How do Codependents handle conflict? Generally, not well. When dealing with topics, or individuals that push their emotional buttons, a codependent’s process takes on one of two forms. It’s either reactionary, or total avoidance. This stems from growing up in an environment where free expression was not welcomed, but punished or demeaned, important issues were never discussed and where boundaries were non-existent.
Reactivity
A reactive response, as opposed to a proactive response, is one of defense. Its reacting upon something someone has said or done that causes us distress. It often includes words or behaviors that are over the top and out of character for the individual, that are meant to strike back at the person responsible for our hurt feelings.
The problem with fighting fire with fire is that everything is burning. When both people are thrashing about, looking for the best place to drop the bomb, is that no one is listening and there are feelings of upset, anger and intense frustration on both sides. Each party is so concerned about being right and striking back that the issue isn’t being resolved and both sides look crazy.
Avoidance
With avoidance, unlike reactivity, you take no action. In fact, even the slightest notion of responding to an adversarial individual or situation, in anyway, has you feeling like you just want to crawl under the covers and curl up into the fetal position and forget about the world. Intense anxiety and fear are by-products of this coping mechanism. Avoidance of the negative stimuli tends to neutralize the feelings to a manageable degree. This is a highly conditioned response, learned in childhood. The problem with this method is that if you ignore everybody that has any type of issue with you, you’ll eventually end up depressed and alone. As well, it’s not empowering and nothing ever gets resolved.
Dealing with Conflict
Everybody, even healthy people have to deal with conflict sometimes. Knowing how to handle it is a skill all of us have to master if we want to live happy, healthy lives.
In order to know how to respond effectively you have to first discern something about your antagonist. Is this person someone I care to deal with, or do I need to cut them loose? Sometimes people just aren’t worth the effort. If everything is a struggle and you have no idea what’s going to set them off next, don’t bother. Remove them from your front row. You don’t need that kind of drama and stress in your life and in this scenario, no response would be the correct one.
Take 24 hours before you respond: Sometimes this isn’t possible, but in the culture of text messages and easy communication, waiting to respond has become common place. It’s better not to react when you are at the height of your upset. If you do respond while in a rage, or a frustrated state of mind, you might just escalate the situation more and chances are you’re acting from triggers and emotions. If you get a text that upsets you and you are able – take some time, calm down, take the emotions out of it and respond from a place of logic not one of outrage.
Just the facts ma’am, just the facts: When you’re having a disagreement with someone stick to the topic at hand. Don’t bring up things from the past and don’t allow the other party to either. Get down to the nitty-gritty of it. Figure out what the conflict is about. Often times it’s not what you’re arguing about at all.
Life handed me just such a conflict this week. A friend and I were supposed to get together before the holidays for dinner. She lives downtown and doesn’t drive, while I live out in the boonies. For the last few months we’ve been meeting at different restaurants outside of a mall and a subway, for her convenience. For days leading up to our planned get-together, I started getting texts from her like, “If you’re too busy to meet up this weekend we can try for another day.” I told her I was good to go, then I started getting long texts about how she is making all of the effort and doing all of the travelling and how much she hates the Christmas atmosphere around the mall.
That really pissed me off. I have 4 jobs. I have very little free time and in the past, I did all of the traveling and here she is accusing me of not putting in any effort. I Google searched the distances both of us were traveling and found that I was traveling almost twice the distance she was travelling and I sent that info to her via text along with the question – how do we get to a place where we are nickel and diming the distance we travel? She responded with “That’s fine, all I was saying was that it’s Christmas and it’s going to be so busy….” Wait a minute – that’s not “all you were saying.” All you were saying was there was no reciprocity between us and that you were doing all the work and making all the sacrifices and I was the bad friend – when I pointed out that her facts were wrong, she switched topics to the real one – she didn’t want to be around a mall at Christmas. That’s all she had to say – no need to attack my character. Sometimes you have to weed out the dandelions to get to the spinach.
Facts are a difficult thing for an emotional manipulator. When you’re dealing with one you’ll find out pretty quickly that they have no interest in facts and will start attacking you, or deflecting away from your point. If this happens, stop the argument. They will never acknowledge the truth, if it doesn’t benefit them in some way. Save your breath.
