When I was younger, I used to believe that a successful relationship meant zero-conflict with your partner. I thought that once you’ve found “the one”, it would all be rainbows, butterflies, and fireworks between them and you.
Boy, how wrong I was.
As the years went by, I realized that conflict can arise in any relationship. Actually, let me rephrase that. Conflict will arise in any relationship. It’s natural — the more time you spend with your partner the more likely you are to disagree about something.
When conflict arises, the best thing you can do is try to stay calm and engage in an honest conversation with your partner so that you can find a solution that benefits you both.
That usually is the best tactic, unless you have to deal with a high conflict partner. High conflict people have a behavior pattern that increases conflict rather than reducing or resolving it. They are the ones who create conflict and want to keep it going.
Unfortunately, that kind of behavior is toxic and can severely harm your relationship and your own mental health. That’s why it is important that you learn to recognize the signs of someone who exhibits such behavior before you start getting attached to them.
What follows are the five warning signs you should be aware of in the early stages of your relationships, which might indicate your potential partner is a high conflict individual.
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1. They Blame Everyone Around Them
A high conflict person grabs every chance they can to blame everyone around them for every negative thing that has happened in their lives.
You can notice that kind of behavior in how that person speaks of others. You’ll hear them constantly saying things like:
“I lost my job because my boss was a jerk.”
“My business was ruined because of my incompetent business partners.”
“My divorce was all my ex-wife’s fault.”
They never accept the blame for anything. In their minds, everything bad that has happened to them throughout their lives was magically somebody else’s fault.
That, of course, couldn’t possibly be true: in any relationship, both people contribute to problems and solutions.
If you see your potential partner blaming others a lot, you might want to consider that sooner or later, you will probably join the list of the people they consider responsible for their problems and that they won’t be likely to take responsibility for the mistakes they will (eventually) make in your relationship.
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2. They Try to Create Tension Between You and the People Around You
During my freshman year of college, I used to hang out with a girl that had a high conflict personality. One of the things she used to do was masterfully create tension between the people around her.
For example, whenever we were in a big group of new people and someone expressed an opinion she knew I disagreed with, she would put on an innocent smile and say something along the lines of “Hey Margaret, tell them how much you hate that kind of music/movie/place.”
Or, when we were alone she would say out of the blue things like “Did you notice the look that girl gave you earlier? She seems to dislike you.”
That’s typical of a high conflict person. It’s not that they’re bad people, but they like tension — that’s why they will often try to create it between the people around them.
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3. They Have an “All or Nothing” Mindset
High conflict individuals view, approach, and categorize the people around them as:
- Black or White
- Good or Bad
- Right or Wrong
In other words, they have an “all or nothing” mindset. The idiom “It’s my way or the highway” was probably invented to describe how these people think and behave.
They tend to see conflicts in terms of one simple solution: you’ll either agree with them/do what they want or they’ll cut all ties with you. They don’t analyze the situation, hear your point of view, or even consider your opinion.
They also often escalate a simple disagreement into a much larger issue. For example, I was once on a date with someone who was evidently a high conflict person and we started disagreeing over a minor issue.
If I was with anyone else, we would probably just laugh it off and continue our conversation. That person though? He stood up, told me something along the lines of “You know what? It’s obvious we think very differently so let’s just end this date right now” and simply took off.
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4. They Easily Lash Out at Others
The tendency to lash out at people is another sign that can indicate that your potential partner has a high conflict behavior.
High conflict people will suddenly blast the people around them with intense rage over some minor or nonexistent problem. That happens because they have a bunch of unresolved emotions and are unable to manage them properly.
Now, if you just started dating a high conflict person, chances are they’ll want to make a good impression on you, so they’ll be careful not to lash out at you even if they feel like it.
Nevertheless, you can still spot whether they have a habit of lashing out at people by watching how they behave around others. For example, they might last out at the waitress for bringing them the wrong order. Or, they might start screaming at their mother on the phone. Keep an eye out for such signs that might reveal they have a high conflict personality.
5. They Often Engage in Extreme Negative Behavior
High conflict people frequently engage in extreme negative behavior. That kind of behavior might include posing threats or name-calling someone; spreading rumors about them; trying to control and track their every move.
They might also disappear out of nowhere, throw and smash things, or say abusive words to the people closest to them — even physically abuse them.
A couple of years ago, I went to visit one of my friends. It was the first time I entered their home. When we went on to sit in his bedroom, I noticed a large dent in one of the walls.
I asked him what had caused it and he shamelessly told me that whenever he got angry he would smash his office chair into the wall — that apparently made him feel better.
Later, I would learn some other of his traits, which, paired together proved what I first thought of when I saw that dent in his wall: that he had a high conflict personality.
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Final Thoughts
It’s important to mention that high-conflict people aren’t necessarily bad people. They simply tend to have a pattern of behavior that increases or keeps conflicts going and usually the reason behind this behavior is their suppressed, undealt emotions — that they are unable to manage.
What’s important is that you learn to recognize the signs that indicate that a potential partner or a person you want to get closer with has a high-conflict personality.
Whether you’ll choose to stay with them or leave them it’s completely up to you and depends on your ability to manage conflict and how much it personally affects you.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Jim Flores on Unsplash