Effective Communication The Key To Successful Conflict Resolution In A Long Distance Relationship
Long distance relationships are not immune to the conflicts that occasionally rare up in all forms of human interactions. The first time that a conflict occurs between a couple in a long distance relationship, they are likely to get alarmed wondering whether the conflict could be a signal that their relationship is headed for the rocks. After all, long distance love relationships are delicate, or arent they?
Well, the occurrence of a conflict in a relationship in which the partners are separated by distance doesnt necessarily signal the beginning of the end for that relationship. How well your long distance relationship survives the conflicts that come its way depends to a very great extend on how you handle the conflicts and attempt to resolve them.
There are three keys to successful conflict resolution in long distance relations (as in all relationships indeed), namely communication, communication and communication.
Communication has variously been described as the bridge that bridges the chasm that is human misunderstanding. Now a common thread that runs in all conflicts that affect human interactions is a feeling that one is not being understood, or that ones point of view is being looked down upon. And petty as these feelings sound on paper, they can actually be very painful when it is you who is experiencing them. But whatever the cause of conflict in a long distance relationship, and whatever the emotional feelings underlying it, you (either as the party who has been wronged or as the allegedly at-fault party) will have to communicate properly with other party to the long distance relationship, if your conflict is to have an amicable resolution.
Communication as used in conflict resolution basically means making an effort to see things from the other partys point of view, even if you dont accept with that point of view. Once you can communicate to the other party that you are seeing things from their point of view (or at least making an attempt to), then you would be in a position to put your own point of view across to them with a greater chance of success. And once you can see things from the other partys point of view, and the other party can see things from your point of view, you have a better chance of finding a midpoint or a compromise position between your points of view on whatever issue happens to be the source of your conflict and thereby resolve the conflict amicably.