How To Manage Conflict When Your Default Defense Mechanism Is Cutting People Off

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Knowing when to cut ties with a toxic or abusive friend, relative, romantic partner, or colleague is essential to protecting your peace as well as your mental health. At the same time, regularly disconnecting from people as a means of dealing with conflict is an unhealthy defense mechanism. All relationships will experience conflict at some point, but there are much healthier ways of dealing with them. Here are ten tips for meaningfully managing disagreements that will help to keep your friendships and relationships intact.

Share how you feel

So often, we write people off for the smallest offenses without ever actually giving them a chance to fix it or explain themselves. Sometimes, it can be beneficial to simply tell people how they may have offended you. While there are obviously jerks who walk around knowingly offending people, we all have moments in which we are absent-minded and as a result, not completely attuned to the feelings of others.