked difference in avoiding a hard topic and thoughtfully planning the ideal time to have a potentially difficult conversation.

5. Focus on breathing to help control your emotions.

If you begin a difficult conversation starting from a place of controlled emotion and grace, the path will be smoother.

6. Keep your perspective broad and realistic.

Don’t place too much importance on a single talk. Most of the progress in relationships comes from a series of discussions as they unravel naturally. Try and stay in the moment and minimize added drama by bringing up old or irrelevant issues.

7. Listen more than you talk.

It’s fine to be heard, but if you are not listening to the other’s response, the discussion is pointless.

8. Avoid adding unnecessary drama.

These things never help to fix a problem and ultimately bring more hurt to all involved. These include ultimatums, yelling, threatening to cut off the friendship, name calling, and personal attacks.

If it comes to that, walk away. Breathe, step back, and allow some time before you try again.

9. Focus on what the person is trying to communicate.

I’m often reminded as a parent to listen to my children’s words and not necessarily the emotion behind them. Emotions are fleeting, and rarely final. They are simply a temporary reaction to the current situation.

My three-year-old sometimes throws temper tantrums when she’s frustrated, but if I listen and respond to her words, it often diffuses her anger. Many times she is telling me she is not feeling heard as the youngest member of our family. I focus on the simple phrase, “Mommy! Listen to me!” Not her screaming voice and kicking feet.

10. Acknowledge the feelings.

If you acknowledge that someone is angry or hurt, you can better understand the sharp or harsh words that may be coming from them. You can choose to help them deal with their emotions or let them regain their composure to talk another time.

11. Take a realistic assessment of your true feelings in the moment.

I tend to distort and add unintended nuances to the words that others say when I am upset. This has caused me a great deal of distress in past conflicts. I am not on the wrong page, but in the wrong book sometimes metaphorically speaking.

After such experiences, I find the other person saying “How did you come to that conclusion from what I said?”

This is a classic example of our ability to inflict the worst hurts upon ourselves.

If I realize that I am upset and try to hear the words being said to me as they are, without my running mental commentary, things come across much clearer.

12. Clear the emotional fog enough to receive the message.

If you need to ask for clarification or even repeat what you think the other person is trying to say, so be it.

13. Know that most well established relationships can weather the occasional conflict just fine.

It can even be an opportunity to grow and evolve as you turn a new corner of understanding one another.

The friend I argued with is the best kind. He challenges me to broaden my perspective. He is relentless in keeping me from settling and expecting too little from life. He pushes me out of the nest over and over when I get too comfortable.

Don’t avoid expressing how you feel for the sake of preserving a friendship.

The foundation of all relationships is grounded on honesty and trust. It’s okay to show weakness, to be wrong, or to just plain melt down from time to time. Each person has something to give and something to learn. Conflict might be considered the way to pass along such knowledge.

I am fortunate my friend knew me well and was willing to give me space and offer forgiveness. The next time I have something to say, I will try to remember this and be more straightforward.

Every challenge with another is a chance to better our response. They give us the chance to practice patience, respect for others, detachment, and compassion. The added benefit is strengthening our relationships and our ability to communicate.

About Nicole Franco

Nicole Franco is an emerging freelance fiction writer seeking representation for her first novel. She enjoys family, horses, travel, reading, photography, and making others laugh. To read more of her writing or hire her for freelance work, visit francowrites.com .

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Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

Students are often asked to write an essay on Conflicts Between Friends in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

Understanding conflicts.

When friends argue, it’s called a conflict. This happens because people have different ideas and feelings. Just like when you want pizza and your friend wants a burger. It’s normal and can happen to anyone.

Reasons for Arguments

Friends might fight for many reasons. Maybe someone didn’t share, or they broke a promise. Sometimes, one friend might feel left out or jealous. These are common issues that can lead to a disagreement.

Solving the Problem

To fix a fight, friends need to talk and listen to each other. It’s important to say sorry if you hurt your friend’s feelings. By understanding each other, friends can make up and become closer.

Learning from Fights

After a fight, friends can learn how to act better next time. They learn about forgiveness and respect. Remember, making mistakes is okay, but fixing them and moving on is what really counts.

250 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

What are conflicts between friends.

When friends disagree or fight, we call it a conflict. It’s like when two people want different things and can’t agree. Imagine two friends who both want to play with the same toy, but there’s only one toy. That could start a conflict.

Why Do These Conflicts Happen?

Conflicts can happen for many reasons. Maybe friends don’t share well, or they get jealous of each other. Sometimes, one friend might feel left out or hurt by what the other said. It’s normal because everyone is different and has their own ideas and feelings.

Can Conflicts Be Good?

Yes, conflicts can be good if friends learn from them. They can talk about what made them upset and understand each other better. This can make their friendship stronger. But, it’s important to fix the conflict by talking and listening, not by yelling or being mean.

How to Fix Conflicts

To fix a conflict, friends should talk to each other calmly. They should say how they feel and listen to what the other has to say. It’s also good to say sorry if you hurt your friend. Sometimes, you might need a break to cool down before talking.

Conflicts between friends are common and can be fixed if handled well. It’s all about understanding and respecting each other. Remember, it’s okay to disagree, but it’s not okay to hurt each other. Friends who work through conflicts can have even stronger friendships.

500 Words Essay on Conflicts Between Friends

When we talk about conflicts between friends, we mean times when friends disagree or get upset with each other. Just like how sometimes you might not want to share your toy with your sibling, friends can also have moments when they don’t see eye to eye. It could be about small things like who gets to use the soccer ball first, or bigger issues like feeling left out of a group.

Why Do Conflicts Happen?

Conflicts can happen for many reasons. Sometimes, friends might misunderstand each other. For example, if your friend didn’t wave back to you at the park, you might think they are mad at you. But maybe they just didn’t see you! Other times, friends might want different things. If you want to play video games and your friend wants to play basketball, you both might feel a little upset.

Feelings in Conflicts

When friends fight, they can feel many emotions. You might feel angry if you think your friend was being unfair. Or you might feel sad if you miss playing with them. It’s normal to have these feelings, but it’s important to handle them in a good way.

Talking It Out

One of the best ways to solve a conflict is to talk about it. This means sitting down with your friend and telling them how you feel. It’s important to listen to them, too. They might have feelings that you didn’t know about. When both friends share and listen, they can often find a way to make things better.

Apologizing and Forgiving

Sometimes, saying sorry is needed to fix a friendship. If you did something that hurt your friend, a sincere apology can show them you care. It’s just as important to forgive, too. If your friend says sorry, try to let go of the anger and move on. This doesn’t mean you forget what happened, but you choose not to stay upset about it.

Learning From Conflicts

Believe it or not, conflicts can actually help friendships grow stronger. When you work through a problem with a friend, you learn more about each other. You also learn how to solve problems, which is a skill you’ll use your whole life.

When to Get Help

Sometimes, a fight might be too big to handle on your own. If you and your friend can’t stop fighting, it might be time to talk to someone like a teacher or a parent. They can help you understand the problem better and find a way to make peace.

Conflicts between friends are a normal part of life. They can make you feel upset, but they can also be a chance to make your friendship even better. By talking, apologizing, and forgiving, you can solve most problems. And remember, it’s okay to ask for help if you need it. In the end, working through conflicts can teach you important lessons about friendship and about yourself.

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The Importance of Friendship

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life..

Posted July 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences.
• Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with mutual interests.
• The first criteria one should look for in a partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to them.

As we move through life, we find that there are many things out of our control. We can’t choose our parents, our genetics , or control the things that happen in the world around us. One thing that we can control is who our friends are, and this decision can either make our lives so much richer and beautiful, or more stressful and disappointing. Today we’ll focus on how to choose friends who enrich our lives and make them more beautiful.

Why friends are so important

Having solid friendships is important for two main reasons. First, they make life more enjoyable. We get to share the beautiful aspects of life with people who we love, which can enrich our everyday experiences. Second, our friends help us through the difficult times. Having friends to support us through hard times can make unimaginably difficult situations seem more tolerable.

The most beautiful part about pouring our time and energy into friendships is that not only do friends help enrich our lives, but we enrich theirs too! Friendships get us through the tough times in life, make things more fun and enjoyable, and all-around make our lives better. I urge you to take stock of your friendships and ask yourself if your current friends people build you up and support you, or is the friendship more one-sided?

As we explore friendships today, these are also inclusive of our partners. I believe that the foundation for any healthy relationship is friendship. So it’s important to group our romantic partners into this conversation too.

So, where do we find friends? This might sound silly, but finding friends can be challenging! When I first moved to California for my Ph.D., I didn’t have any friends out here. There were quite a few people in my program that I enjoyed spending time with. But, towards the end of school, they became very busy and were no longer able to dedicate time to hang out anymore. Thankfully, through the help of a very good therapist, I learned that it was important to enjoy life instead of striving for excellence all of the time. As a result, I learned how important it was to carve out time in my life for friends.

Unfortunately, the people I had dedicated time to thus far were achievement-oriented and were pouring their time into work and not our friendships. This forced me to seek out other ways to form connections with people. I ended up finding a local hiking group with the hopes of meeting people with similar interests. During one of these hikes, I met Jim, one of my best friends to this day.

We became instant friends. We have continued to support each other over the years, and even more importantly, we always make time for one another. We both view the friendship as one that makes each other’s lives better, therefore it’s always worth the time and energy. The backbone of any successful friendship is one where both sides put in equal effort and support.

Both Jim and I were forced to put in more effort when he moved across the country to the East Coast. Because we already had such a strong foundation, this didn’t impact our friendship. We talk all of the time and see each other several times a year. We make the relationship a priority no matter what coast each other is on. Like anything in life that is valuable to us, we must work at it and put time and effort into it.

When it's time to move on from a friendship

The second part of the friendship discussion can be a difficult one — reassessing your current friendships and potentially moving on from friends who don’t add value to your life.

Two of my best friends from high school went down different paths from me. We still keep in contact, but I don’t spend too much time with them anymore. The supporting, loving part of our relationship wasn’t there anymore, so it was no longer worth putting energy into maintaining a friendship that had changed so much.

