How can you address conflicts with your best friend effectively. What are the key steps to resolve disagreements in close friendships. Why is open communication crucial for maintaining strong friendships. When should you address conflicts with friends to prevent escalation. How can empathy help in resolving conflicts between friends.

The Importance of Timely Conflict Resolution in Friendships

Addressing conflicts promptly is crucial in maintaining healthy friendships. Allowing issues to linger can lead to resentment and further complications. Ideally, wait about 24 hours after a disagreement to let emotions settle, then initiate a conversation with your friend. This cooling-off period provides perspective while ensuring the conflict isn’t left unresolved for too long.

Delayed conflict resolution can have several negative consequences:

• Festering negative emotions
• Misunderstandings growing out of proportion
• Decreased trust and communication
• Potential damage to the friendship’s foundation

Effective Communication Techniques for Resolving Friendship Conflicts

Communication is the cornerstone of conflict resolution in friendships. When addressing issues with your best friend, focus on using “I” statements to express your feelings without placing blame. For example, say “I felt hurt when…” instead of “You hurt me by…”

Key communication strategies include:

1. Active listening without interrupting
2. Acknowledging your friend’s perspective
3. Avoiding accusations or generalizations
4. Staying focused on the current issue
5. Being open to compromise and solutions

The Power of Empathy in Conflict Resolution

Empathy plays a vital role in resolving conflicts with friends. By putting yourself in your friend’s shoes, you can gain a deeper understanding of their perspective and motivations. This understanding fosters compassion and makes finding common ground easier.

To practice empathy during conflict resolution:

• Ask questions to understand your friend’s point of view
• Validate their feelings, even if you disagree with their actions
• Reflect on how you might feel in their situation
• Show genuine interest in their concerns and experiences

The Role of Vulnerability in Strengthening Friendships

Being vulnerable with your best friend during conflict resolution can significantly strengthen your bond. Sharing your honest feelings and admitting your own faults creates an atmosphere of trust and openness.

Ways to demonstrate vulnerability include:

• Apologizing for your role in the conflict, even if it wasn’t intentional
• Expressing your fears or insecurities related to the situation
• Sharing how the conflict has affected you emotionally
• Admitting when you’re unsure or need help understanding

Collaborative Problem-Solving in Friendship Conflicts

Approaching conflict resolution as a team effort can lead to more satisfying and lasting solutions. Instead of viewing the situation as a battle to be won, work together with your friend to find mutually beneficial outcomes.

Steps for collaborative problem-solving:

1. Clearly define the issue from both perspectives
2. Brainstorm potential solutions together
3. Evaluate the pros and cons of each option
4. Choose a solution that addresses both friends’ concerns
5. Implement the solution and follow up to ensure it’s working

The Importance of Compromise in Friendships

Compromise is often necessary when resolving conflicts between friends. Recognize that it’s rare for both parties to get everything they want. Being willing to meet in the middle demonstrates your commitment to the friendship and your ability to prioritize the relationship over individual desires.

Moving Forward: Letting Go of Past Conflicts

Once a conflict has been resolved, it’s crucial to move forward without dwelling on past issues. Holding onto grudges or repeatedly bringing up old arguments can prevent the friendship from healing and growing.

Strategies for moving past conflicts include:

• Consciously choosing to forgive and let go
• Focusing on positive aspects of the friendship
• Creating new, happy memories together
• Learning from the experience to prevent similar conflicts in the future

Strengthening Bonds Through Shared Memories and Experiences

After resolving a conflict, reinforcing your friendship by reminiscing about positive shared experiences can be beneficial. This practice helps remind both parties why the friendship is valuable and worth preserving.

Ways to celebrate your friendship:

• Looking through old photos together
• Sharing favorite memories or inside jokes
• Creating a scrapbook or memory box
• Planning new adventures to create fresh, positive experiences

The Value of Personalized Friendship Mementos

Personalized friendship items, such as custom photo books or friendship bracelets, can serve as tangible reminders of the bond you share. These items can be particularly comforting during times of conflict, serving as a physical representation of your commitment to the friendship.

Developing Conflict Resolution Skills for Long-Term Friendship Success

Each conflict you successfully navigate with your best friend provides an opportunity to improve your conflict resolution skills. These skills not only benefit your current friendship but also contribute to healthier relationships in all areas of your life.

