CONFLICT RESOLUTION & RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT...

… Appropriate Resolutions™ for home, work, community, and everywhere in between.

© 1998-2008 Joseph Ravick  and Appropriate Resolutions™

     Jennifer and Vanessa are sisters who had not communicated for months except one cold "hi, how are you?" quickly exchanged in passing at a coffee shop. The invisible ‘wall’ between them had become more divisive since the stress and tensions which surfaced during and since their Mother's death. Since those stressful days, their few telephone exchanges over the past three years had unhappily been less than amicable. As Christmas approached, and Jennifer felt a need to connect with her siblings, especially Vanessa, she reached out to invite her sister to lunch "one day when you are free." Three weeks later Vanessa responded. Instead of the intimate lunch and conversation Jennifer had envisioned, and hoped for, Vanessa led her through two big-box stores in the suburbs broken up only by exchanged pleasantries and 'surface-only' conversation during a break over coffee and muffins.

 

     What became clear to me as I listened to Jennifer's story was that they had both had contributed to a new yet fragile bridge between them. It was a start which gave them both a ray of hope that their family ties had not been irreversibly severed. Jennifer's view was that each had made the independent decision, consciously or unconsciously, that their history was necessarily their future. So much so that when they did connect, in person or by phone, both sisters 'walked on eggs’, taking great care not to irritate each other’s trigger points. “The historical differences and experiences, the baggage which had kept them apart  to one extent or another since their teenage years had now been replaced by the beginnings of acceptance for the sake of their relationship” was the way Jennifer framed it. The strategy seemed to be working as Jennifer and Vanessa parted that cold pre-Christmas day, feeling better towards each other than either one had in many months if not years.

 

      I co-facilitated a workshop last year during which all but one of the participants indicated that changing their lives was a common reason for their attending on that beautifully sunny Saturday morning. All but one also specified that 'relationships' were what was challenging them. When a person's life-satisfaction meter registers on the low side, generally or specifically, and if one or more relationships are at the root of how the person is feeling, avoidance will rarely make things 'better'.

 

So what will you do if there is a disagreement about something which is value-laden.

(Have you ever lost a friendship for such a reason?)

 

Imagine, envision the preferred relationship with the targeted person* in specific situational detail:

 

 (* A ‘targeted’ person is the one with whom you've decided to pursue a relationship.

 

Ask yourself...

· What would the 'preferred' relationship with the ‘targeted*’ person look like?

· How important is the relationship to you; in fact, how important is he, she, or are they to you … and why?

· How hard are you prepared to work to make the relationship ‘work? How much time, energy, or effort are you prepared to invest so that the relationship with that person functions to the 'common' satisfaction of each person involved?

· Are you interested in finding out how the other person ) would respond to the previous three questions?                                           ...More about prioritizing your relationships…