This may be a story you can relate to. What I hope you take away from this post is this — friendships take energy, time, and commitment. And if you’re putting your time and energy into someone who isn’t enriching your life and giving you the support you need, it may be time to reevaluate that friendship.

If you find yourself in the market for friends (who isn’t?) I recommend you find groups or activities that you genuinely enjoy. This way you’ll have the opportunity to connect with people who have similar interests. And once you’re there, take a risk! Talk to people, exchange contact information, and follow up with them. It may feel scary at first, but the reward outweighs the momentary uncomfortable feeling you may have.

Friendship and dating

In many ways, the most important friendship in our lives is the one we have with our romantic partners. The first criteria we should look for in this partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to us, meaning that they are kind, positive, loving, and supportive. If we’re dating someone and they’re a jerk, it’s probably safe to assume that they’re not a good friend. To avoid this, I recommend seeking out someone who is a good friend first, i.e. before the romance and sexual stuff gets in the way.

When there are bumps in a friendship or a romantic relationship , it’s important to work through those tough times. The tricky part is that it will take two people to fix that issue. We can only control our actions and hold ourselves accountable, but we cannot control our friend or our partner's reaction. In addition to our own actions, we have control over the friends or partners that we choose in the first place. If we prioritize choosing good people who we can trust will work through issues with us, then we can work through anything.

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life. It’s so important that we surround ourselves with people who we have fun with, who support us, and people who make us better. You may already have beautiful friendships in your life, but if you’re still in the market for friends, it’s never too late to cultivate new relationships that will make your life even more magnificent.

Robert Puff, Ph.D. , is host and producer of the Happiness Podcast, with over 16 million downloads.

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Food & drink, relationships & family, how to resolve conflicts with friends, more articles.

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Fighting with friends is tough all around. We often say things we don't mean and feelings get hurt. Occasionally, no one wants to admit they were wrong and no one wants to apologize; it seems as though the situation is beyond repair. There are many ways to resolve conflicts with friends. Here are some things you can do to start down the road to conflict resolution.

Calm down. No one thinks rationally when emotionally worked up. Give yourself time to calm down before even thinking of the subject of the conflict again.

Give each other respect. Without first respecting your friend, it is unlikely that the conflict will be resolved amicably.

Give each other space. When the conflict has become too heated, walk away.

Give each other time. Time to cool off will help all parties involved think things over in a rational manner.

Respect each other's space and time. Everybody's different. Your friend may need a week before he is ready to resolve the conflict and you may need only a day. Give him the time he needs.

Communicate. Not talking only makes matters worse. Periodically contact your friend to let her know that you still care about her.

Listen well. Listen intently and focus on his point of view with an open mind.

Choose your words wisely. Avoid accusatory phrases like "you never," "you always" or "why would you."

Leave out the "but." When your friend asks if you accept his apology don't say "yes, but..." It's a conditional acceptance and can lead to more hurt feelings. The same goes for "I understand, but.."

Let it go. If you can't find common ground, agree to disagree and let it go. Nothing good will come out of the conflict if you don't.

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Tips for Forgiving Your Best Friend

• Keep trying. If you and your friend can't resolve the conflict on your first try, keep trying and you'll get there.
• If you aren't ready to fully accept your friend's apology, at least acknowledge it by saying something like, "Thank you for apologizing, I appreciate that."
• When you agree to let it go, really let it go or you may find yourself filled with resentment.
• Don't ignore the situation. Ignoring things does not make them go away. It usually causes them to fester and boil over.
• Don't be one-sided. Yes, you are hurting, but so is the friend that you love and care about.
• Don't be pushy. Just because you're ready, doesn't mean your friend is ready. Pushing can make your friend feel backed into a corner.

This article was written by the CareerTrend team, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. To submit your questions or ideas, or to simply learn more about CareerTrend, contact us [here](http://careertrend.com/about-us).

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Conflict with Friends, Relationship Blindness, and the Pathway to Adult Disagreeableness

The ability to form and maintain relationships with friends and romantic partners is a major developmental task for adolescents. Disagreeable youth are likely to struggle with this task, yet little is known about how they maintain their oppositional style from adolescence to adulthood. The current study examines the long-term implications of disagreeableness in a diverse sample of 164 adolescents assessed repeatedly across a 10-year period along with their friends and romantic partners. Disagreeableness at age 14–15 was assessed in observation with friends. Disagreeableness was then examined as a predictor of both future relationship quality with friends at age 16 and romantic relationships at age 21. The results indicate that although disagreeable youth do not report any relationship struggles, both their friends and romantic partners see their relationships as being low in quality. Findings suggest a developmental process by which disagreeable adolescents maintain their oppositional style through a mechanism of relationship blindness, as they simply are unable to see the relationship issues that their friends and partners clearly perceive.

The ability to interact competently within voluntary intimate relationships gains importance in adolescent friendships and ultimately culminates in successful adult romantic relationships. Some adolescents, however, do not form successful relationships and it is important to understand the underlying reasons, as they are at risk for increases in depression and other health risk variables over time ( Cavanagh, Crissey, & Raley, 2008 ). Adolescents who are prone to disagree with others repeatedly appear to represent one of these subgroups. Disagreeable youth are not simply unpleasant or disliked individuals; rather they are both oppositional and offensive in their interactions. There is ample evidence to suggest that being disagreeable, or low on the personality construct of agreeableness, has many short-term negative correlates including a lack of peer acceptance, along with more conduct problems and depression ( Scholte, van Aken, & van Lieshout, 1997 ). There is also evidence suggesting that even after accounting for rejection and aggression, there is a sizeable subgroup of disagreeable youth that exhibit extensive adjustment problems ( Laursen, Hafen, Rubin, Booth-LaForce, & Rose-Krasnor, 2010 ). Given this pattern of findings, it is surprising that there is a lack of research investigating the relationship profiles and developmental pattern of disagreeable youth as they move through adolescence and into adulthood.

During adolescence, teenagers become increasingly reliant on relationships formed outside of the family unit. These relationships, particularly friendships, differ from family relationships in many respects, but in particular because they involve choice. Adolescents are likely to develop patterns of interaction within these voluntary relationships that are likely to carry forward into their future relationships. Though, there is only a small amount of evidence that the quality of adolescent friendships is related to both concurrent and future romantic relationship quality ( Connolly, Furman, Konarski, 2000 ). This evidence is based on the view that in voluntary relationships, there may be a working model that an individual carries forward with them from relationship to relationship which drives both their choice of future relationships and their interaction-style within those relationships ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ).

Although there is a lack of strong empirical evidence extending findings about adolescent relationship patterns into adulthood, there is some evidence to suggest that personality and relationship patterns begin to stabilize as individuals move from adolescence to adulthood (Donnelan, Conger, Burzette, 2007). The case of disagreeable youth offers a prime opportunity to study this potential development. One might expect that disagreeable youth would receive negative feedback about their behavior and alter it accordingly. However, there is evidence to suggest that some individuals who are oppositional in nature do not pick up on the relational cues in a typical manner.

A classic study by Kobak and Sceery (1988) found that dismissing first-year college students were rated by their peers as more hostile, however their own self-reports of hostility did not differ from those of secure individuals. Discrepancies of this nature have been described as a self-protective or compulsive self-reliance mechanism whereby feelings of inadequacy are masked and avoided by an inflated perception of self-competence and functioning ( Diener & Milich, 1997 ). Essentially, these individuals learn to overlook the ways their behavior is perceived by others. Given that individuals know it is socially frowned upon to be consistently oppositional and may cause interpersonal problems, highly oppositional individuals behavior may be maintained via a similar mechanism which allows them to continue to in an obliviously offensive manner, without ever acknowledging, self-correcting feedback from others. This mechanism may be the key to understanding the course of relationships for disagreeable youth, as their behavior of acting obliviously oppositional means that it is almost impossible for them to self-correct or learn from problematic relationships.

The most unbiased source of information about the enduring patterns an individual displays in their interactions within close relationships is observation. Self-report measures are useful for capturing how an individual perceives themselves and their environment, but these perceptions can at times be misleading and as such are best used in concert with multiple methods. Research has consistently identified and conceptualized agreeableness only in terms of self-report measures (e.g. De Pauw & Mervielde, 2010 ), which has been useful for identifying the array of negative correlates of being disagreeable such as higher externalizing and internalizing problems and lower self-worth ( Laursen et al., 2010 ). However, self-perceptions may not be ideal for understanding how disagreeable youth interact within close relationships, as these youth in many instances might not even know that they are acting in a disagreeable manner. Observations are useful for addressing this shortcoming and have been used to understand the enduring qualities of interaction-styles, particularly when trying to understand unique profiles across individuals. Further, understanding the interactional style in adolescence that lead to an enduring disagreeable personality-type has tremendous usefulness.

The current study utilized observational, multi-reporter data collected over a 10-year span to identify and track the development and relationships of disagreeable youth (see Figure 1 for conceptual overview). Observations of target youth and their friends at age 14 and 15 were used to assess early adolescent disagreeableness in terms of rudeness, lack of cooperation, and forcefulness. In order to track the relationship blindness of these disagreeable youth, reports from friends in middle adolescence and from romantic partners in emerging adulthood were collected. It was hypothesized that disagreeable youth would have more conflictual and poorer quality future friendships in adolescence, and that this would be evidenced by an element of relationship blindness in that their friends would report a poorer quality relationship but they themselves would not (Hypothesis 1). Second, it was hypothesized that this pattern would continue into target youth’s romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, such that their romantic partner’s would report a more negative relationship but the disagreeable youth would not (Hypothesis 2). Finally, to confirm that the developmental process outlined above truly results in the formation of a disagreeable adult, it was predicted that the disagreeable construct created from observations of target youth at age 14 and 15 would predict target youth’s selfreport of disagreeableness at age 25 (Hypothesis 3).

Conceptual Model for Proposed Development of Disagreeableness from Early Adolescence to Adulthood

Note. Disagreeable interactional style at age 14–15 was captured via observations of target youth and their best friends. Relationship blindness in mid-adolescence and emerging adulthood was captured by separately measuring self-report and partner-report.