Key conflict resolution skills to develop:

1. Active listening
2. Emotional regulation
3. Assertive communication
4. Empathy and perspective-taking
5. Problem-solving and creativity
6. Flexibility and adaptability

The Impact of Conflict Resolution on Personal Growth

Successfully resolving conflicts with your best friend can lead to significant personal growth. Through these experiences, you may develop increased self-awareness, improved communication skills, and a deeper understanding of your own values and boundaries.

Areas of potential personal growth through conflict resolution:

• Enhanced emotional intelligence
• Improved self-confidence
• Greater resilience in facing challenges
• Increased capacity for empathy and understanding
• Better ability to navigate complex social situations

Navigating Long-Distance Friendship Conflicts

Resolving conflicts in long-distance friendships presents unique challenges. Without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, misunderstandings can easily arise, and emotions may be harder to convey accurately.

Tips for addressing conflicts in long-distance friendships:

• Utilize video calls when possible to capture non-verbal cues
• Be extra clear and specific in written communication
• Avoid addressing serious issues via text message
• Schedule dedicated time for conflict resolution conversations
• Be patient and understanding of time zone differences

Maintaining Connection During Long-Distance Conflicts

During periods of conflict in long-distance friendships, it’s crucial to maintain regular communication and connection. This helps prevent feelings of distance or disconnection from exacerbating the conflict.

Ways to stay connected during long-distance conflicts:

1. Send thoughtful care packages or letters
2. Share daily updates or photos
3. Plan virtual activities together, like watching movies simultaneously
4. Use apps designed for long-distance friendships to stay in touch

The Role of Boundaries in Healthy Friendships

Establishing and respecting boundaries is essential for maintaining healthy friendships, especially when navigating conflicts. Clear boundaries help prevent misunderstandings and ensure that both friends feel respected and valued.

Types of boundaries to consider in friendships:

• Emotional boundaries (e.g., level of sharing and support)
• Time boundaries (e.g., frequency and duration of interactions)
• Physical boundaries (e.g., personal space and physical affection)
• Digital boundaries (e.g., social media interactions and online privacy)

Communicating Boundaries Effectively

When establishing boundaries with your best friend, clear and respectful communication is key. Express your needs and limits openly, and be willing to listen to and respect your friend’s boundaries as well.

Steps for communicating boundaries:

1. Reflect on your personal needs and limits
2. Choose an appropriate time and setting for the conversation
3. Use “I” statements to express your boundaries
4. Be specific about your expectations
5. Listen to your friend’s response and be open to discussion

Recognizing When Professional Help May Be Needed

While many friendship conflicts can be resolved through open communication and mutual effort, there may be instances where professional help is beneficial. Recognizing when to seek outside assistance can prevent irreparable damage to the friendship.

Signs that professional help may be needed:

• Repeated conflicts over the same issues without resolution
• Intense emotional reactions that seem disproportionate to the situation
• Difficulty communicating effectively despite best efforts
• Feelings of resentment or hostility that persist after attempts at resolution
• Impact on mental health or daily functioning due to the conflict

Types of Professional Support for Friendship Conflicts

Various forms of professional support are available for friends struggling with conflict resolution. These resources can provide valuable insights and strategies for improving communication and strengthening the friendship.

Professional support options include:

1. Individual therapy or counseling
2. Friendship coaching or mediation
3. Group therapy focused on interpersonal relationships
4. Workshops or classes on conflict resolution and communication skills

Celebrating Conflict Resolution and Friendship Growth

Successfully resolving conflicts with your best friend is an achievement worth celebrating. These experiences contribute to the depth and resilience of your friendship, demonstrating your commitment to each other and the relationship.

Ways to celebrate overcoming conflicts:

• Plan a special outing or activity together
• Write heartfelt letters expressing appreciation for the friendship
• Create a symbolic gesture or ritual to mark the resolution
• Set new friendship goals or make plans for future adventures

Reflecting on Lessons Learned

After resolving a conflict, take time to reflect on the experience individually and together. This reflection can help solidify the lessons learned and provide valuable insights for future challenges.

