Welcome to the Clarity for People podcast, where we talk about everything personal development, getting coached and becoming a coach in the pursuit of growth and greatness. Here is your host, Martina Magneri.

Hello folks, it’s Martina Magnery here. Welcome to a new episode of Clarity for People, where I discuss everything personal development, And today I am going to talk to you about how to do conflict better by understanding your own attachment style and your partner’s attachment style. All of us have been downloaded with information from our family of origin.

And this will predict usually how you do conflict. Our personalities aren’t fully formed until around the age of seven. Before that time, we’re just absorbing information from our environment and every behavior, every survival tactic we witness becomes entrenched into our subconscious. It becomes autopilot.

And then we take that information and we use it in our relationships with our partners who have completely different family of origins and have learned completely different ways to do conflict. Without having an awareness of what’s going on in the dynamic you’re experiencing in this conflict with your partner, you’re pretty much well rest assured that you’re going to damage that relationship bit by bit.

Learning how to do conflict effectively is one of the most important communication skills you can ever learn. And the first steps to understanding how to do conflict better is to recognize your own attachment style and your partner’s attachment style. How to master your emotions and how to recognize your partner’s triggers so you can break any dysfunctional patterns you’ve got yourselves into.

Plain and simple, there are two ways to do conflict, the good way and the bad way. If you do conflict the bad way, you will incorporate strategies that Dr. Gottman talks about, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, defensiveness, criticism, contempt, which is eye rolling and other nonverbal gestures like that, and stonewalling.

Again, all these behaviors are usually learnt behaviors. They’re inherited and it’s up to you whether you want to disinherit them or not, because at the end of the day, if you don’t learn a new way, you’re going to damage what could otherwise be a very promising relationship. Most of my couples come to see me because there’s been a breakdown in communication.

They do not know how to do conflict effectively, so it’s the first thing I teach them. The emotional stability of your relationship will always determine its success. Your first number one responsibility as each other’s partners is to keep the relationship emotionally safe, to create a sense of psychological safety.

You’re your person’s number one emotional support. The best way to ensure the longevity and happiness of your relationship is to understand at a core level what your attachment style is and what your partner’s attachment style is. So that you can navigate any conflict in the best way possible. So let’s do a deep dive into the attachment style starting with the secure attachment style.

This is the gold standard of attachment styles. Everyone on this planet should aspire to become securely attached. That would mean less family breakups, less financial instability, and the list goes on. People with a secure attachment style are like the relationship ninjas. They’re comfortable with both intimacy and independence.

They have a positive self view and find it easy to trust others. If your carers were securely attached, you’re pretty blessed here because you got a head start. You got to see how conflict got done in a way that was respectful and collaborative. In a securely attached dynamic, you’ll see there’s a tendency to do conflict in a respectful way.

So there ends up not being that escalation that you’ll see in a toxic relationship. You won’t avoid conflict altogether. You won’t become conflict avoidant to the point where you don’t speak to each other for days and days. And this is where I tell you the number one secret when you do conflict. And this might seem like a foreign concept, but here goes.

Do not disagree verbally. It’s okay to have different opinions, but do not verbally disagree with your partner when they have a problem. Unless you have the problem first. Okay? Number one, I’ll repeat it again. Do not verbally disagree. If they are the one that has the problem, do not respond with a statement.

Instead, turn that statement down. into a question. This is the first step to creating that psychological safety in a conflict situation. Ideally, if your partner and yourself are securely attached, you’ll be calm, cool, and collected during conflicts. You’ll be able to express your needs clearly, and your partner will be able to listen to you without getting defensive or without withdrawing.

Stonewalling, in other words, getting flooded and needing to move away. Next, let’s talk about an anxious attachment style. If you have this style, you’re going to have feelings of abandonment surface regularly, and you’re going to crave a secure relationship at the same time. People with this style often seek constant reassurance and feel super anxious about their relationships.

It could be that if your partner doesn’t reply quickly to a text, you start to spiral and then start to chase. It creates a lot of tension in a relationship. Someone with an anxious attachment style is going to have more rejection sensitivity and they’re often going to feel insecure in the relationship.

and be constantly concerned about their partner’s level of commitment. It may appear to their partner that they’re starting a fight unnecessarily. They could also be perceived as complaining too much. Their childhood wounds are always surfacing and their partner is constantly triggering them. And this brings me to conflict resolution secret number two.

Always empathize and validate your person’s experience. If they’re feeling insecure, you tell them something like, that must feel awful. I understand what that feeling’s like because I felt like that too. Basically mirror back to them what they’re feeling and that is going to create co regulation. You’re helping them regulate.

Obviously they need to learn how to regulate themselves. They need to do their own individual work and learn to self soothe, but you can actually help them Empathy and validation is the best way for them to calm down and get grounded and it’s going to make them feel more secure and safe in the relationship.

Now let’s move on to an avoidant attachment style. These folks are all about self reliance and hyper independence. They might struggle with emotional intimacy and prefer to keep their distance. Instead of reaching out for emotional support, they dive into work and hobbies. It’s usually the case that they’ve grown up in an environment where their opinions and feelings weren’t acknowledged.