Participants

Participants included 164 (87 females and 77 males) teenagers along with their best friends ( n = 156) and romantic partners ( n = 111). This sample was drawn from a larger longitudinal investigation in the Southeastern United States of adolescent social development in familial and peer contexts. Students were recruited via an initial mailing to all parents of students in the school along with follow-up contact efforts at school lunches. The sample was racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse: 58% identified themselves as Caucasian, 29% as African American, 8% as mixed race/ethnicity, and 5% as being from other minority groups. As reported by the adolescents’ parents, the median family income was in the $40,000 – $59,999 range.

Target adolescents were assessed initially over a two-year period in mid-adolescence, at age 14 ( M age = 14.27, SD = 0.62) and at age 15 ( M age = 15.22, SD = 0.81). At each of these assessments, target adolescents were asked to nominate their closest friend at that time to take part in the study. Close friends were described as “people you know well, spend time with, and whom you talk to about things that happen in your life.” The targets and their close friends were asked to participate in a video-taped interaction in the lab setting and received compensation for their participation. The target individuals again nominated their closest friends one year later at an age 16 assessment ( M age = 16.30; SD = 0.86), at which time they and their closest friends completed questionnaires. These target individuals were assessed again in early adulthood between ages 20–22 ( M age = 20.99; SD = 1.10), this time with their romantic partners ( M age = 19.06; SD = 3.10) of at least 3 months duration ( M duration = 14.40 months, SD = 13.31).

Disagreeableness with close friend

As described above, target adolescents indicated their best friend at both age 14 and age 15. At ages 14 and 15, each target adolescent-close friend dyad took part in an 8-min videotaped interaction in which they were presented with a revealed differences task ( Strodtbeck, 1951 ). This disagreement task involved a hypothetical dilemma asking target teens and their friends to come to a consensus decision. At age 14, the dyad was asked to decide which 7 out of 12 fictional characters, with specific characteristics and ages, who are dying from a flu-like disease should be given the only 7 doses of the cure. At age 15, the dyad was asked to decide which 4 out of a possible 10 fictional individuals, with specific characteristics and skills, should be the first ones kicked off a deserted island as part of a “survivor” contest. For this study, participants’ scores for frequency and intensity of collaborating versus arguing , forcefulness/pressuring the peer to agree, and rudeness towards their friend were calculated. Scores were rated on a 0 to 4 scale, with higher scores indicating greater frequency and intensity of behaviors that are disagreeable and hinder free discussion. Each interaction was reliably coded by two trained raters blind to other data from the study (ICCs from .64 to .69, considered in the good range for this statistic. These three ratings were averaged across the two assessments. The construct of disagreeableness was operationalized as a latent variable with these three indicators (see Figure 1 ).

Close friendship competence

Both target adolescents and their close friends reported on the target adolescent’s competence in close friendships at age 16. Target adolescents completed the close friendship score from the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents ( Harter, 1988 ). The format asks the reporter to choose between two contrasting descriptors and then rate the extent to which their choice is sort of true or really true about the target adolescent (e.g. “Some people are able to make really close friends/some people find it hard to make really close friends”). Item responses are scored on a 4-point scale and then summed, with higher scores indicating higher levels of peer-rated close friendship competence. The friendship competence subscale showed good internal consistency (α’s = .82 – .83).

Conflict and betrayal in friendships

Both target adolescents and their close friends completed the conflict and betrayal scale from the Friendship Quality Questionnaire ( Parker & Asher, 1993 ) at age 16. The scale included seven items such as, “We argue a lot” and “S/he sometimes says mean things about me to other kids”. Item responses were reported on a five-point scale (1 = not at all true, 5 = very true) with higher scores indicating more betrayal and conflict within the relationship. In our sample, the internal consistency was good (α’s = .86 – .88).

Negative relationship interaction in early adult romantic relationships

Targets and their romantic partners each completed items about the negative interactions in their relationship using the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985 ). The scale included 6 items (e.g., “How much do you and this person disagree or quarrel?”). Each item was rated on a 5-point scale with higher scores indicating more negative interactions. The scale had high reliability (α’s = .82 – .84).

Adult Disagreeableness

Target youth completed self-report assessments of their own agreeableness at age 25 using the NEO-FFI ( McCrae & Costa, 2010 ). The scale consists of 12 items rated on a scale from 1 ( Strongly Disagree) to 5 ( Strongly Agree). Agreeableness is typically assessed to capture compassion and cooperativeness on the higher end and antagonism on the lower end (e.g. I am not really interested in others ). Since we are particularly interested in capturing disagreeableness, we averaged the total agreeableness score and then reverse scored the mean to create a disagreeableness score. The scale had high reliability (α= .78).

Participating adolescents provided informed assent, and their parents provided informed consent until adolescents were 18 years of age, at which point they provided informed consent. The same assent/consent procedures were used for peers/romantic partners and their parents. Adolescents, close friends, and romantic partners were compensated for their participation. Participants’ data were protected by a Confidentiality Certificate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which further protects information from subpoena by federal, state, and local courts. If necessary, transportation and childcare were provided to participants.

Missing Data

Of the 164 individuals who participated at ages 14 and 15, 71% ( n = 117) reported having a romantic partner and filled out reports about their relationship in early adulthood. Data was available from 95% ( n = 111) of the identified romantic partners. A series of attrition analyses compared those individuals who did vs. did not participate in this portion of the study on all available demographic variables (gender, ethnicity, parental income) and all measures concerning their relationships with friends in adolescence. The results of these t-tests and chisquare analyses indicated that there were no significant differences on mid-adolescent study variables. Given that the amount of missingness was not related to demographic or other study variables, we used full information maximum likelihood (FIML) as the method to estimate our structural parameters in MPlus 6.12 ( Muthén & Muthén, 2010 ).

Overview of the Analyses

Disagreeableness was operationalized in early adolescence as a latent variable (see Figure 1 ), which included the observed collaboration, forcefulness, and rudeness of target individuals in a disagreement task with a friend at age 14 and age 15. As expected, the variables loaded together strongly, with collaboration loading negatively (β = −.78), and forcefulness (β = .69) and rudeness (β = .67) both loading positively. This latent variable was used in all subsequent analyses. Gender and income were included as covariates in all analyses and all interactions involving gender and income were tested though no interactions were significant.

Testing the Development of the Disagreeable Adult

To determine whether disagreeable youth are characterized by a distinct set of friendship difficulties in middle adolescence, a series of regressions in which the disagreeable latent construct was entered as a predictor of the target individual’s self-report and their friend’s report of the closeness and conflict within their friendship at age 16.

To determine whether disagreeable youth are characterized by a relationship pattern that carries over into emerging adult romantic relationships, a series of regressions was examined in which disagreeableness at ages 14–15 was entered as a predictor of the quality of romantic relationships in early adulthood (ages 20–22). Self-reports and romantic partner reports of negative relationship interactions were the dependent variables in these analyses.

Hypothesis 1: Disagreeable youth identified in early adolescence will have more conflictual and poorer quality friendships in middle adolescence

Table 2 summarizes the results of the regression analyses predicting age 16 friendship closeness and conflict from age 14–15 disagreeableness. Both target individuals and their friend reported on the closeness and conflict within their relationship. There were no interactions involving gender or income.

Disagreeableness at Age 14–15 Predicting Friendship Quality at Age 16

Age 16 Closeness

As hypothesized, disagreeableness did not predict self -reports of friendship closeness at age 16 (β = .03); however, it did predict friend -reports of closeness at age 16 (β = −.21), such that the friends of disagreeable youth reported having a less close friendship with those youth than did friends of others. These coefficients were significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 5.26, p = .02, suggesting that disagreeableness predicted future friend-reports more strongly than future self-reports of closeness.

Age 16 Conflict

Disagreeableness predicted both self -report of friendship conflict (β = .19) and friend -reports of friendship conflict (β = .34) at age 16. Both disagreeable youth and their friends reported having more conflict within their friendship than did other youth. Further, the difference between these paths was not significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 3.33, p = .07.

Hypothesis 2: The patterns exhibited by disagreeable youth in adolescent friendships will carry over into their romantic relationships in emerging adulthood

Negative relationship interaction.

Table 3 presents results predicting self-report and romantic partner report of negative relationship interaction in emerging adulthood (age 21) from age 14–15 disagreeableness. Again, disagreeableness did not predict self-report of negative relationship interaction (β = .11). However, disagreeableness did predict romantic partner report of negative relationship interaction (β = .27), such that romantic partners of disagreeable youth reported having more negative interactions with targets than did romantic partners of other youth. These coefficients were significantly different, χ 2 (1) = 4.26, p = .04, suggesting that disagreeableness predicted future romantic partner-reports more strongly than future self-reports of negative relationship interaction.

Disagreeableness at Age 14–15 Predicting Romantic Relationship Negativity in Emerging Adulthood

RP = romantic partner.

Hypothesis 3: Being disagreeable in observations with friends in early adolescence will predict identifying as disagreeable in young adulthood

Disagreeableness in early adolescence, as captured by observations of interactions with friends, significantly predicted self-report of disagreeableness in young adulthood (β = .38, p < .01). Those individuals who were disagreeable in their interactions with friends at age 14–15 reported being more disagreeable at age 25. 1

Disagreeable youth are not just unpleasant; they are contentious and offensive in their relationships. This study confirmed hypotheses that individuals who are disagreeable have relationship partners who report poorer quality relationships and more conflict than relationship partners of individuals who are not disagreeable. Perhaps even more importantly, we found that disagreeable youth view and report their relationships differently than their friends and romantic partners. This raises the possibility that the enduring pattern of negative quality across relationships of disagreeable youth is maintained as a result of a perceptual bias that these individuals hold concerning their relationships. While disagreeable youth are aware of the conflict in their relationships, they do not report the relationship to be negative overall, although their partners (both friends and romantic partners) repeatedly do. An unfortunate potential consequence of this discounting may be that it keeps these youth from recognizing and potentially improving their relational style. The findings from this study highlight the breadth and duration of the implications of this disagreeable interaction style, as it is evident in future adolescent friendships and also carries over into adult romantic relationships six years later. These results provide empirical evidence for the theory that there may be an internal mechanism that accounts for stability in relationship difficulty for certain youth ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ).