Questions for reflection:

1. What did we learn about ourselves and each other through this conflict?
2. How has our communication improved as a result of this experience?
3. What strategies were most effective in resolving the conflict?
4. How can we apply these lessons to strengthen our friendship moving forward?

By approaching conflicts with your best friend as opportunities for growth and deeper connection, you can transform challenging situations into stepping stones for a stronger, more resilient friendship. Remember that every successfully resolved conflict is a testament to the value you place on your relationship and your commitment to nurturing it through both good times and challenges.

How to Resolve Conflicts with a Best Friend – Book of Us

Even with your closest friendships, you will likely encounter a time when you need to resolve conflicts with a best friend. Fighting with friends is never easy. But dealing with conflict can make you and your BFF better as individuals and as friends. Conflicts can strengthen a relationship, improving your communication and emotional bond once you have resolved it. Whether you are experiencing conflict now or want tips for the future, it’s always helpful to learn friendship conflict resolution.

Address the conflict soon—don’t wait!

If you wait to address the conflict with your best friend, bad feelings and negative thoughts can fester and grow. Like popcorn in the microwave, you let things stay heated too long and it burns up—ruining what you had. Try waiting 24 hours for the dust to settle and then talk to your friend.

Communicate from both points of view.

Try to see both sides. Your perspective is your reality. Your friend’s perspective is their reality. Both perspectives are valid. When you talk to your friend, keep an open mind and an empathetic point of view. See the situation from their side. Avoid statements that begin with “You did” or “You said.” Communicate with “feelings statements” such as “I feel…” regarding the conflict and ask your friend how they feel. Make sure you are focused on the current conflict. Bringing up past conflicts or feelings will only make the situation worse. Stay in the moment and be in the here and now.

Convey your honest feelings and be vulnerable.

Tell your friend honestly how you feel. Even if you aren’t sure you are the one to blame for initiating the conflict, apologize. It’s important to acknowledge that you are sorry for the fight and sorry for your part in it. Take responsibility so you can both move forward. Be courageous by showing your vulnerability. When your best friend hears your honest, genuine feelings, it’s likely he or she will reciprocate positively.

Suggest solutions for moving forward and be a sensitive listener.

Problem-solve this friend conflict by suggesting ways you can come together again. This may involve making personal sacrifices or compromises. Sometimes you can’t both get everything you want. Try to be solution-minded and propose ways you can come together. But along with offering solutions, be a sensitive listen and let your friend speak. Maybe they have ideas for resolving the conflict, allowing you to form a solution together.

Move on from the past.

Once your conflict is resolved, move forward with your best friend and don’t keep thinking about the past. The more you work out these conflicts, the more you will learn and grow together. Mending this rift means you will have the skill set to handle conflicts even better in the future. Healthy relationships take work. But love for your BFF makes it all worth it!

Dedicate time reminiscing about your favorite friendship memories.

Recall your favorite friend moments together and remember why you became friends in the first place. Sometimes recalling these memories can help you focus on the positive aspects of your relationship. Laugh and have fun together! Open up a photo book, or a personalized friend book such as the Book of Us™. A personalized book of photos and loving messages can rekindle the fun and laughter in your friendship.

Resolving conflict with a best friend can be painful, but it’s also necessary in order to move forward and deepen your relationship. Try these tips the next time you have a scuffle with your BFF. Your loving friendships are worth fighting for!  

Tags: Book of Us, conflict resolution, fighting with friend, friend argument, friend communication, friend conflict, friend fight, friendship conflict, how to resolve conflict with a best friend, personalized best friend book, personalized friend book, problem solving ideas, resolve conflict

How to Address and Respond to Conflict

Friendships are love stories too. In the Shondaland series The Art of Friendship, we explore and appreciate the beauty and complexities of friendship, as well as what makes it so powerful. From expert tips on how to navigate conflicts and deepen your friendships to uplifting stories of reconnections and advice on making new friends, these stories are reminders of the joy, value, and meaning that companionship brings to our lives.

Taylor Lamb is friends with five women who have known one another for the better part of the last seven years. Following their college years at the University of Virginia, the group became more intentional about maintaining their bond when proximity no longer bound them together. They revved up a group chat, held virtual hangouts around the holidays, and committed to always celebrating birthdays in person — even if it meant jumping on a train or a plane.

