conflict is good, actually
you heard me right. conflict is a valuable element within the context of a relationships.
2024 was the year of relationships for me: platonic, romantic, and everything in between. every bond i had was put to the test. i butted heads more than i ever have before. i'm aware "relationship" tends to be all encompassing for the romantic variety, rather than a category. for this post, however, i do want to focus on more intimate relationships. boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse, hell, even situationships.1 that type of relationship.
i welcomed romance the year before, but 2024 was putting it into practice. conceptualizing romance after, well, romanticizing it for so long, wasn't really getting me anywhere. i dipped my toes in the idea of romance. i thought a lot about the initial butterflies, the smiles that make your face sore, the devastation of falling in love. this is all nice, but, i never found myself getting much deeper into a relationship beyond these things, despite having a handful of long-term partners over the years.
a common thread of breakups was conflict. be it lack of communication, infidelity, or simply being "done," conflict preceded, and conflict was not handled. it was avoided, or confronted with a reluctance that ended up in one or both of us projecting.
it was never productive, either. little things became big things. the deficit in resolution becomes too much to bear and we part. confrontation, though, has hostile connotations to it. perhaps it's seen as synonymous with conflict in the sense of a quarrel, an uproar. both, though, seem to be dreaded more than they ought to be. the "first fight" is seen as a bad omen, the beginning of the end. why, though? if you fold each time your bond with another gets challenged, that's not very sustainable.
one of my most controversial takes is that you can't really feel close to someone until they start to annoy you a bit. by the time that happens, you start to see them without the giddy lens of a new relationship. you see them as they are instead of how you've idealized them. reconciling with that fact can help you determine if you want to stay with them or be miserable clinging to the idea of them. this goes in tandem, i find, with how you both handle conflict.
i think conflict gets a bad rep. look, i get it. it requires you to be open and communicate your feelings. it feels silly at times to do so. being vulnerable is scary. maybe the other person isn't open to working things out and this could be the final straw. the person you gave your heart to could gone in a flash just because you said something. you don't want to bring up old shit so much that you don't bring up new shit. then the new shit becomes old shit and now it feels crowded when you're both in the same room. i've learned that to want to try to work through anything with someone i'm fond of is a great act of love and care. you learn more about each other in this way. pardon my french but if i give a shit about you, i'm going to want to try for you.
conflict needs to be embraced as an opportunity to get into the real meat of a relationship. i'm not saying to go out of your way to pick fights. i'm saying if it comes up, how you and your significant other navigate conflict and seek resolve can honestly make or break your relationship in the long run. because, well, if you're not being challenged, then what's the point?
i have thoughts on the evolution of the "sorta kinda" wishy-washy definition of that which people tend to not want to define. more later, hoping.↩