conflict

I'm not good at conflict. Although, as I write that, I wonder, is ANYONE "good" at conflict? But today I really ran smack into a very complicated, excuse ridden, consequence of that. I think perhaps I try just a bit too hard to avoid conflict (although there have been some moments in my life when I have really taken conflict by the horns and stood up for myself or others, and am quite proud of that) What I tend to do is not deal with it but fester my anger, not deal with it but fester my anger (repeat ad naseum), then... breakdown. Or, as it went today: not deal with it but fester my anger (etc...) and then get confronted with it in a moment of weakness and exhaustion, and in my attempts to both state my point and yet not hurt the other person's feelings... I ended up walking away feeling like I didn't make my point well at all and I was blamed for all the problems. And while I don't think I am to blame for all the problems (of course not! I have every right to my indignant anger!) of course I have to take blame for some of the problems. Namely, not dealing with them when they began and allowing them to fester.

As I was mulling this over today I realized that I don't have to deal with a lot of conflict in my life, with the exception of my marriage (and all marriages have that, I know). But I haven't had a friendship breakdown where we've had to work through a big confict. I have not had much experience with this in a workplace. I'm not sure how to get better at it. I mean, I've read all sorts of books on confict in marriage, and I know I haven't gotten that one down to a science yet. It's just a slow discovery process, I suppose. So hopefully the lesson from this rather uncomfortable experience is to deal with problems as they arise. Because once they've compounded it's only worse.

Unless I can find a way to make problems go away. Or certain people just disappear. Or... MAKE EVERYONE DO EVERYTHING THE WAY I WANT THEM TO. It is the BEST way, after all.

Is my control-freak nature coming out just a touch there? Sorry.