Lately I’ve realized how much my childhood shaped the way I deal with conflict and confrontation.
My parents pride themselves on how they kept conflict between each other private. We (me and my brothers) never saw them fight. Ever. They intentionally did that privately so it didn’t rub off on us. Though they had good intentions with it, and it is helpful in some ways, we were never really able to observe healthy or unhealthy conflict and learn from it and see what we should and should not do.
Another factor is that my parents were decently strict. It was their way or the highway. I wasn’t really allowed to express frustration or disagreement without being seen as disrespectful in a way, so I would just go to my room and “work through it” and then come out of my room like everything was ok or just go to bed angry and wake up the next morning and “forget” about it. I actually got so good at it, I would literally forget I was mad about something.
Me and my brothers were really good kids. We didn’t get in trouble much. My parents were constantly praised for how good we were. Of course we got into fights like boys do but not much major. If there was a fight, we would just be angry for a bit and “get over it” eventually and never really resolve it. Now, we are still respectful, good, and hardworking guys BUT we all suck with conflict and confrontation. I avoid it like the plague. I just take things in and work through it privately. I can’t even ask my housemate to do his dishes, so I just do them. Any tips?? I feel too far gone in this area.