Chai Brady
Following much discussion in the Irish media about avoiding conflict during the Christmas period the CEO of Accord has said that rows between couples is a sign a relationship is “alive”.
The head of the Catholic counselling and marriage charity Tony Shanahan told The Irish Catholic that “it is a good thing if relationships have conflict”, but that resolving the argument is the art.
If a Christmas row has erupted between a couple, they must be prepared to be vulnerable, he insists.
Mr Shanahan said: “Communication is really the key, and when we talk about communication in relationships we are really talking about emotional communication – how we feel about something as opposed to how we think about something – and there is a bit of a risk in that because we generally don’t like feeling vulnerable: It feels uncomfortable.
“And yet sharing our vulnerabilities with our partner and having that listened to and accepted and not judged, not criticised… that’s what builds up real emotional intimacy. If you have real emotional intimacy you can go through all kinds of struggles and difficulties because you’re then on the same page, you’ve got each other’s backs,” he said.
Dealing with conflict becomes easier over time, Mr Shanahan said, adding that “if you are not that long together there can be devastation, it’s like the worst thing that ever happened to you”.
“I think the reality is that it is normal, and it is a good thing that relationships have conflict because it shows that they are alive and engaged,” he said.
“The art really is to have the disagreement in a way that is mutually respectful and is resolved to each other’s mutual satisfaction at the end. This doesn’t mean you have to be in total agreement about everything, there may be something you will agree about, something you can compromise on, and there may be some things you can agree to differ on.”
Mr Shanahan added: “I think it is important to realise that in a relationship there is a trinity, there’s the two partners, and there’s the relationship itself and the relationship has a personality in the same way the individuals have a personality.
“So when you are feeling hurt or wounded by your partner, that wound and hurt is also being felt by the relationship… so the issue is: how do you come out of this painful situation in a win-win way? Because you want to be happy, you want your partner to be happy.
“Once you do come to a position in which the conflict has been diffused, there’s a great liberation in that, there’s a feeling of joy, it’s like being let out of jail because the burden has been lifted off your shoulders – when there is joy in the relationship, soon there is romance, and a period of great happiness happens.”
See accord.ie for couples and relationship counselling