One of the striking features of this study is the consistency with which disagreeable youth view their relationships distinctly differently than do their friends and romantic partners. We had predicted that disagreeable youth may exhibit a pattern similar to the self-protective mechanism that others had uncovered in preoccupied adults ( Kobak & Sceery, 1988 ). The pattern of relationship blindness described in the current study is particularly troubling because it suggests that disagreeable youth will struggle to form healthy relationship interactions, as they may not work to improve upon their maladaptive interaction style. Adopting this relationship blindness approach to social relationships dramatically reduces their opportunity to alter their behavior, potentially condemning them to the long-term pattern of negative interactions observed in this study.

It follows that a disagreeable friend would be a disagreeable romantic partner. A key finding of the current study, however, suggests that those prone to disagreeableness in adolescence not only continue to be disagreeable in their early adult romantic relationships, but that they continue to find relationship partners. There is a wealth of literature suggesting that similarity is a key factor in the choice and maintenance of voluntary relationships throughout adolescence and early adulthood ( Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009 ). Disagreeable individuals may find interactions with other partners prone to conflict and an argumentative style because they find it rewarding and reinforcing of their own behavior. It is possible that this leads individuals prone to disagreeableness limited in their partner choices in early adulthood, thus only finding enduring relationships with other young adults who have similar interaction styles. This would only serve to further their unhealthy relationship expectations.

Individuals with a disagreeable interaction style are not just unpleasant; they also carry their elevated level of contentiousness in their interactions with them from relationship to relationship. The fact that this behavior is at least in part maintained by the inability to acknowledge the resulting discomfort this creates is noteworthy. It suggests developmental processes by which youth that have an oppositional style in early adolescence use conflict within a relationship to justify their disagreeable nature. This developmental process is also indicated in the literature on trait aggressiveness, whereby individuals who are prone to aggressive perceptions actively contribute to creating consistently aggressive environments and responses ( Anderson, Buckley, & Carnagey, 2008 ; Dill, Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1997 ). Understanding the nature of forming and maintaining a disagreeable style of interaction is an underappreciated developmental phenomenon worthy of future study ( Laursen & Richmond, 2014 ).

Although strong in many respects, a few limitations are worthy of note. First, although the use of longitudinal data is sufficient to refute causal hypotheses, they cannot directly support causal claims. Second, the analyses presented were spread out across several years of development. While this is a strength in that it suggests an enduring continuity from disagreeableness to friendship quality to romantic relationship quality, we can only speculate about the mechanisms or incremental steps that lead the disagreeable individuals to consistently form and maintain poor quality relationships. Third, though we specify the differences between individuals and their relationship partners as reflecting “relationship blindness”, we would need to directly model this blindness over time to understand its role and function. Future work with larger samples would help add clarity to these novel findings. Finally, the longitudinal and multiple informant nature of the data made it logistically impractical to follow a large sample, and thus there was relatively little power to detect potential moderators. Thus, while gender of the target youth was included in all analyses as a moderator, the lack of results should not be interpreted as a concrete statement of null effects.

The findings of this study are noteworthy in many respects. We found that an individual’s interaction style with friends in adolescence is directly related to their interaction style years later in romantic relationships. In particular, disagreeable youth form unhealthy friendships in adolescence and continue to have unhealthy relationships in adulthood that seem to stem from their interaction style. This pattern may be related to the observed tendency for disagreeable youth to be obliviously offensive in their interactions, acting aggressively but not noticing its negative impact on their relationships. As such, if these findings are confirmed in further research, they suggest that disagreeable youth might benefit greatly from interventions designed to improve social interactions and, particularly, social awareness. Without intervention, these individuals are likely to experience conflictual, relationally aggressive, and unhealthy relationships throughout development as they consistently ignore or rationalize their unhealthy patterns.

Correlations Among Variables in the Study

• We model disagreeableness through observations with friends in adolescence.
• These observations to predict future behavior in friend and romantic relationships.
• Disagreeableness predicts future partner reports of poorer relationship quality.
• Disagreeableness does not predict individual’s own reports of relationships.
• We propose this relationship blindness to explain disagreeableness stability.

Acknowledgements

This study was conducted using data collected as part of a larger investigation led by the principal investigator, Dr. Joseph P. Allen. This project was supported by Research Grant R01HD058305-11A1 funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development awarded to Joseph P. Allen.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

1 Information was also provided by participants at age 25 on the other Big Five domains though not presented here. None were significantly related to early adolescent disagreeableness. The strongest association was with age 25 neuroticism ( p = .09).

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The Art of Friendship: How to Address and Respond to Conflict

Learn the best methods for navigating disagreements with friends, whether you’re bringing up or responding to hurt feelings.

Friendships are love stories too. In the Shondaland series The Art of Friendship , we explore and appreciate the beauty and complexities of friendship, as well as what makes it so powerful. From expert tips on how to navigate conflicts and deepen your friendships to uplifting stories of reconnections and advice on making new friends, these stories are reminders of the joy, value, and meaning that companionship brings to our lives.

Taylor Lamb is friends with five women who have known one another for the better part of the last seven years. Following their college years at the University of Virginia, the group became more intentional about maintaining their bond when proximity no longer bound them together. They revved up a group chat, held virtual hangouts around the holidays, and committed to always celebrating birthdays in person — even if it meant jumping on a train or a plane.

After a few years, each of the women ended up in the mid-Atlantic region for work, medical school, or law school. While they were physically close again, they began experiencing splinters in their seven-year friendship for the first time when some members of the group started backing out of planned gatherings at the last minute.

“I feel like people were feeling unheard and wanting more support,” Lamb says of the rift. The 25-year-old community engagement associate recognized that navigating the pandemic made communication even more difficult. “It just seemed like we all just needed to get in a room and talk.”

Lamb reached out to each friend individually and gauged their willingness for a group conversation; they all agreed to have one. In early May, they gathered in person (with one friend tuning in virtually) to have an open discussion with Lamb as their facilitator. With conversational guidelines painted onto a poster as a North Star, the ground rules were set. The gentle reminders encouraged the women to release any spirit of defensiveness, refrain from interrupting others, assume best intent — but mind impact — pause and take a deep breath if needed, and partake in other helpful actions.

To start, Lamb acknowledged that conflict is hard, especially for those who did not grow up encouraged to talk about their feelings or were unable to do so in a safe space. “I feel like acknowledging that made people not want to be reactive,” she says. Her goal wasn’t to come with an agenda but to “hold the space” for her friends to feel like they could share their thoughts safely. She opened the floor by asking who wanted to speak first, and each individual shared how they were feeling.

“The conclusions we came to,” Lamb says, “were that people had expectations of what they needed to be cared for, but they never said those.” She adds that bell hooks’ All About Love inspired how she approaches her relationships. “Me personally being an abolitionist and wanting to build a new world, we have to be willing to talk about our issues. And expecting other people to know how we feel is not what love really is.”

William Morrow & Company All About Love: New Visions

Before the exchange concluded, they each took turns expressing what makes them feel cared for, sharing their love language and coming up with specific communication guidelines to use moving forward. It dawned on Lamb that these women didn’t only want to be in one another’s lives for the good times, but that they cared about and valued one another enough to stick it out through the hard ones too. “I feel really happy that we’re all committed to our friendship in this way,” she says. “I feel closer to them.”

There’s a glaring absence of dialogue today on how to work through conflict with friends. The popular belief that a friendship shouldn’t make you uncomfortable and that you should cut someone off at the first sign of tension or disappointment has seeped into the collective consciousness, but relationship experts agree: That’s not real friendship.

Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends

Conflict is not an automatic sign that a friendship will end; addressing it can be a signal that both parties are committed to the relationship. Many people talk themselves out of bringing up an issue because they don’t want to seem as if they’re the problem, but withholding discomfort can manifest itself in another way, whether through withdrawal or resentment. “Think of it as something that will help not hurt,” says female friendship coach and educator Danielle Bayard Jackson .

Why should you address conflict with friends?

Honing your ability to work through conflict in a long-term platonic relationship is no different than learning to do so in a committed romantic partnership. Many withhold their feelings out of the fear that they will be perceived as dramatic or difficult or that it will tear the friendship apart, but with a real friend, that’s not the case. A 2012 paper found that open, non-blaming conversations lead to deeper intimacy between people, as opposed to not having those conversations at all.

Psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner came up with a concept for the illusion of closeness without conflict: flaccid safety versus dynamic safety . Flaccid safety is the sense of stability within a relationship when we pretend that nothing is bothering us. Dynamic safety is a more robust, deeper level of intimacy that is achieved when there’s rupture and repair, or in Goldner’s words, a cycle of “risk-taking and resolution” or “separation and reunion.” There is trust in the knowledge that issues will less easily come between friends and authentic comfort in the shared history that you are willing to work through hard emotions together.

“That closeness that you want with the friend where you feel like you can be yourself and you can say anything that we all dreamily speak of — to achieve that, sometimes you have to go through the awkwardness of bringing up something that makes you feel uncomfortable,” says Jackson. “It gives her a chance to demonstrate: I love you. I care about you. I hear you. We might get into it. We might disagree. All those things. But once we work it out, I’m going to feel more connected to you than I did before. That is not possible without having a difficult moment.”

When the challenge arises, don’t run from the chance to deepen your bond. Here’s how to address conflict with a friend, whether you’re bringing up the issue or responding to your loved one’s concern.

How to Address Conflict

Examine the problem

Coping with conflict is the goal, but that doesn’t mean you have to confront your friend every single time they do something that bothers or annoys you. A helpful way to assess if it’s worth going to them about it is if it is a recurring issue or a situation that has continued to affect how you perceive your friend and how you show up in your friendship.

“Anger is a signal that there might be some conflict to address, because anger tends to be a signal that there’s an injustice that’s happening,” Franco says. While this is true, Franco notes that we can acknowledge our anger without it being the emotion that guides the conversation.