Don’t look for supporters: You don’t need to take your argument to a 3rd party. You don’t need people on your side, who agree with you. The truth is the same person could hear your side and offer you support and then a few minutes later hear the other person’s side and offer them support. People tend to agree with whomever is right in front of them at the time, so don’t look to someone else for validation. If you’ve got your facts straight, be ok with knowing you’re right, without the need for anybody else to acknowledge it. When you add a phrase like Rachel agrees with me, it sounds weak, like you weren’t sure, so you needed somebody else to back you. Back yourself.
I’m not responsible for your triggers and you are not responsible for mine: If someone comes at you with a, “How can you say that? You know that X,Y,Z happened to me when I was little.” – Stop them right then and there and use the phrase, “I’m talking about here and now. I’m not responsible for your past, your triggers, your feelings or your behavior. I’m responsible for my intent – not how it lands with you or how you react to it.” Don’t deal with a person’s hysterics. If they are being unreasonable or histrionic, walk away.
I don’t care: This is one powerful sentence. People say things all the time that have nothing to do with you or the facts. Sometimes they’re looking for a reaction, or just want to make you feel as miserable as they do. While you are not responsible for what others say and do, you are responsible for how you react to it. When someone comes at you with a large dose of negativity if you react you’re giving validity to their statement. If you don’t react, that sends the message that what you say has no baring on me what-so-ever. No one’s opinion should carry more weight than your own. If someone calls you names or makes false statements and they are not someone you care to have in your life, don’t bother, repeat in your head over and over again, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” And carry on your merry little way knowing that Wayne Dyers quote, “What other people think of you is none of your business,” couldn’t be more true.
Make actual contact in person or telephone: People are a lot braver when they can hide behind an email or a text message. When you’re live with someone, you tend to be more congenial and open to compromise. This is hard for a lot of Codependents, just psyche yourself up and be brave for 15 seconds and make the call. The more you repeat the process of doing things that are uncomfortable for you, the easier they will get. Dealing with it head on is not only more direct and mature, it’s more results oriented and tends to show the other person that you value them and would like to move past this.
When faced with a conflict first decide if this is a relationship you wish to continue. If you’re emotional, give yourself a time out, until you’re able to approach it logically, stick to the facts and make sure that what you’re disagreeing about is actually what you’re disagreeing about. Don’t take ownership of other people’s feelings or actions – know what you’re responsible for and what you’re not. In the end remember that the only opinion of you that really matters is your own. If someone thinks you’re a bad person – let them think it and let it roll off your back. Not everyone has to like you and you don’t have to like everyone. If you’re struggling with this, think of this holiday jingle er, at least my version of it:
Jingle Bells
I don’t care
I don’t care
I don’t care what you say.
Oh what fun indifference is
When you try to get me to react, hey
Your Comments!!!!!!
Agree with everything
My N took up right after with MY girlfriend . Even though he trashed me to her . She thinks this won’t happen to her because he REALLY
Loves her .
Very painful and sad for me that my friend would betray me snd go with him .
I especially like the following: “Facts are a difficult thing for an emotional manipulator. When you’re dealing with one you’ll find out pretty quickly that they have no interest in facts and will start attacking you, or deflecting away from your point”. This is SO true. I have spent countless hours recounting the facts to my narc mom and narc ex, thinking that if I presented them with & reminded them of the facts, they would have to see reason. They never did. They would either (a) get angry and blame me for something/anything to change the subject or (b) blatantly deny or change the facts or (c) patronizingly tell me that everyone is different and sees things differently. SO crazy making! And of course, I would then look like the one who was being unreasonable, or mean, or difficult.
It is just so true, one cannot EVER win by trying to use logic, facts or reason with a narcissist. Although I wish I had known this a long time ago, i am so grateful that I know it now. NEVER AGAIN!
Thank you, Savannah, for your great posts and advice. And thank you to all who comment, it is so nice to know that I am not alone.
