#conflict avoidance

Curse my need to eat but still be in this damn house. Conflict avoiding ass. I actually wanna make we have nourishment but fuck me I guess

...

I'm gonna try again.

So I have been with my wife since high school. She is the only relationship I've ever had or known. My first kiss and everything. I grew up and was always very shy and never would talk to people but recently in the last 6 years have gotten more and more social. We have also been slowly growing apart and not doing as many things together. We talked to each other all the time about everything and she is my best friend.  I have over the years felt more and more lonely emotionally. About a year and a half ago she organically started talking to a guy online over political stuff and had similar interests. She talked to me openly about it. She never crossed a boundary but when getting close would talk to me before going any further. I slowly was more accepting and okay with her talking to him more often even sexually. Mind you this all happened over a year. But we had even gone as far as making videos of me and her to send to him. He is bisexual and thinks that we are so cute together. I have no desire to have him physically intimate around me as I am very straight. But I always thought it was kind of hot for her sending things to him.  With all of that said I still have been feeling more and more lonely emotionally. I made a mistake of getting on tinder and talking to a girl for a few months. I immediately had talked to my wife about it. It was a long and difficult discussion but she was accepting of it too. Especially because this girl was out of state.  My current dilemma is that I went to buy something off of Facebook marketplace. When picking up the items I kind of hit it off in conversation with the seller. She was very nice and made me laugh while I was there picking up the items. It is in my wife's hometown where we live now so we had a lot of similar gripes about the town. I talked all day to her just about random things. It later in the evening became more flirty. I felt very guilty but it was very satisfying to have somebody want me and want to talk to me in such a way.  The next day I told my wife about it and had her read through the messages. I very much beat around the bush and play dumb that it was so flirty. Reasonably so she was. Upset with me for not being very honest and was extremely concerned that I'm talking to somebody in town in such a way that could make it out into our small town. She is very scared that it would make her a laughing stock in the town. She didn't directly tell me that I couldn't talk to her but I did know that is what she wanted.  Unfortunately I kept talking to her for the rest of the week and have been more and more flirty. I just told her today about me still talking to her and she is very upset now. She says that this is different and she doesn't know if I can be trusted with an open relationship. She said that this is crossing a line especially because it's in her own hometown and she was very clear that that was not okay.  I don't know what to do now because I really enjoy talking to this girl. I know it very well could be just because of it being a new sort of relationship but I have had a lot more smiles and laughter this week than I have in a while. And of course she is very pretty so I'm very confused on if I'm doing it just because I'm thinking with the wrong head.  My wife wants me to not talk to her anymore but has told me that it is my problem and that I need to figure it out.  I don't know what to think or do?

It's unclear on if you're vague about your open relationship because you didn't find that relevant (???) or if it's because you two never sat down and discussed what an open relationship means to you, what you want from it, and how it's going to work for you two? From your post, I'm gathering that two of your agreements are 1) be open and transparent about who you're talking to/pursuing, and 2) nobody you can meet offline. And yet you've continually broken these very simple agreements. Even though you, presumably, actively participated in making them and agreed to them. Which leads me to agree with your wife: you can't be trusted with an open relationship.

Why? All you have to do is talk about it and search outside your local sphere. Is it because you aren't happy but feel the only way to communicate that to your wife is to completely blow things up? It's time to just say what you want. I don't know if that's closing the relationship and/or couples counseling or divorce - or even moving to full on polyamory. Maybe you don't know either. In that case, stop searching others out and focus on solo therapy (at least, if not couples counseling as well) and figuring out what you want. Then you can just tell that to your wife. Can the discussion really be that much worse than admitting you're lying, hiding things, sneaking around, and breaking your relationship agreements?

It also stands out to me that you mention being emotionally lonely but never that you've spoken to your wife about this or tried to bridge this gap? Does your wife feel the same way? Does she see it as a problem? Was the open relationship supposed to solve this problem, even though it doesn't actually even address the problem?

Conflict avoidance is a bigger circle than being nice. When faced with conflict, some people fawn or ghost, and this is what people mean when they say “conflict avoidance.” If you don’t feel like you’re safe enough to say no to someone making a bid for attention, communication, affection, reassurance, or asking something of you, that’s not being nice. It’s a trauma response. However saying “that’s a trauma response” is not enough because we have to unlearn trauma. If you are conflict avoidant, you fear that if you enforce a boundary, you will be rejected or face negative consequences. I’m going to hold your bush gently when I say that it is essential to let people make their own decisions about how they want to react to you saying no. If you decide preemptively that someone will reject you and you ghost or fawn to take away their agency, the relationship is dead in the water. You need to trust people enough to allow them to live their truth, and trust yourself enough to recover if the answer is rejection.

If you fear this person will be violent, that is different. Conflict avoidance is talking about perceived fear of abandonment, not physical violence. And the hard truth is yes, when you let people make their own choices, sometimes they WILL abandon you. Tons and tons of people are not mature enough to have serious conversations. In that situation, you have to let them go. But confronting people can be as simple as saying “Please don’t talk to me that way” or “when you said this, it made me feel that” or “when you are late to my events, it makes me feel like you don’t value by time” A simple format is “When you did x, it made me feel y. Please don’t do it again, or I will have to z.” And the Z is usually scaling back communication or ending the relationship, depending on how severe it is.

You will never have truly trusting and lasting relationships until you learn to confront when you’re upset. You need to ask yourself if your anxiety with conflict is reasonable? Most problems are solved quickly when both people are committed to resolving conflicts. If you don’t resolve conflicts, that will lead to resentment. Resentment will ruin the relationship over time. However there is nuance. You need to choose your battles. And you cannot weaponize your boundaries to manipulate people. The goal is to surround yourself with people who are mature enough to talk about their issues, and to fulfill your end of the friendship too. And if you find yourself wondering if someone is secretly mad at you, you can stop worrying because if they actually had a problem with you they would be able to address it. If a longterm friend is not capable of respecting your boundaries, that’s not a healthy friendship.

How Long Until You Can’t Anymore? There’s a moment that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside. No movie soundtrack. No slammed doors. Just you, doing the thing again: swallowing the comment, laughing it off, saying “It’s fine,” staying quiet to keep it smooth, agreeing to what you don’t want, tolerating what hurts, because it feels safer. And then later, usually alone, your body tells the…

I think it's a symptom of conflict avoidance really. If you're the kind of person who would rather bottle up every grievance you have with someone, than tell them and resolve it, you're more likely to believe others are doing the same. Which they are, part of existing in society is occasionally having your toes stepped on on the train. We all bug each other a little bit, that's fine. For most people, small things don't matter, but big things get talked about. Conflict avoidant people just have a different perception of what's small and what's big. They won't talk about how they're being hurt, unless it's really dire. But this colors their perception for when other people display displeasure with something they've done. Because if you're showing you've been hurt at all, then it must have been terrible. So they'll apologize profusely when you randomly let out a heavy sigh in their vicinity. Or think they did something wrong when you get quiet.