Assess the relationship

Your level of closeness to the person is a factor worth considering when deciding whether to bring up an issue with your friend. Franco suggests, “If it’s not a friend that you’re particularly close to or if it’s a newer friend and you already find yourself getting into conflict, ask yourself: Is this a sign that this is maybe not a good friendship for me?”

Franco adds, “Generally, I say that if it’s a friend you’ve had for a long time, and you have each other’s best interests at heart, it’s always worth it to address it.” Conflict isn’t automatically an indicator of incompatibility; it may simply be the sign of differing preferences that can be bridged with communication.

Define timing

As the saying goes — timing is everything. “Ask yourself, ‘If this goes wrong, do I really have the capacity to tolerate that?’ You will hopefully say yes to that question,” Franco says. Emotional regulation is key to an effective conversation, and we are better at regulating our emotions when we’ve slept well , exercised, meditated, and are in a physically good space in addition to our mental one.

While you shouldn’t continually use personal struggles as an excuse to keep putting off the discussion, it is important to consider if you have the immediate capacity for it. Carve out an entire afternoon — or day, if you need it — so that you aren’t rushing through your chat and have time to process any emotions you may feel afterward.

Provide a warning

When it comes to conflict resolution, don’t surprise your friend with the topic. If you’ve given yourself a chance to prepare for the conversation, you should also extend the same courtesy to your friend. “If their pet just died or they’re going through a breakup,” Franco says, “they might just not have the capacity to do conflict well.”

Consider if they are in a space where they can actually receive and process your feelings. If not, it’s likely that they will go into fight-or-flight mode, and the discussion could be doomed from the start. While it’s important to be thoughtful, don’t make assumptions about whether your friend is in a good or bad space. Trust in their ability to decide for themselves, and ask gently ahead of time.

“I like to text an introduction to the conflict,” Franco says. You don’t have to be specific, but you can let them know that you have something on your mind you want to work through together and ask if they’d be up for talking about it.

Lean into vulnerability

If you feel nervous about bringing your feelings up, that may be a signal that it’s worth sharing. You don’t have to wait until you’re feeling confident about it; use those authentic feelings as leverage.

Jackson encourages resolution-seekers to acknowledge their messy emotions rather than shy away from them. “A lot of us feel anxious or vulnerable bringing it up,” she says, “but it can actually work in our favor.” Start the conversation by being honest about your nerves. (Jackson provides a few scripts: “I’m hesitant to bring this up because the last thing I want is for it to be awkward” or “I’m nervous, but I want to be open with you, and I hope you’d do the same for me.”)

If a friend sees that you have been thoughtful and considerate, it may ease their nerves as well and expand their ability to receive your emotions. “Being that transparent about your internal dilemma sometimes works for you,” Jackson notes, “in bringing down their walls.”

Use inviting language

When it comes to conflict, how you start the conversation influences the mood, tone, and direction of the talk more than you know. Franco calls this framing, or using verbiage that welcomes your friend in rather than alienates them. She gives ​​an example of a positive framing script: “Hey, our friendship is really important to me, so I want to make sure we talk through things so that they don’t get between us. I was wondering if we can talk about something that’s been on my mind.”

It’s a warm way to remind your friend — and yourself — that you’re on the same team, not opposing sides. “You’re telling them how to interpret this,” Franco says. “That this is an act of love and a sign of your investment in the friendship, so the framing line is really important.”

Speak to your reality, not theirs

Addressing conflict isn’t about right or wrong; it’s about coming to a sense of mutual understanding. When sharing your dilemma, keep the focus of your words on you and how you feel by using “I” statements. Start by expressing how it made you feel when your friend did what they did. Don’t blame them, project assumptions onto them, or attack their character or ability to be a friend overall.

Think of it as a moment to share how it made you feel. Remember: Feelings are information, not fact. You have every right to feel let down that a friend bailed on you at the last minute, for example, but it doesn’t mean that your friend plotted to let you down.

Ask about their experience

After sharing your hurt, put on your listening ears, and listen to where your friend was coming from. Franco recommends asking about what was going on for them at that time, and what might have gotten in the way for them. “What you’re trying to do in a larger way is to embrace something called mutuality, which means you’re considering their experience and your experience at the same time instead of only thinking about yourself or thinking about them.” Franco says true mutuality is not about right or wrong but about finding balance and understanding. You don’t need to kowtow to their reasoning, but you should hear them out.

How to Respond to Conflict

View it as an act of love

If you have been approached by a friend about how you’ve hurt them, remember that they care enough to bring it to you and are willing to be their vulnerable self with you, which is not easy for most people.

While it may be uncomfortable, it might be even more unpleasant to think what might happen if they didn’t come to you. There is a chance they may have withdrawn from the friendship and let you go entirely. “Remind yourself that this is an act of love that is there to heal us and bring us together,” Franco says, “and that this is your friend showing that they’re invested in you enough to want to work through this issue.”

Protect yourself from fight or flight

Whatever you do, do not take notes from dramatic TV show scenes where two best friends are shouting what they hate about each other from across the room and one person stomps out.

“When you’re in fight or flight, you’re not able to engage in mutuality. You’re only thinking about your reality,” Franco says. Do what you need to do to refrain from sending emotions into overdrive — even if that means you need to take a break during the actual conversation. “If you have the capacity to de-escalate, always do,” Franco says. “For me, I think about the idea of splitting into two selves. … I see the part of me that wants to escalate this, and I have this other part of me that is going to try to access my higher self for this conversation.”

If the dialogue grows heated, verbalize that you need a moment instead of shutting down. Franco provides another script: “Hey, that’s kind of hurtful. I hope that we can have this conversation in a way that we’re not going to be labeling each other or putting each other down. And maybe that means we take a moment here.”

Ask for time

In the heat of the moment, it’s hard to remember that we are real people and not characters we see on TV. The witty, speedy, perfectly curated dialogue on-screen is not always a reality. In fact, quippy back-and-forth dialogue can promote defensiveness and regrettable statements.

If your friend surprises you with their concern, you are allowed to ask for some time to process this new information. “No one wants to hear that what they’re doing is not good enough,” Jackson says.

To keep from providing a knee-jerk reaction or justifying your actions, take a pause, ask for a moment, and call back later, or even take a day or two. It will help your relationship in the long run and give you space to be receptive rather than reactive. “I think you’ll find it very liberating,” Jackson adds, “because the first thing you want to say is often not the route you end up really wanting to have taken.”

Depersonalize it

Whatever your friend might tell you, rather than spiraling out of control about how you may be a bad friend, succumbing to the imaginary conclusion that they hate you, or convincing yourself that may be too [insert negative adjective here], frame it as information instead.

“At the risk of oversimplifying this, I wonder how much we’d be able to salvage our friendships if we took a breath and said, ‘Okay. That’s not mean. This is data,’” Jackson says. If a friend conjures up the courage to tell you they don’t like how you spoke to them or that a joke hurt their feelings, remember that it is simply their preference. A certain word or action may trigger them, but it might not trigger you, and vice versa. It’s simply about respecting and honoring your friend’s request next time.

Listen to understand

Don’t be afraid to ask questions to fully understand where your friend is coming from. Whatever information you need, take this as an opportunity to learn more about your friend and your friendship. Before the conversation ends, let your friend know that you hear them. Confirm what has upset them, and verbalize that you care and understand where they’re coming from — no ifs, ands, or buts. If you would like to avoid hurting them in the future, express how you will go about it next time.

Mia Brabham is a staff writer at Shondaland. Follow her on Twitter at @hotmessmia .

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Essays About Conflict: Top 5 Examples and 7 Writing Prompts

Writing about disagreements between two or more groups is a challenge. To help you write this topic, see our examples and prompts for essays about conflict.

Conflict is a clash between two parties, often because of religious, social, or political disagreements. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine began in early 2014 and is an example of armed conflict. It affects the citizens, economy, tourism, and other sectors of the two countries, with impacts reaching other areas of the world.

In literature, conflict is an integral part of fictional stories that justifies characters’ actions and keeps readers engaged. Conflict is also a part of our everyday lives; from disagreements with family members to arguments with friends, we’ve all experienced conflict at one time or another. Since conflict is a sensitive topic, a critical rule in writing conflict essays is to always rely on factual evidence.

5 Essay Examples

1. why is conflict important by anonymous on studymoose.com, 2. analysis on conflict perspective in titanic by anonymous on edubirdie.com, 3. conflicts of difference in religion in the middle east by jennifer logan, 4. conflicts in relationship by james taylor, 5. workplace conflict by lindsey latoya, 1. the nature, type, and causes of conflict, 2. how achieving goals promotes intrapersonal conflict, 3. conflicts between nations then and now, 4. karl marx’s theory of conflict, 5. conflict: intrapersonal vs. interpersonal, 6. terrorism, conflict, and the tourism industry, 7. the influence of culture on conflicts.

“… Conflict is a big part of the story and it makes the story interesting. Without conflict, the story seems plain and there’s no flare to get people to want to read it or enjoy it. Some authors use man against himself, man against nature, man against society, and man against man.”

This essay explains why conflict is integral for stories, mentioning that it makes a literary piece exciting enough to maintain the readers’ attention. The author uses Richard Connell’s “ The Most Dangerous Game ” to prove their point and delves into relevant scenes demonstrating different conflicts. For example, the scene where the main character fights against the big waves to reach the island for safety exemplifies the conflict of Man against Nature.

“The film is an excellent example of the perspective of conflict, every scene is thoughtful, and reflects the discrimination and exploitation that the working class society faces.”

The author offers several citations to support their claim that the 1997 Titanic film is more than a romantic tragedy. Putting Rose and Jack’s love story aside, the movie also depicts the differences between social classes that link them to conflict theory. According to the founder of this theory, the leading cause of conflicts is the unequal distribution of power and resources among people.

The essay brings up several film segments that cement these differences, such as the standard rule of “women and children first” when evacuating people during a disaster. Although the tragedy claimed the lives of both lower and upper-class men, the movie conveys an important message that everyone will suffer, regardless of class, in times of calamity.

“The Middle East has been in a state of turmoil since the early 1990’s. Conflicts arose from differences in religion, control over territories, and uneven political distribution. These conflicts were not just between countries, but also within individual countries.”