When they tried to express their feelings, they were minimized. And so their survival strategy is just to bury their head in their work, in their projects, in their hobbies. And so all their self worth is tied up with doing and achieving. They become super independent because they have learned not to rely on others for emotional support.

They tend to keep everyone at arm’s length. They take longer to reply to text messages. They take longer to emotionally process what’s going on for them and other people. They tend to be conflict avoidant. and that’s how they stay safe. If they don’t unlearn this survival strategy, they can often end up very isolated and lonely.

It’s almost like they’ve got this impenetrable wall around them. Last but not least is the disorganized attachment style. This is the wild card. It’s a mix of anxious and avoidant styles leading to unpredictable and often chaotic relationship patterns. It usually stems from significant early trauma like neglect or abuse.

One moment this individual is super clingy and the next they’re pushing everyone away. Relationships are constantly triggering them. They may be diagnosed or undiagnosed with borderline personality disorder or complex PTSD. Unfortunately, these individuals experience a lot of dysregulation. They go into fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

They have learned these survival strategies growing up as a means to keep safe. However, if they want to be in a healthy relationship, they need to unlearn these behaviors. For someone with a disorganized attachment style, They could feel that any conflict could potentially lead to a break up, because in their eyes conflict is not a means or an opportunity to understand their partner better.

Conflict for them spells unsafety. They can become completely dysregulated and experience something called dissociation where they zone out and sometimes can’t even remember conversations that you’ve had. So they’re the four attachment styles in a nutshell. Secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganized. And now I’m going to throw you the last conflict resolution secret.

Always, always, in a conflict, problem solve. Some people do conflict in a way where it just becomes a battle. You’re just ranting and raving. You’re getting all your issues off your chest. You do the kitchen sink thing where you jump from topic to topic and you get nowhere. You must problem solve. And the best way to do this, if your partner’s got the problem, you need to problem solve for them.

However, the golden rule is you never make suggestions. You only ask questions because very often this comes across as unsolicited advice. So I’ll repeat that again. Never make a suggestion. Always ask questions. You problem solve only by asking questions. Here is the True Serum. A person’s intellect is always determined by the questions they ask, not the statements they make.

If you always problem solve by asking the right questions, becoming a very good question asker, you can’t go wrong. Your partner has all the answers to their problem and you just want to ask as many questions as possible so they can work it out for themselves. End of story. So I’m going to briefly recap the three secrets I’ve given you that’s going to help you mitigate any damage when you do conflict with your partner.

You’re going to potentially achieve securely attached status. The great news is that if you’re anxiously attached or if you have that avoidant attachment style, disorganized attachment style, you still can become securely attached if you do enough work, if you learn enough tricks, and this is where relationship coaching really helps.

Engaging in relationship coaching or taking part in a relationship program, a personal development program, is something that you will find you will never regret. There’s been plenty of studies on happiness, what constitutes happiness, and surprisingly, it’s not the car you drive. It’s not what you do for work.

It’s not the holidays you go on. Your happiness is determined by the quality of your relationship. The quality of your relationships is determined on the ability to feel peace and harmony, security and order. There needs to be a sense of stability. There needs to be a lack of chaos and unpredictability.

And you need to know that you can have a conflict with your partner without it leading to destruction and devastation. You need to learn how to problem solve so you don’t end up separated or divorced. So circling back and recapping those secrets to doing conflict well. The first principle is never disagree.

It’s okay to have opinions, but never verbally disagree. That might be a hard pill to swallow. But just at least practice that. The second secret to doing conflict well is do not make statements, only ask questions. And ask really good questions. Socratic questioning is the way to go. Your emotional intelligence and your intellect is determined by the questions you ask, not the statements you make.

And lastly, the goal of conflict is to problem solve effectively. So, that means again, asking the right questions, not making suggestions. Bad conflict consists of arguing incessantly and not getting anywhere, and good conflict consists of problem solving and asking the best questions you can ask to get a resolution.

It is never too late to learn this skill set. It’s invaluable and everyone on this planet should learn it. If you need help, I can keep you accountable. And again, if you’d like to immerse yourself in a coaching program, I have one specifically for couples. You can find out more about that at clarity4. com.

Now lastly, I’d just like to say, I learned that conflict was something to avoid. I remember deathly silence at the dinner table. when I was growing up and it was uncomfortable. It was very tense and there was something in me as a young adult that wanted to understand why this was uncomfortable.

Something just didn’t feel right and that’s why I threw myself into studying every psychological concept I could get my hands on. My earlier relationships were fraught with difficulties because I took this approach. avoiding conflict and tolerating things that I shouldn’t have tolerated. It’s never too late as I said before.

All I know is I wish I learned what I learned way earlier in life. My only wish is to share the information that I have collated over all these years. with as many couples and individuals as possible. So I’m going to leave it there. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and I hope you practice doing conflict well and making this world a brighter place.

Sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. World peace starts at home. It’s Martina Magneri signing out. I hope to see you on the next podcast. Bye for now.

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