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After a few years, each of the women ended up in the mid-Atlantic region for work, medical school, or law school. While they were physically close again, they began experiencing splinters in their seven-year friendship for the first time when some members of the group started backing out of planned gatherings at the last minute.

“I feel like people were feeling unheard and wanting more support,” Lamb says of the rift. The 25-year-old community engagement associate recognized that navigating the pandemic made communication even more difficult. “It just seemed like we all just needed to get in a room and talk.”

Lamb reached out to each friend individually and gauged their willingness for a group conversation; they all agreed to have one. In early May, they gathered in person (with one friend tuning in virtually) to have an open discussion with Lamb as their facilitator. With conversational guidelines painted onto a poster as a North Star, the ground rules were set. The gentle reminders encouraged the women to release any spirit of defensiveness, refrain from interrupting others, assume best intent — but mind impact — pause and take a deep breath if needed, and partake in other helpful actions.

Taylor Lamb

Courtesy Taylor Lamb

To start, Lamb acknowledged that conflict is hard, especially for those who did not grow up encouraged to talk about their feelings or were unable to do so in a safe space. “I feel like acknowledging that made people not want to be reactive,” she says. Her goal wasn’t to come with an agenda but to “hold the space” for her friends to feel like they could share their thoughts safely. She opened the floor by asking who wanted to speak first, and each individual shared how they were feeling.

“The conclusions we came to,” Lamb says, “were that people had expectations of what they needed to be cared for, but they never said those.” She adds that bell hooks’ All About Love inspired how she approaches her relationships. “Me personally being an abolitionist and wanting to build a new world, we have to be willing to talk about our issues. And expecting other people to know how we feel is not what love really is. ”

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Before the exchange concluded, they each took turns expressing what makes them feel cared for, sharing their love language and coming up with specific communication guidelines to use moving forward. It dawned on Lamb that these women didn’t only want to be in one another’s lives for the good times, but that they cared about and valued one another enough to stick it out through the hard ones too. “I feel really happy that we’re all committed to our friendship in this way,” she says. “I feel closer to them.”

There’s a glaring absence of dialogue today on how to work through conflict with friends. The popular belief that a friendship shouldn’t make you uncomfortable and that you should cut someone off at the first sign of tension or disappointment has seeped into the collective consciousness, but relationship experts agree: That’s not real friendship.

“We tend to put friendship in this box as this trivial, second-class relationship,” says Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist and author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends. “In doing so, we say things like ‘Friendship should be good vibes only’ or ‘It should be all positive.’ Some of these narratives really don’t leave space for things to go wrong and for conflict to happen, so when it does, we think, ‘Oh, maybe this is a sign the friendship should end,’ rather than it just [being] part of intimacy.”

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Conflict is not an automatic sign that a friendship will end; addressing it can be a signal that both parties are committed to the relationship. Many people talk themselves out of bringing up an issue because they don’t want to seem as if they’re the problem, but withholding discomfort can manifest itself in another way, whether through withdrawal or resentment. “Think of it as something that will help not hurt,” says female friendship coach and educator Danielle Bayard Jackson.

Why should you address conflict with friends?

Honing your ability to work through conflict in a long-term platonic relationship is no different than learning to do so in a committed romantic partnership. Many withhold their feelings out of the fear that they will be perceived as dramatic or difficult or that it will tear the friendship apart, but with a real friend, that’s not the case. A 2012 paper found that open, non-blaming conversations lead to deeper intimacy between people, as opposed to not having those conversations at all.

Psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner came up with a concept for the illusion of closeness without conflict: flaccid safety versus dynamic safety. Flaccid safety is the sense of stability within a relationship when we pretend that nothing is bothering us. Dynamic safety is a more robust, deeper level of intimacy that is achieved when there’s rupture and repair, or in Goldner’s words, a cycle of “risk-taking and resolution” or “separation and reunion.” There is trust in the knowledge that issues will less easily come between friends and authentic comfort in the shared history that you are willing to work through hard emotions together.