Although this essay doesn’t reveal the root cause of conflicts in the Middle East, it shows the magnitude of the impact of these fights caused by religious differences, territorial disputes, and political inequality. Logan explains that government instability in the Middle East makes it possible for various terrorist to express their grievances and desires through violence.

“As you start your married life, know that conflicts are a must and communication is the key to solving such issues. When married people see the need to manage interpersonal conflicts rather than ignoring them, their marriage becomes functional and happy.”

Couples usually avoid conflicts in their relationships, but Taylor knows it’s inevitable. A relationship without interpersonal conflict can become weak and often leads to separation. He believes that people who ignore problems to avoid conflicts with their partners develop negative emotions that destroy love. Taylor explains that bringing one’s gender and culture into the conversation is the key to resolving disputes, as it prevents miscommunication and demonstrates equal power.

“By better understanding how conflict arise, and practicing handling such conflict in an assertive way, it can become far less intimidating and be an aspect of work you can learn to manage rather than have it manage you.”

Latoya’s essay focuses on how Chinese people avoid conflicts to promote peace and avoid discord, especially workplace disagreements. She describes workplace conflict as work-related or personal tension between two or more forces with differing values ​​and perspectives.

Latoya mentions three techniques to clear up these issues: stimulating, controlling, and resolving and eliminating disputes. Ultimately, the author believes that every manager must maintain emotional distance and focus on conflict resolution by listening, empathizing, and guiding members who have conflicts.

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7 Prompts for Writing Essays About Conflicts

Conflict is diverse and includes essential features that need to be discussed. For this prompt, focus on the conflict in its universality and explain the four major types of conflict. Identify and explain the causes of various conflict categories. Then, give real-life cases of each so the readers can understand and relate to these examples. You might be interested in these essays about cause and effect and essays about curiosity .

Various factors are considered to find the root cause of conflicts. This prompt focuses on elements that promote intrapersonal conflicts, such as frustration, stress, anxiety, and insecurity. 

Tell your readers about a specific situation where the desire to achieve a goal made you feel various negative emotions. Then share what conflict management style you used to resolve this conflict and peacefully achieve your goals.

Our history is filled with strife between groups rallying to support what they believe is right. Such as the case of World War II, which claimed 35 to 60 million lives. In this essay, write about historical and current conflicts and explain their origins. Then, examine the efforts made by past and present governments to resolve these disputes, including the positive or negative impacts of these conflicts on the world at large.

To give credence to Karl Marx ’s Theory of Conflict, introduce him by speaking about his background and accomplishments. Then, refocus on Conflict Theory’s meaning, importance, and how it’s applied to understand society. Offer studies and cases that prove Conflict Theory’s existence. Then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using this theory to understand and resolve disagreements.

Intrapersonal conflict refers to disputes within yourself, while interpersonal conflict concerns misunderstandings with others. In your essay, compare and contrast these two types of conflict and present common situations where these would occur. 

For example, interpersonal conflict could be a disagreement with a coworker, whereas intrapersonal conflict could be an internal struggle with your emotions. Then, add tips on how individuals should respond to these conflicts to avoid further damage. You might also like these essays about stress and articles about attitude .

Terrorism is urged by unfair treatment and different beliefs. Tourism is one of the industries most affected when terrorism occurs in a particular area or country. Use this prompt to discuss the typical impacts of terrorism on a location’s travel and tourism industry. Include reliable articles that report on tourism’s decline after the emergence of terrorism and conflicts.

Conflict usually emerges due to cultural differences between individuals or communities. In your essay, speak about how culture plays a vital role in instigating and mitigating conflicts. For example, the American Civil War occurred because of cultural conflicts because of different views on slavery. Look into past cultural conflicts such as these for a compelling historical essay.

If you need help picking your next essay topic, check out our guide on writing an essay about diversity .

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Managing Conflict Discussion: Personal Experience

Conflicts happen all the time between friends, members of the family, colleagues, or even strangers. In some cases, the problem can be and has to be solved, while in another, it is better to avoid it. I faced some conflicts, but in the first case, it ended with a broken friendship because of different interests, and the other eventually only strengthened my relationship with my best friend.

I had a friend with whom we had a conflict because our interests did not coincide. In high school, we just started to like different things, and while I was trying to initiate a friend into my interests, she just spent time with her friends. One day she called my interests stupid, and I answered her the same, and after that, we have not communicated. I think this conflict could be resolved if we tried to learn each other’s passions.

The resolved conflict in my experience was a fight with my best friend because one of us wanted us to go to a party together, and another thought that we had to visit a game. The unwillingness of each of us to listen led to a stupid quarrel in which we said unpleasant things and then did not talk for several days. However, a week later, we accidentally met, talked, and heard each other. I realized that my friend was just uncomfortable in places with a lot of strangers, and he realized that I was more interested in communication than observation. As a result, we agreed that we would alternate between these kinds of activities.

Thus, the basis for resolving any conflict is the desire of people to listen and try to understand each other. In my case, the conflict ended with win-win results, although we both made concessions. However, unresolved conflict can lead to negative consequences, even if they do not harm anyone directly and do not affect people’s lives, they can bring unpleasant and depressing feelings for them.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Interpersonal Communication — Conflicts in Relationships

Conflicts in Relationships

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Experience of Interpersonal Conflicts Essay

Interpersonal conflicts are inseparable elements of living in human society and building relations with other people. Even though their scope varies, there are some universal strategies, which can be deployed to solve them, referred to as communication theories. The key to using them successfully is learning to identify the needed theory and finding the ways to adapt it to cope with a conflict on a case-by-case basis. This paper is an attempt to analyze the personal experience of the collision of interests and applying the course material to handling it.

There were numerous conflicts I was involved in, but I decided to choose for analysis the one, which is the most significant concern to me. Most children have conflicts with their parents without regard to their age and social status. I am not an exception to this overall rule. I often have conflicts with my parents over my choice of lifestyle and spending free time. The parties involved are my father and mother on one hand and me on the other.

The conflict is a lasting one because as long as I remember myself, my parents taught me what I should think that they know what is better for me. As I grew older, I believed that I was adult enough to make similar choices by myself deciding where to spend time with my friends or how to manage my day. Every time I tried to prove it to my parents, we started quarreling. I believe that the reason for the conflict is that they refuse to accept that I have grown up.

Even though my father and mother want to protect me from making mistakes, which might affect my further welfare, I cannot see the reasons why choosing a hobby is a bad thing. The nature of our conflict may come down to the fact that family ties have always played a significant role in making the life decisions of both mom and dad. So, it might seem appropriate to them to direct me throughout my life just the way their parents did.

Interfamily conflicts, i.e. the conflicts between children and their parents, have become the subject of numerous scholarly studies in different areas of research from psychology to communication. I believe that my case is closely related to the course materials and scholarly articles because the newly obtained knowledge might be beneficial for determining the appropriate model of communication with my parents and coping with the problem in our family.

As for the course materials, they are relevant because they serve as the background for identifying the nature of the conflict and identifying the strategies for overcoming it. Speaking of the scholarly articles, they are the sources of additional knowledge necessary to improve the understanding of the initially received information and finding the ways that have proved to be effective in cases similar to mine.

The primary matter of concern in our family is the issue of ineffective communication. The model of communication is often viewed through the prism of cultural norms and ethnic background. That said, there are different dimensions of interfamily dialogues. They are based on the perception of power and freedom to express opinions. For example, my family unit is characterized by what is referred to as vertical-horizontal orientation of power distance.

This type of strategy for building family relations implies more authority of parents to control their children’s lives regardless of their age (Shearman, Dumlao, & Kagawa, 2008). In addition to it, the findings of some investigations point to the fact that interfamily conflicts are often evoked not only by ineffective communication but also the discrepancies in the perception of life and central values as well as the differences in developmental needs, i.e. what is known as generation gap (Birditt, Miller, Fingerman, & Lefkowitz, 2009). These scholarly studies have become a supplementation to the course materials, which have not mentioned similar ideas.

There are different types of conflict resolution styles. For example, some authors identify withdrawal, positive problem solving, and conflict engagement as the primary strategies for solving conflicts. Withdrawal is characterized by ignoring the existence of the problem. It means that the parties involved do not recognize the existence and significance of the problem. The second strategy, positive problem solving, implies conducting negotiations to find the most appropriate and comfortable solution to the challenge.

Finally, conflict engagement is about losing control over situations and emotions and getting involved in the active conflict (Doorn, Branje, & Meeus, 2011). Cahn and Abigail (2014) highlight that people in conflict choose either withdrawal or aggression, which makes conflicts ambiguous and unpredictable. The authors also note that there are only two types of strategies, which can be used for handling problems – destructive and constructive.

Recollecting the findings of the scholarly articles mentioned above, it can be said that positive problem solving is a constructive strategy while conflict engagement and withdrawal are destructive ones. Even though withdrawal is ignoring the conflict, it might lead to its escalation in the future.

Communication is key to establishing a comfortable conflict-free atmosphere in a family unit (Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund, 2015). If it is impossible to avoid conflicts, there are different communication strategies, which can be used by family members. Some of them are aggressive, adaptive, protective, and inconsistent communication. Aggressive communication is characterized by overt conflict and verbal violence. Adaptive strategy implies functional dialogue, which is close to reaching constructive solutions. Protective communication is about determining that one parent is a protector of a child’s interests.

Finally, the inconsistent type is simply ineffective. It means that the preference is given to power instead of well-considered arguments (Haverfield, Theiss, & Leustek, 2016). Cahn and Abigail (2014) determine similar types of communication. However, they identify what is known as collaboration and compromise. The first type of communication is similar to adaptive communication while compromising strategy implies trading out the desired conflict solution by providing arguments and something of benefit in return for the demanded changes.

To sum up, while conducting this research, I have come up with several significant conclusions. First of all, I realized that the model of communication used within my family unit was ineffective and inconsistent. The same can be said about the deployed conflict resolution type. In most cases, I chose to ignore the existence of the problem, i.e. withdraw from the conflict. When I tried to make my parents understand me, I got involved in overt conflict using an aggressive communication strategy.

