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[DISC] Patching things up after conflict

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[DISC] Patching things up after conflict Empty [DISC] Patching things up after conflict

Post by eselle28 Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:28 pm

I've been thinking about this lately following a minor incident with a close friend where my feelings were really hurt (I'll spare everyone the details, because they're frankly a little ridiculous aside from the emotional content). My friend has apologized to me, but our talks in the past few days have made me think about how different people can be when it comes to recovering after conflict. What I mostly want in an apology is for someone to recognize why I'm upset, to express remorse, and to credibly indicate that the problem won't happen again...then to be able to indicate that all is forgiven but that I might need a bit of emotional space and downtime before I'm immediately back to status quo interactions. My buddy is excellent at identifying why I might be upset at him - this time I didn't even have to explain - and is very credible in promises not to repeat the behavior. On the other hand, the exact same thing that makes him so good at understanding why someone's feelings might be hurt means that he tends to resolve conflict with lots of Long Heartfelt Discussions and Reaffirmations of the Value of Our Friendship and Small Acts of Appreciation. I love him for it, but man, sometimes it gets a little tiring.

tl;dr for people who believe in the Meyers-Briggs system: An INTP and an ENFJ get into a spat, don't handle apologies in the same way. Anyway, how do you guys prefer people make amends to you? How do you tend to do so to others? Has anyone ever been in a situation where different reconciliation patterns made things more difficult?


Last edited by eselle28 on Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post by inertia Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:09 pm

I think to me amends should be made through mutual understanding of the positions and feelings of all parties involved.

It means not Gaslighting or Invalidating the other person's feelings or point of view.

so no to:

"I'm sorry, but you took it completely out of context.  You are getting worked up over nothing"

and more so:

"I am sorry, we must have miscommunicated. I didn't mean that way."

but it involves listening to where the person was coming from

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Post by reboot Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:16 pm

eselle28 wrote:... What I mostly want in an apology is for someone to recognize why I'm upset, to express remorse, and to credibly indicate that the problem won't happen again...then to be able to indicate that all is forgiven but that I might need a bit of emotional space and downtime before I'm immediately back to status quo interactions. My buddy is excellent at identifying why I might be upset at him - this time I didn't even have to explain - and is very credible in promises not to repeat the behavior. On the other hand, the exact same thing that makes him so good at understanding why someone's feelings might be hurt mean that hetends to resolve conflict with lots of Long Heartfelt Discussions and Reaffirmations of the Value of Our Friendship and Small Acts of Appreciation. I love him for it, but man, sometimes it gets a little tiring.....

Yea physics, I know what you mean. The way I coped with it in the past is to say, "I accept your apology but what I really need to let this pass through me is a touch of time and space. Think of it as sleeping after a fever or cooling down after a workout. Once I get back to status quo we are golden." Then give a hug if you have that kind of relationship.
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Post by eselle28 Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:41 pm

reboot wrote:
"Think of it as sleeping after a fever or cooling down after a workout."

Oh, I like that analogy. It's always been hard for me to explain the difference between, "I am avoiding you because I am angry and am not willing to interact unless there's an apology and some changes," and, "I'm perfectly cool with the way we resolved things and have no hard feelings at all, but need a bit of a rest before jumping back into things." I particularly like the work out analogy because it puts the conflict and recovery in a context of fundamental health, which I think will work well in a situation where the conflict wasn't related to deeper problems.

At this point, only virtual hugs are a possibility, but they'd be appropriate - and are probably necessary. I do understand how lousy it feels to have hurt someone's feelings and that being on that side of the conflict isn't fun, either.
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Post by Guest Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:57 am

Yeah, having someone put on the big performance of being sorry, and needing to have a big cry and a re-bonding session just feels fake and selfish to me, even though I know that re-establishing that closeness straight away actually is how more extroverted people make up after a fight.

My ex-GF adored the whole drama-crying-shouting-making-up-lovey cycle, and couldn't understand that after two hours of her weeping on me and throwing every accusation under the sun at me, I was too exhausted to make her feel better about it after the issue was resolved. I loved that woman but my god she took her pound of flesh. And yet to her, that's what you do when you love someone - after you fight, reaffirm! And she wasn't wrong, it was just totally incompatible with my personality.

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