“That closeness that you want with the friend where you feel like you can be yourself and you can say anything that we all dreamily speak of — to achieve that, sometimes you have to go through the awkwardness of bringing up something that makes you feel uncomfortable,” says Jackson. “It gives her a chance to demonstrate: I love you. I care about you. I hear you. We might get into it. We might disagree. All those things. But once we work it out, I’m going to feel more connected to you than I did before. That is not possible without having a difficult moment.”

When the challenge arises, don’t run from the chance to deepen your bond. Here’s how to address conflict with a friend, whether you’re bringing up the issue or responding to your loved one’s concern.

How to Address Conflict

Examine the problem

Coping with conflict is the goal, but that doesn’t mean you have to confront your friend every single time they do something that bothers or annoys you. A helpful way to assess if it’s worth going to them about it is if it is a recurring issue or a situation that has continued to affect how you perceive your friend and how you show up in your friendship.

“Anger is a signal that there might be some conflict to address, because anger tends to be a signal that there’s an injustice that’s happening,” Franco says. While this is true, Franco notes that we can acknowledge our anger without it being the emotion that guides the conversation.

Assess the relationship

Your level of closeness to the person is a factor worth considering when deciding whether to bring up an issue with your friend. Franco suggests, “If it’s not a friend that you’re particularly close to or if it’s a newer friend and you already find yourself getting into conflict, ask yourself: Is this a sign that this is maybe not a good friendship for me?”

Franco adds, “Generally, I say that if it’s a friend you’ve had for a long time, and you have each other’s best interests at heart, it’s always worth it to address it.” Conflict isn’t automatically an indicator of incompatibility; it may simply be the sign of differing preferences that can be bridged with communication.

It’s important to gauge the level of friendship before wading into conflict resolution.

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Define timing

As the saying goes — timing is everything. “Ask yourself, ‘If this goes wrong, do I really have the capacity to tolerate that?’ You will hopefully say yes to that question,” Franco says. Emotional regulation is key to an effective conversation, and we are better at regulating our emotions when we’ve slept well, exercised, meditated, and are in a physically good space in addition to our mental one.

While you shouldn’t continually use personal struggles as an excuse to keep putting off the discussion, it is important to consider if you have the immediate capacity for it. Carve out an entire afternoon — or day, if you need it — so that you aren’t rushing through your chat and have time to process any emotions you may feel afterward.

Carve out time to have a meaningful conversation.

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Provide a warning

When it comes to conflict resolution, don’t surprise your friend with the topic. If you’ve given yourself a chance to prepare for the conversation, you should also extend the same courtesy to your friend. “If their pet just died or they’re going through a breakup,” Franco says, “they might just not have the capacity to do conflict well.”

Consider if they are in a space where they can actually receive and process your feelings. If not, it’s likely that they will go into fight-or-flight mode, and the discussion could be doomed from the start. While it’s important to be thoughtful, don’t make assumptions about whether your friend is in a good or bad space. Trust in their ability to decide for themselves, and ask gently ahead of time.

“I like to text an introduction to the conflict,” Franco says. You don’t have to be specific, but you can let them know that you have something on your mind you want to work through together and ask if they’d be up for talking about it.

Lean into vulnerability

If you feel nervous about bringing your feelings up, that may be a signal that it’s worth sharing. You don’t have to wait until you’re feeling confident about it; use those authentic feelings as leverage.

Jackson encourages resolution-seekers to acknowledge their messy emotions rather than shy away from them. “A lot of us feel anxious or vulnerable bringing it up,” she says, “but it can actually work in our favor.” Start the conversation by being honest about your nerves. (Jackson provides a few scripts: “I’m hesitant to bring this up because the last thing I want is for it to be awkward” or “I’m nervous, but I want to be open with you, and I hope you’d do the same for me.”)

If a friend sees that you have been thoughtful and considerate, it may ease their nerves as well and expand their ability to receive your emotions. “Being that transparent about your internal dilemma sometimes works for you,” Jackson notes, “in bringing down their walls.”

Being vulnerable can help lead to resolution.

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Use inviting language

When it comes to conflict, how you start the conversation influences the mood, tone, and direction of the talk more than you know. Franco calls this framing, or using verbiage that welcomes your friend in rather than alienates them. She gives ​​an example of a positive framing script: “Hey, our friendship is really important to me, so I want to make sure we talk through things so that they don’t get between us. I was wondering if we can talk about something that’s been on my mind.”