This is such a helpful post because it reminds me of how I have been affected in everyday life beyond my personal relationships.
I do remember with my ex, the one before the narcissist, saying, “I’m not willing to accept blame for …. “
I tend towards avoidance but, over the years, I have got better at supporting myself when I think I ought to.
Thank you Savannah for all that you do and I hope you have a few days off coming up!
This article made a lot of sense. Perhaps it would have helped my situation. My xN and I broke up a couple months ago. I’m still devasted, miss him, wonder, get sad, etc. It been NC for a month.
He always said “I don’t do fighting” and that was the main reason he dumped me. Besides some other petty things. Well our “fights” consisted of him yelling, getting in my face and saying cruel statements that weren’t true or big exaggerations. Since I grew up with a highly critical mother, I just shut down and clam up when someone yells at me. N figured this out early on. So if he wouldn’t like something I said or did, how I looked at him or my expression, or sonethng stupid he was trying to control; he’d blow up and throw a tantrum. I would internalize his behavior and words for days, sometimes weeks. I was terrified of disappointing him or not being with him. Even through all my suffering, he still left. (Together 9 months). He told me shortly before the end that “negative things about our relationship are cumulative”. If he ‘had’ to get mad at me 3 times in a month, that added up and he only thought about that, well because it was unrealistic to give more weight to all the positive. Huh? He kept a log in his head about my mistakes (calling at the wrong times, loading his dishwasher incorrectly, mix up the salad and dinner forks in the drawer, I didn’t clean his bathroom well enough, I tried to defend one of his put downs, etc)
So my questions, if I had followed these rules, would it have turned out better or at least we’d still be together? If I didn’t get emotional, cry and internalized, and acted like a clear and bold Teflon to his nasty words, would he have learned to behave better? I hear the statement “we teach people how to treat us”, by me taking it and being emotional taught him he could hurt me. Of course he’s not going to respect someone he can abuse.
Even now I’m trying to see how I could have been different so it would have worked out with this alcoholic a-hole. Interestingly, he always said he’s the most laid back, easy going, just have fun kinda guy. The drama he created was unbelievable with his controlling moods, silent treatments, biting humor and harsh put downs, of course I couldn’t talk to him about any of it. He would say “oh you want to ruin a nice day bringing up that stuff” when I tried to talk calmly about a concern or issue. We never got to the root of issues because he refused to discuss all his pissy statements and observations. He always said, if it’s meant to be between us there should be nothing to work through!!
I’m slowly putting myself back together. It’s like he’s got life by the balls and is actively looking to fill the vacancy, and I’m just trying to find all my puzzle pieces after a thunderstorm. Referencing another article on here, I’m sad thinking that the next girl will be bold and hold hold firm from the getgo and he’ll give her the respect he didn’t give me. I even asked him a few months in if he resented me because that’s what it felt like. He said no, and if he did he wouldn’t spend time with me. Is it possible I sabatoged this relationship by not standing up for myself early on?
Thank you for your support all. It’s been a month and I feel like I’m almost over the worst, but still looking back because of the good times and the fun we had when he wasn’t an ass. (By the end he was an ass most of the time) Thanks for listening.
Marie, please don’t break your no contact and please stop torturing yourself. Read some more of Savannah’s posts, particularly how Narcs discard their prey. You were a prey, a trophy, you were not unconditionally loved. If you had to do xyz to please him, you were his source of supply, that’s it. Sorry, I know it hurts to realize all this and it hurts like hell to finally admit that you weren’t loved although, yes, you had fun at some point. It was all but an illusion.
Yes, we all worry that the new partner/supply source after us will be better than us, that our ex Narc will happier with them and that their relationship will work. Maybe on the surface it will look like that. Remember, your seemed liked that, too; you had “good” moments, didn’t you? And from the outside it looked okay, didn’t it?
