Left with no reason? The conflict avoider

[Brutus]

Many people here, including myself, lament the fact that their ex never gave them a plausible reason of why they decided to end the relationship. This makes it all more painful during and after the break up, as questions, doubts, fear, mistrust and jealousy kick-in. We lost something we immensely cared about and we are not even given a reason for that. This is of course extremely frustrating, it leaves us with no closure and makes recovery much longer and troublesome. The "need for answers" haunts the dumpee, pushing some people to despicable yet understandable behavior, some others to take all the guilt for what happened, or to question whether the other person ever cared about them. Sounds familiar?

 

I recently stumbled upon the concept of "conflict-avoider", a term most of you surely know, but reading this article about how such behavior affects relationship was extremely telling for me, and helped me understand my ex's psychology. There is one passage I would like to highlight as particularly telling:

if given the choice, some people would much rather see a relationship dissolve before their very eyes than risk facing the potential pain, awkwardness, or anxiety that often accompanies the act of being fully present and honest with another human being.

 

I believe I can very much relate to this and I am sure many other can. Conflict-avoiders are - in a final analysis - too coward to address problems when they arise, they rather ignore them and repress them, thinking that they would disappear if they sweep them under the carpet. Sometimes they ask for time, thinking that they will vanish by themselves. Useless to say that this never works. On the contrary, it bottles up resentment, the feeling that something is wrong and eventually explodes.

 

Such behavior is likely to make a small and solvable problem grow into a crisis. When I noticed something had changes in my ex's behavior, it was natural for me to ask questions, to try to understand what was wrong. Instead of trying to communicate, she covered it with things like "I feel apathetic", "I feel I have no time for myself" and even got angry saying "stop torturing me with your questions" or tried to shift the guilt on me by saying "it was a small crisis but with all your asking you made it big". This lack of communication on her side, her uwillingness of telling me what was happening, coupled with the awareness that she was hanging out with a guy interested in her, instilled mistrust, fear, anger and jealousy in our relationship, ultimately making it toxic until the point it "exploded".

 

Another negative aspect of such behavior is the selfishness that it entails. Every couple, soon or later, runs into problems. It is only through mature communication between the two parties involved that they can be solved on a long term. Conflict avoiders, being uncapable or unwilling to bring up an issue when it emerges, prefer to hide it to the partner and elaborate it by themselves, in the darkness of their room. They consider it too difficult to communicate with their partner and rather hide things. This of course creates a lot of pain for the partner, if he or she realizes something is wrong but they are not given the chance to understand or to stop it. Conflict avoiders will let the other person and the relationship rot in the uncertainty rather than addressing their incapacity to express their feelings, and ultimately present their partner with the bill when it is "too late" to fix things. (these were my ex's words). They never gave the dumpee the chance to have a say, to discuss when there was still time to do so, they simply never gave them a role in the decision, but let things deteriorate until breaking up was the only option.

 

Conflict-avoiding is a deeply-rooted attitude, hard to change. My ex told me several times that she "could not help it", that she was like her father, who "closes in himself when there is a problem." Nevertheless I believe that people can make changes in themselves, if they really want to. If they truly care about something they will fight for it. What I reproach my ex about, is her unwillingness to fight her attitude for the sake of our relationship; to have been so willing to let it fall apart rather than opening up to me; to have let me for weeks in a dreadful limbo of uncertainty and dispair, which made a worse person and brought our relationship to an end; to leave me with no answers even afterwards, as if I had never deserved her sincerity.

 

I believe that on these bases no long-lasting relationship can exist. If they do not fight their unwillingness to express their feelings, conflict-avoiders will be left with a long trail of failed relationships and heartbroken, loving ex partners, like many of use in here.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Brutus

[Ordinaryday]

women tend to do that a lot with guys they have been out with only a few times. for whatever reason they dont like the guy and they dont want to get into an argument with him about it so they just start ignoring him until he gets the hint.

 

they don't respond to his texts, emails, calls, whatever, until he gets the message "I do not want to see you anymore".

 

yes, this has happened to me.

[flyingfree_hope]

this definitely resonates my situation sadly.

my ex didn't even bring up any issues that we are facing...I could have worked it out and we could have given it another shot until its too late to the point of no return... yet he chose to let the relationship fade by itself and jump into another relationship.

 

sigh. I wish I was given the chance to do so. I am much more of a persister and believe things could work out if problems arises and for me, I always give him signs when issues arose, but he never even let me get the slightest hint that he was not satisfied about our relationship.......LOL

[FortunateSon]

sigh. I wish I was given the chance to do so. I am much more of a persister and believe things could work out if problems arises and for me, I always give him signs when issues arose, but he never even let me get the slightest hint that he was not satisfied about our relationship.......LOL

I think this is where it's important to look at it in a different way. Do you really want to be with someone who cannot or will not communicate effectively? Do you want to be with someone who is willing to leave without providing the opportunity to address any perceived problems? I have been in this situation before and as frustrating as it can be, I am not so sure that is the kind if partner I would want long term...