It’s a warm way to remind your friend — and yourself — that you’re on the same team, not opposing sides. “You’re telling them how to interpret this,” Franco says. “That this is an act of love and a sign of your investment in the friendship, so the framing line is really important.”

Speak to your reality, not theirs

Addressing conflict isn’t about right or wrong; it’s about coming to a sense of mutual understanding. When sharing your dilemma, keep the focus of your words on you and how you feel by using “I” statements. Start by expressing how it made you feel when your friend did what they did. Don’t blame them, project assumptions onto them, or attack their character or ability to be a friend overall.

Think of it as a moment to share how it made you feel. Remember: Feelings are information, not fact. You have every right to feel let down that a friend bailed on you at the last minute, for example, but it doesn’t mean that your friend plotted to let you down.

Ask about their experience

After sharing your hurt, put on your listening ears, and listen to where your friend was coming from. Franco recommends asking about what was going on for them at that time, and what might have gotten in the way for them. “What you’re trying to do in a larger way is to embrace something called mutuality, which means you’re considering their experience and your experience at the same time instead of only thinking about yourself or thinking about them.” Franco says true mutuality is not about right or wrong but about finding balance and understanding. You don’t need to kowtow to their reasoning, but you should hear them out.

How to Respond to Conflict

View it as an act of love

If you have been approached by a friend about how you’ve hurt them, remember that they care enough to bring it to you and are willing to be their vulnerable self with you, which is not easy for most people.

While it may be uncomfortable, it might be even more unpleasant to think what might happen if they didn’t come to you. There is a chance they may have withdrawn from the friendship and let you go entirely. “Remind yourself that this is an act of love that is there to heal us and bring us together,” Franco says, “and that this is your friend showing that they’re invested in you enough to want to work through this issue.”

Protect yourself from fight or flight

Whatever you do, do not take notes from dramatic TV show scenes where two best friends are shouting what they hate about each other from across the room and one person stomps out.

“When you’re in fight or flight, you’re not able to engage in mutuality. You’re only thinking about your reality,” Franco says. Do what you need to do to refrain from sending emotions into overdrive — even if that means you need to take a break during the actual conversation. “If you have the capacity to de-escalate, always do,” Franco says. “For me, I think about the idea of splitting into two selves. … I see the part of me that wants to escalate this, and I have this other part of me that is going to try to access my higher self for this conversation.”

If the dialogue grows heated, verbalize that you need a moment instead of shutting down. Franco provides another script: “Hey, that’s kind of hurtful. I hope that we can have this conversation in a way that we’re not going to be labeling each other or putting each other down. And maybe that means we take a moment here.”

Don’t be afraid to ask for a break if the discussion is too heated.

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Ask for time

In the heat of the moment, it’s hard to remember that we are real people and not characters we see on TV. The witty, speedy, perfectly curated dialogue on-screen is not always a reality. In fact, quippy back-and-forth dialogue can promote defensiveness and regrettable statements.

If your friend surprises you with their concern, you are allowed to ask for some time to process this new information. “No one wants to hear that what they’re doing is not good enough,” Jackson says.

To keep from providing a knee-jerk reaction or justifying your actions, take a pause, ask for a moment, and call back later, or even take a day or two. It will help your relationship in the long run and give you space to be receptive rather than reactive. “I think you’ll find it very liberating,” Jackson adds, “because the first thing you want to say is often not the route you end up really wanting to have taken.”

Depersonalize it

Whatever your friend might tell you, rather than spiraling out of control about how you may be a bad friend, succumbing to the imaginary conclusion that they hate you, or convincing yourself that may be too [insert negative adjective here], frame it as information instead.

“At the risk of oversimplifying this, I wonder how much we’d be able to salvage our friendships if we took a breath and said, ‘Okay. That’s not mean. This is data,’” Jackson says. If a friend conjures up the courage to tell you they don’t like how you spoke to them or that a joke hurt their feelings, remember that it is simply their preference. A certain word or action may trigger them, but it might not trigger you, and vice versa. It’s simply about respecting and honoring your friend’s request next time.

Frame everything you say in a conflict as information.