I believe that there is a perfect solution to my problem. The challenge could be handled if I use adaptive communication. I think it might also be useful to become open in expressing my thoughts and opinions instead of disregarding the issue.

Birditt, K. S., Miller, L. M., Fingerman, K. L., & Lefkowitz, E. S. (2009). Tensions in the parent and adult child relationship: Links to solidarity and ambivalence. Psychology and Aging, 24 (2), 287-295.

Cahn, D. D., & Abigail, R. A. (2014). Managing conflict through communication (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Doorn, M. D., Branje, S., & Meeus, W. (2011). Developmental changes in conflict resolution styles in parent–adolescent relationships: A four-wave longitudinal study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40 (1), 97-107.

Galvin, K. M., Braithwaite, D. O., & Bylund, C. L. (2015). Family communication: Cohesion and change (9th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Haverfield, M. C., Theiss, J.A., & Leustek, J. (2016). Characteristics of communication in families of alcoholics. Journal of Family Communication, 16 (2), 111-127.

Shearman, S. M., Dumlao, R., & Kagawa, N. (2008). Cultural variations in accounts by American and Japanese young adults: Recalling a major conflict with parents. Journal of Family Communication, 8 (3), 186-211.

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IvyPanda . 2021. "Experience of Interpersonal Conflicts." April 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/experience-of-interpersonal-conflicts/.

1. IvyPanda . "Experience of Interpersonal Conflicts." April 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/experience-of-interpersonal-conflicts/.

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IvyPanda . "Experience of Interpersonal Conflicts." April 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/experience-of-interpersonal-conflicts/.

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Statement from President Joe   Biden on the Death of World Central Kitchen Workers in   Gaza

I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen, including one American, in Gaza yesterday. They were providing food to hungry civilians in the middle of a war. They were brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy. Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public.  Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians. The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties.  The United States will continue to do all we can to deliver humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, through all available means. I will continue to press Israel to do more to facilitate that aid. And we are pushing hard for an immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal. I have a team in Cairo working on this right now. Earlier today, I spoke with my friend Chef José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, to convey my deepest condolences for the deaths of these courageous aid workers and to express my continued support for his and his team’s relentless and heroic efforts to get food to hungry people around the globe.  May God bless the humanitarian workers killed yesterday and comfort their families and loved ones in their grief.

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Seeking Answers on Israel and Palestine

More from our inbox:, the u.s. and israel, united (briefly) by the eclipse, end-of-life planning, the church of trump, the peace sign, progressive as ever.

To the Editor:

Re “ The Two-State Solution Is a Fantasy ,” by Tareq Baconi (Opinion guest essay, April 7):

Coursing through Mr. Baconi’s essay about the impossibility of a two-state solution is the notion that Jews have no legitimate presence in the Middle East to begin with, and that their presence there represents only the last gasp of the dying British colonial empire.

This argument turns history on its head. Jews and Judaism are of course indigenous to the region (when we end the Passover Seder in a few weeks, we will recite, as Jews have for millenniums, “next year in Jerusalem”) and the partition approved in 1947 was an attempt to provide for the legitimate claims of two peoples to a land to which they had each been long attached. The Zionist leaders of 1947 accepted this partition. Tragically, the Arabs of the region rejected it.

The war that Hamas began on Oct. 7 was not in pursuit of a future state in which Jews and Arabs would coexist. It was a violent expression of the idea that Mr. Baconi expresses in more polite but nonetheless clear terms, that the presence of Jews in their ancestral and historical homeland is fundamentally illegitimate.

Neil Schluger Bronx

Tareq Baconi argues against a two-state solution, considering it a ploy for continued Israeli domination. Yet he fails to articulate an alternative amenable to both Israelis and Palestinians.

Rather, he alludes to a situation in which one merely replaces Israeli domination with Arab domination. How will that end the bloodshed? How would the Israelis ever agree without being killed or expelled?

Each side must compromise; each side will be disappointed. But the only way to avoid another Oct. 7 or another nakba (Palestinian catastrophe), isn’t a forced marriage in which one side dominates the other, but a structured divorce in which each side has its property and rights recognized by the other.

Two states for two peoples isn’t the best option; it’s the only option.

Benjy Braun Washington

“The Two-State Solution Is a Fantasy” is a gift to the Jewish right-wing argument that Palestinians will accept nothing less than the annihilation of the Jewish state and that therefore Israel must do whatever it takes to ensure its security.

The author does the exact thing that he criticizes: a simplistic one-sided view with no acknowledgment that there are two populations who each believe deeply that they are entitled to live in the region without mortal threat.

Neither of them will simply disappear. To think otherwise is the real fantasy.

Sharon Silverman Chabrow Portland, Maine

Re “ White House Says Gazans’ Welfare Is Key to U.S. Aid ” (front page, April 5):

The escalation in President Biden’s language in dealing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not match the immorality of the conditions in Gaza.

As a longtime ally, the United States, from the beginning, gave Israel a broad license, in the form of arms, aid and support at the United Nations, to respond to the horrific Hamas attack on innocent Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.

Over time, Israel has abused and betrayed that trust by causing unnecessary civilian deaths and widespread destruction and deprivation in Gaza. Israel’s actions and inaction reflect a conscious indifference to civilian death and suffering.

That license must be revoked until a cease-fire is declared. Then, Israel must re-earn our support through scaled-back military operations that protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and concrete actions that relieve Gazans’ suffering.

Michael Curry Austin, Texas

The solar eclipse on Monday ( live updates , nytimes.com, April 8) served to unite humanity in the witnessing of a celestial spectacle in which racial, economic and partisan differences were set aside, however briefly, in a peaceful, awe-inspiring and communal experience of sublime wonderment.

As the sun was slowly yet inexorably obscured by the moon, all of our earthly human rancor seemed petty and ephemeral by contrast.

Compared with the magnitude and magnificence of our planet and its sun and moon and their heavenly dance, humankind’s quotidian travails and grievances are cosmically inconsequential, even if we foolishly and hubristically imbue them with incommensurate vehemence and import during our relatively fleeting lives on terra firma.

Mark Godes Chelsea, Mass.

Re “ How to Make End-of-Life Planning Less Stressful ” (Here to Help, March 27):

This helpful article is important, as so many people do not plan or have essential family discussions. As a result, the wishes of many patients are not respected, as no one knows what they are.

Some will receive unwanted treatment, and others might not receive treatment they would have wanted. Terrible conflicts between family members regularly occur, many unresolved.

Copies of the health care proxy should be readily accessible and should be given to relevant physicians. And people who are on Medicare should have advance care planning discussions with their physicians. These discussions are also very important and are reimbursable .

David C. Leven Pelham, N.Y. The writer is executive director emeritus and senior consultant, End of Life Choices New York.

Re “ Trump Rallies Are Evolving Into a Church ” (front page, April 2):

There’s a lot of alarming information in your article, but you stop way short of clearly naming it for what it is. Donald Trump and his “church” are the latest, clearest embodiment of white Christian nationalism, a perversion that stands the message of Jesus completely on its head.

When Mr. Trump “preaches” hate, division and resentment along the lines of race, gender and sexual orientation and openly advocates violence over peace, his role is more akin to the often invoked “Antichrist” his followers seem to fear so much.

There is little reason to beat around the bush. This is a marginal, extremist cult of personality that would lead the U.S. into a dark and apocalyptic place animated by white supremacy. The New York Times of all publications should be willing to call it what it is without fear of alienating his cult members.

Jerry Threet Victoria, British Columbia

Re “ A Sign Battered by Time ” (Sunday Styles, March 31):

As I put on my jacket on a recent morning — with a peace sign button affixed to it, one of many I have worn since the Vietnam War — I thought of the college student who commented in your article that he wouldn’t consider the peace sign “progressive or anything,” and that it merely signifies “a kind of neutral blanket statement against war and violence.”

If being against war and violence in a world convulsed by conflict and wanting all people to live their lives in peace, with justice, isn’t “progressive,” I would like to know what is.

Ellen D. Murphy Portland, Maine

Six months into Gaza war, Biden confronts the limits of US leverage

Just after dawn on Oct. 7, President Biden watched live television images of rockets raining down on Israel from Gaza as top aides briefed him on the Hamas militants who were rampaging across southern Israeli towns and villages. Dead and mutilated bodies had been left strewn on the ground and hostages were being dragged across the border into the Palestinian enclave.

He had already spoken on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said later that day in a forceful statement from the White House State Dining Room. “The United States stands with Israel ... . We will not ever fail to have their back,” he declared, calling his administration’s support for Israeli security “rock solid and unwavering.”

U.S. defense and intelligence officials had been ordered “to make sure Israel has what it needs” to defend itself against the Hamas terrorist attack, the president said. U.S.-made Israeli warplanes were already striking inside Gaza.

It was not the first such scene of carnage for current and former U.S. officials with long experience in the volatile Middle East, who have witnessed decades of episodic battles between Israel and its enemies in the region. On the day the war in Gaza began six months ago Sunday, they thought it would probably be over within weeks. At most in a couple of months. Certainly by Christmas.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths later, the war goes on, largely unabated. Frustrated and sometimes furious with a Netanyahu government that has often ignored its advice on how to conduct military operations in Gaza and publicly rejected U.S. visions for a permanent peace, the Biden administration now finds itself in a policy cul-de-sac from which there is no easy exit.

This account of the past six months of brutal war and difficult diplomacy comes from previous reporting throughout the conflict, and recent public statements and interviews with regional experts and multiple senior administration officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

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Many Hamas fighters have been killed, but thousands remain in the fight, their senior leaders believed to be hidden - along with many of the remaining hostages - in tunnels deep below ground. While the United States and allies in the region plead for a cease-fire to allow a hostage release and for aid to flow to starving Gazans, the two sides are locked in what both consider an existential battle.

Much of Gaza, a sliver of land the size of Las Vegas with three times the population, has been reduced to rubble by Israeli air and ground attacks. Most of its 2.1 million people have been displaced by the fighting, many fleeing into an area around the southernmost city of Rafah, where they live in squalid camps with little food and even less hope.