There’s a post in Savannah’s blog that explains how Narcs have two faces and play the game every day, every minute of their life, even in front of themselves to preserve their image and to protect themselves from any admittance that maybe there is something in them that they should change or work on. Also, remember that any therapy any counselling does not work for the Narc, even if someone convinces them to try. I know that first hand, because when my marriage started to fall apart, I did dragged him to therapy and he did come for the first two sessions. But, during the second session, the therapist started to get to the real stuff and that was it. My ex would not waste the time on the stupid therapist because… the therapist was a lousy one. Then I said: you choose one that you like and you make an appointment and I will come. Did he? Ha, ha, ha! instead of looking for a different therapist, he looked for a new source of supply and that was the end of our story.
Marie, there is nothing wrong with you. There are people on this earth, that love you without giving a damn how you sort forks and arrange dinner table. You were not a maid: you wanted to be a partner and stick to that. Never be anybody’s maid! Period!
Thank you Jolanta. You are inspiring! He actually drunk text me last night, said I was embarrassing myself and I was pschyo, at 1am. (I did not respond! Delete!) So that means N had a dozen beers and had moved on to straight whiskey by that time of night. He was especially ripe and vicious when binge drinking. Which he did 3-4 nights a week. I realize everything was about control, it had nothing to do with me.
Thanks again
Hi Marie,
Your words totally resonate with me and I see reflected my current toxic and abuse relationship. I can see the same patterns: trivialization of problems. The narc will say: It’s all in your head, you’re overthinking, too sensitive, I don’t see what the problem is. Those statements sound all too familiar don’t they?
Also highlighting concerns as a reason for them to throw a tantrum at us.
I’ve been through the same grinding experience and I know what you’re talking about. I don’t think you’ve sabotaged anything in this relationship though.
1. If your companion loves you will always listen to you, he’ll be compassionate and will want to sort out any issues.
2. Narcissists just simply refuse to acknowledge there’s something wrong with their attitude. Ban from your head the statement “we teach people how to treat us”. That’s a perverse thing to say, and it shows another narcissistic red flag: absolute absence of empathy. Narcissists don’t read about psychology, do they? Do they care about these issues and read blogs like this?
Be grateful this guy decided to part ways, the behaviour you described above is plain insanity in any relationship. Hopefully you are a better person after this in the sense that next time you’ll be more assertive and will be able to see these red flags earlier on.
Wishing you all strength and love,
Daniel.
Daniel – we teach people how to treat us – by what we allow. That’s all that statement means.
This is such a great article. I find that I am an avoider…who blows up! The worst of both. LOL. I have learned to let 24 hours pass and have memorized Wayne Dyer’s advice that other people’s opinions are none of my business but I am still overly sensitive to others’ opinions of me. Even a hint of judgment or antagonism causes me to freeze up like a rabbit in an attempt to be invisible. Then, if pursued, I have often blown up to get the person to back up. It is slow going for me, learning to stay in my skin and stay present. I have a mantra that has been SO helpful for me in life, “Just show up.” I try to stay and not run. Thank you, especially, for your jingle!
The two descriptions are spot on my ex narcissist and I. However as much as my avoidance has been conditioned from childhood it was also the easiest way to deal with the N’s side of the coin. It took years but i was finally able to cut loose and walk away. I guess i had to deal with that situation to move past it. however i am still concerned about my vulnerability in that area. Conditioning is hard to escape as so much of it is subconscious.
This was such a witty post. Loved it! I do have a question. How can one manage conflict when two people are both co-dependent but one deals with conflict with avoidance and the other is reactive? My husband is the avoider and I react, strongly, and it is a struggle for us to effectively deal with current or past issues.
Hi Liz: I would suggest that when you are not in the middle of a conflict – when things are calm, you discuss your conflict styles so that both of you are aware of how each other reacts and how you could deal with it more effectively. When a conflict does arise and you’re feeling reactive give yourself the time out. When you’re feeling more calm approach him about it. If he tries to avoid it, remind him of your differing styles and the deal you made to handle it more effectively. It takes practice, so keep at it.
Amazingly, right on! Your JIngle Bells version is sure to stick in my head. I couldn’t help but laugh! My other favorite part is “Don’t look for supporters!” Despite all the hard work that I’ve had done on my co-dependency issues, I am still needing someone’s else’s validation. Like anything else, it just needs more work and it will come, one day.
Thank you!