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Listen to understand

Don’t be afraid to ask questions to fully understand where your friend is coming from. Whatever information you need, take this as an opportunity to learn more about your friend and your friendship. Before the conversation ends, let your friend know that you hear them. Confirm what has upset them, and verbalize that you care and understand where they’re coming from — no ifs, ands, or buts. If you would like to avoid hurting them in the future, express how you will go about it next time.

Mia Brabham is a staff writer at Shondaland. Follow her on Twitter at @hotmessmia.

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Conflicts with friends – how to save friendship

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Alas, unlike the characters of comedy series, who each time manage to resolve all conflicts with friends with the help of ingenuity and wit by the end of 30 -minute series, we do not always manage to get around all the problems in friendly relations with such grace.

In reality, our opinions , observations and actions are different. This means that if we are friends with a person long enough, conflicts are inevitable.

At the moment when growing tension breaks out to the surface, we often panic, not knowing how to react: ignore the problem, hoping that it will eventually disappear by itself? try to discuss everything? wait and see what happens?

When we push a friend away, we often sacrifice emotional intimacy and eventually risk losing the friendship altogether

Those who tend to avoid conflict instinctively try to stay away from friends after a fight. At first, this may seem like a reasonable decision, because the distance will save us from stress or unnecessary clarification of the relationship. However, by pushing a friend away, we often sacrifice emotional intimacy and, over time, risk losing the friendship altogether. Not to mention, the accumulation of stress and anxiety is bad for our health.

Fortunately, there are ways to resolve conflicts without losing friends. Here are a few of them.

1. Discuss the situation as soon as the moment is right

At the very beginning of the conflict, when emotions are running high, it is wise to take a short break in communication. It is likely that at this moment neither you nor your friend are ready to listen and accept each other’s points of view. But this pause should not be too long.

Call or text message within 24 hours of conflict and express your regrets in simple terms you are sorry and what you would like: “I am sorry about what happened and I want to fix everything”, “Our friendship is important to me”, “Let’s discuss everything as soon as possible”.

2. It is not necessary to discuss and solve all problems at once

Sometimes it seems to us that the whole future of our friendly relations depends entirely on one very serious and difficult conversation. But, just as friendship itself develops gradually, so the complete solution of problems takes time. Sometimes it’s worth briefly discussing the problem, taking time to think about it and returning to this conversation later. Solving problems gradually is normal.

3. Show empathy for your friend’s feelings

Even when we disagree with our friends’ observations or conclusions, we can try to understand their feelings and experiences. We can track their body language during a conversation, pay attention to their tone of voice and facial expressions. Try to respond to any signs of pain, discomfort, or anger (“I understand that you are upset, and I am very sorry that you feel bad about it”).

4. Know how to listen

Listen to everything your friend has to say to you without stopping or interrupting him. If something in his words causes you strong emotions, try to restrain them until you fully understand everything that your friend wants to express to you. If something is not clear, ask again. Try to find out what your friend hopes to get out of this conversation or what he needs to feel better about himself.

5. Speak clearly and concisely

After you have listened to everything that you wanted to say without interrupting, it will be your turn to share your feelings and thoughts. Try to express your thought as clearly and frankly as possible, but without hurting the feelings of a friend.

Talk about your feelings and experiences, do not throw accusations. Avoid phrases like “You always do this.”

Talk about your feelings and experiences first, rather than making accusations. Avoid phrases like “You always do this” or “You never do this”, they will only exacerbate the problem and interfere with conflict resolution.

6. Try to accept a different point of view

We do not always agree with the opinions of friends, but we must be able to recognize their right to this different opinion from ours. We must respect the views of friends and their right to disagree with us. Even if we do not agree with everything our friend says, there may be something in his words that we are ready to agree with.

Finally, when the immediate conflict has been as exhausted as possible at the moment, allow time for the relationship to fully recover. Keep doing what you love to do together. Positive emotions from friendly communication over time will help smooth out the remaining tension.

About the Expert

Sarah Raymond Cunningham is a life coach, author of 5 books, a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, and a mother of two. Her website is sarahcunningham.org

Text: Nikolai Protsenko

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Friendship is friendship: how to resolve conflicts on the playground :: RBC Pro

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Do not be afraid of conflicts between children, they are often useful for the development of personality and relationships with others.