Ask, “When is a good time to talk about this issue?” Some conflict-avoidant people experience anxiety just engaging in disagreements. Give your spouse the opportunity to mentally address their anxiety, get their thoughts together, and enter the conversation with a more relaxed mindset.
Conflict avoidance refers to a way of addressing a disagreement or problem by intentionally not dealing with it. One of the most common ways of avoiding conflict is to ignore the problem. By ignoring the problem and not discussing it, you don't have to deal with the outcome.
Fear of negative evaluation theory states that people often avoid conflict because they are afraid of being seen in a negative light. This theory is based on the idea that people fear being judged, criticized, or rejected if they engage in conflict.
Fawning is a trauma response that uses people-pleasing behavior to appease or supplicate an aggressor, avoid conflict, and ensure safety. This trauma response is exceedingly common, especially in complex trauma survivors, and often gets overlooked.
The avoidance-avoidance conflict refers to making a decision between two equally undesirable choices. A simple example of this could be making a decision between doing a homework assignment or doing housework. This type of conflict would normally be settled by an assessment of the relative importance of the two tasks.
Solution: Invite Open Communication and Proactive Mediation
Where they notice coworkers avoiding one another or hard feelings they should find non-confrontational ways to ask if the employees need help resolving their differences. One highly effective technique is mediation.
Conflict avoidant red flags involve minimizing, downplaying or sidestepping conflict altogether as a means of preserving relationship harmony. This can be detrimental, especially when the conflict at hand is a major relationship issue that requires the couple to embrace the conflict head-on.
( to your friend) Avoiding the conflict doesn't make it go away. Simply pushing it away and ignoring it will only make it worst the next time it happens. When you avoid something, you are actually making it the most important thing, since you put all your energy into pretending it isn't there and making ways around it.
Allow them to explain to you why they were avoiding you or whether or not they have just been very busy for the last few weeks. Don't wait for them to finish just so you can respond but truly listen to them so you can better understand the situation and perhaps prevent it in the future. Don't interrupt them or be rude.
Communicating with empathy, using “I” statements, and avoiding blaming and criticism are some of the ways to help avoidant partners feel safe enough to express their thoughts and feelings, as well as change their behaviors in time. “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.”
Avoidance behaviors are any behaviors people use to escape or distract themselves from difficult thoughts, feelings, and situations. This can look like avoiding new job opportunities, career advancements, relationships, social situations, recreational activities, and family get-togethers.
Signs of Fawning
A person responding by fawning will be heavily focused on others in an attempt to pacify, please, and cater to the needs of others, rather than their own. Someone might declare themselves as non-confrontational, when really they're fawning. It's a learned habit from traumatic experiences.
“Fawning” refers to when an individual copes with a perceived danger by attempting to appease whoever is causing the danger in order to prevent them from causing harm. Sometimes, trauma and abuse survivors will fawn in response to their abuse in an effort to keep the abuser happy.
Fawning is an adaptive survival response to prolonged or complex trauma. The fawn response is characterized by placating and appeasing behavior directed toward the perpetrator of abuse, in an attempt to reduce their volatility and abusiveness towards oneself and/or others (e.g., children, siblings, family pets).
Pros: Avoidance can be appropriate when you need more time to think about the conflict and how to best approach it. Cons: When the avoidance style is used by a teammate, it can lead others to believe that might lack concern about the issues creating conflict.
The avoiding conflict style is the least assertive and cooperative of all the conflict management styles. If this is your conflict style, you withdraw from or delay dealing with a conflict either until it “goes away,” is unavoidable, or is resolved by others without your involvement.
Things You Should Know
Try confronting the person if you feel they're avoiding you. Ask them why they're doing it—or apologize if you know you made a mistake. Accept that you may need to let the relationship go if they're unwilling to resolve things with you. Focus on self-care and other relationships in the meantime.