International support for Israel in the immediate wake of Hamas's invasion - which saw the killing of about 1,200 Israelis and the taking of around 250 hostages - has turned to outrage and charges of Israeli war crimes. To much of the world, the U.S. backing for Israel's war effort has left the administration morally compromised, even complicit in the destruction and death.

At home, in what is already a contentious election year, Biden is stuck between a Republican Party demanding support for Israel at all costs, and increasing numbers of Democrats demanding he stop the steady stream of weapons sent to Jerusalem. His campaign stops are frequently disrupted by pro-Palestinian protests.

Administration officials maintain that things, as bad as they are, would be worse still had they not successfully pushed for changes in Israel’s war tactics, and persuaded Netanyahu to lift his government’s embargo on all supplies of food, water and fuel into Gaza. The negotiation that won a week-long cease-fire in November and brought about half the hostages home was a bright spot, one they had hoped would be followed by a longer and more significant pause in the fighting.

In Israel, Netanyahu’s right-wing government coalition has its own troubles. Enraged and traumatized by the Hamas attacks, most Israelis want Gaza destroyed. But many also blame their prime minister for allowing the terrorist invasion to happen in the first place and accuse him of abandoning the hostages. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to demand new elections.

“We have arrived at a terrible milestone,” Martin Griffiths, the senior U.N. official for humanitarian affairs, said in a statement Saturday. “For the people of Gaza, the past six months of war have brought death, devastation and now the immediate prospect of a shameful man-made famine. For the people affected by the lasting horror of the 7 October attacks, it has been six months of grief and torment.”

A history of influence

The United States was the first country in the world to recognize Israel’s independence in May 1948. But even as it has long supplied the weapons for Israel to defend itself, it has sometimes pressured Israel to stop using them. When Israeli forces occupied parts of the Sinai, President Dwight D. Eisenhower in early 1957 bucked congressional opposition and threatened trade sanctions and a suspension of military aid if they did not withdraw. It worked, and Israeli troops spared the surrounding Egyptian Third Army and left the desert territory.

Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon ultimately ended the 1973 war between Israel and Egypt with a land-for-peace deal that led to Egypt becoming the first Arab country to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. In early 1991, the United States strong-armed Israel into not responding to Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile attacks on its territory, fearing a wider Middle East conflict and saying that it would handle Saddam itself.

Since Hamas took over Gaza after winning parliamentary elections in 2006, it has been engaged in at least four separate, relatively brief direct conflicts with Israel. U.S. involvement was limited to defending Israel’s right to security and protecting it from censure in the United Nations.

But the circumstances of the current conflict, the devastation wrought, and the length of time it has gone on have shined a harsh light on the limitations of any control the United States might have thought it had over Israel’s actions.

“The influence of any outside party - even one that has theoretically on paper an enormous amount of influence on Israel - is limited,” said Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a former diplomat who spent nearly three decades working on Israeli-Palestinian relations in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“The Middle East is literally littered with the remains of great powers who believed they could impose their limits” on the actions of those who live there, Miller said.

Many factors make this situation unique. Though Biden has had a complicated relationship with Netanyahu, the president is said to have a deep-seated, personal commitment to Israel that goes back to his first years as a U.S. senator. But Netanyahu "is trying to save his political skin by performative opposition to Biden in his approach to Gaza , " said Jeffrey Feltman of the Brookings Institution, who served as top official on the Middle East at the Obama administration's State Department before becoming U.N. undersecretary for political affairs.

Losing U.S. support in the past "would be an almost insurmountable obstacle for an Israeli politician," Feltman said. And unlike Washington's prior interventions to make peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the United States has no leverage at all against Hamas, a terrorist organization that is still holding upward of 100 hostages, including a handful of Americans.

A dissonant message

Even as the scramble began in Washington to determine what to do about Gaza, the administration’s top national security team was equally, if not more concerned about preventing a wider regional conflagration. Other Iran-backed militant Islamic groups - Hezbollah in Lebanon, proxy militias in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen - would be tempted to use the opportunity to open a new front on Israel’s borders.

Barely a week after the Hamas attack on Israel, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin surged two aircraft carrier groups and thousands of U.S. troops to the eastern Mediterranean as a warning to others.

But the fury of Israel’s response inside Gaza quickly became impossible to ignore. On Oct. 18, Biden arrived in Israel, the first U.S. presidential visit during wartime, to demonstrate American support while reminding Netanyahu that “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.”

The core objective of Biden’s trip, one U.S. official said, was buying time for Israel “to think this through.”

Netanyahu and his war council were planning a full-scale ground assault into Gaza, where airstrikes by then had killed more than 3,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and the Israeli blockade had left millions without adequate food or water. The Biden administration had almost immediately appointed a seasoned diplomat, David Satterfield, as its envoy for humanitarian issues in Gaza, with the urgent goal to get more assistance to besieged civilians.

But the opposing pressures that have buffeted U.S. policy since the crisis began were already apparent in two events that coincided with Biden's visit. On the same day the U.S. president met with Netanyahu, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease - fire. It was the only country to vote against the measure.

Two days later, Biden claimed credit for pressing Israel to allow the first 20 trucks full of aid to enter Gaza. The dissonance of the message - go ahead and wage total war, but try to do so humanely - was apparent.

After the initial flurry of activity in October, elements of the crisis began to repeat themselves.

Every few weeks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel to express increasing concern about Israel’s war actions, and to neighboring Arab states to try to persuade them to help find a way to forge a postwar peace plan that Jerusalem couldn’t refuse.

By late November, as Israel prepared to move its scorched-earth campaign in northern Gaza to the southern part of the enclave where much of the population had relocated, senior administration officials began to voice their concerns more publicly. “We’ve been clear with the Israelis that we don’t support them moving forward with operations in the south unless they have a plan to deal with the now-increased level of civilians there,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

They can't do in the south "what they did in the north," said a senior administration official during the last week in November, when the announced Gazan death toll had passed 13,000. The administration was pushing for "areas of deconfliction" where Gazans seeking shelter would be "immune from kinetic activity," the official said, and had urged the Israeli military to use smaller, more precise munitions .

Israel, officials said, was “receptive” to the message. But on a visit to troops inside northern Gaza that week, Netanyahu did not appear to be listening. “We continue until the end, until victory,” he said. “Nothing will stop us.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post has reported, the Biden administration was continuing to send vast amounts of bombs and other munitions to Israel.

After a temporary cease - fire and partial hostage return collapsed in early December, amid renewed Hamas rocket attacks in Israel, Netanyahu delivered on his promise. As Israeli tanks and ground troops moved to surround the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, civilian deaths increased during January and the number of aid trucks allowed to enter plummeted.

In his strongest public criticism to that point, Biden on Feb. 11 said Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.

As the death toll neared 28,000, Biden told reporters after a phone conversation with Netanyahu that Israel’s campaign was “over the top.” A senior official who briefed reporters after the call said that protection of civilians was “a constant discussion between us and the Israelis,” even as Biden shared their goal of defeating Hamas.

In March, Blinken and Israeli leaders again confronted each other in Tel Aviv about the future of the war. The death toll in Gaza had climbed to 31,000. A U.N.-backed report said that famine may have already have reached the northern region and that more than half the enclave's population faced catastrophic levels of hunger. The U.S. secretary of state urged Israel not to invade Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians were packed with nowhere else to go.

“We’ll do it by ourselves,” Netanyahu said defiantly.

A change in tone

Administration officials last week maintained that some progress had been made since the beginning of the year - a decrease in Israeli troops deployed inside Gaza, fewer indiscriminate airstrikes and an incremental uptick in trucks bearing aid.

But in recent days, as the six-month mark approached, the tenor of the administration’s entreaties to Israel has changed from plaintive finger-wagging to angry displeasure. On March 25, United States abstained for the first time on a U.N. resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire that was not directly tied to a hostage release, allowing it to pass.

Furious, Netanyahu canceled a face-to-face meeting in Washington, specifically requested by Biden, between his top advisers and their U.S. counterparts to discuss Israel’s plans for Rafah. A virtual meeting was held instead. Netanyahu, in a fiery speech to the Israeli public, called again for the total annihilation of Hamas and said that he had approved plans for an invasion of Rafah.

As if to underline the inconsistency of the administration’s messaging - and as more Democrats demand a cutoff of U.S. aid - the State Department has since authorized thousands more bombs to be sent to Israel.

The White House is clinging to the hope that a pause in the fighting can be won before too long. Top Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials are in Cairo this weekend to continue efforts to negotiate a new temporary cease-fire to allow more hostages to come home and more aid into Gaza. Biden wrote to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar on Friday to urge them to use whatever influence they have to pressure Hamas to agree.

In a statement, Hamas said it would send a delegation, but that its demands - including a permanent cease-fire and the complete withdrawal of “occupation” forces from Gaza - “would not be conceded.”

But recent provocations have further complicated talks. On April 1, an Israeli airstrike on an alleged consular facility in Damascus killed at least seven Iranian military officials said to be in charge of proxy activities in the Levant. Iran vowed to retaliate.

That same day, despite having cleared their travel inside Gaza with the Israel Defense Forces, three vehicles belonging to World Central Kitchen, a renowned international aid agency, were hit by missiles fired from an Israeli drone. Six Western aid workers, including an American, and their Palestinian driver were killed. Israel apologized and said it was a mistake.

Biden, reflecting the level of international fury that ensued, said he was “outraged and heartbroken” and for the first time threatened a change in U.S. policy toward Israel.

On Friday, Netanyahu's government made it known that it had agreed to two long-standing U.S. demands - opening its Ashdod port and the main northern border crossing into Gaza at Erez for aid deliveries - and would institute a new, improved "deconfliction" system to avoid targeting humanitarian transports inside the enclave.

But the carnage in Gaza, and the fundamental incompatibility of Israel's imperatives and U.S. demands, seems no closer to resolution.

Miller, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, sees little way out for the administration. Asked where the war would be six months from now, with the U.S. election just weeks away, he said, “I would like to think the kinetic phase of Israel’s ground campaign is over. More hostages are out, more humanitarian aid is in. But you still can’t get around the reality that Israel is determined to kill the leadership of Hamas.”