Before a Hard Conversation with a Friend
It’s one of my least favorite things to do in the world: to have a hard conversation with a friend. I dread it. I fear it, fearing the worst outcome. I wish it away, hoping that God might miraculously intervene and make it all better without my help, hoping that God will remove me from the equation and do the hard work for me.
When hurt by others, we invariably go one of two routes: we lash out or we wilt and flee and hide. Some of us attack by instinct. Others of us avoid conflict like the proverbial plague. It ain’t ever fun and the possibility of further rupture can paralyze our will.
What if I don’t say it right?
What if I get muddled up?
What if I forget to say something important?
What if I react in the moment?
What if I’m not heard or misunderstood?
What if I’m rejected?
With relative strangers and acquaintances, it’s often easy to figure out a way to ignore the relational hurt. Avoidance tactics can be enlisted to manage the pain of frustration and to increase the distance between oneself and the person who has hurt you. The thought that this conflict “will someday figure itself out” in the far-distant future mitigates the anxiety of the present. And one can always justify a way to permanently float away from the relationship. After all, they’re just an “acquaintance.”
With close friends, the matter is altogether different. Since no covenant was likely established at the start of the friendship, guiding how both parties might handle conflict fruitfully (not if it comes, but when it comes), there’s the feeling that you’re both winging it in the moment, hoping that you meet each other in the middle.
Each of you is likely operating with a rather different software in your head about how to handle relational conflict, which only serves to increase the fear of missing or further wounding each other. Avoidance tactics are yet again deployed or euphemisms are enlisted in order to play Jedi mind tricks on each other: “It’s all good,” “You do you,” “I’ll be seeing you around.”
But the hurt doesn’t go away; instead it toxifies in your system, making it even more scary to face conflict in the future.
With family, relational conflict is the worst because the stakes are always so high. You’re “stuck” with each other and it’s all-too easy to take each other for granted. It’s also all-too easy to say “screw you” and walk away—whether indefinitely or forever. Layers of little hurts have accumulated over the years, creating thereby a narrative of doom and decline, and, in certain cases, you literally cannot see the way forward. All you see are a bunch of crazy houses, dead ends, and intractable behaviors.
For some of our families, relational conflict requires AVOIDANCE AT ALL COSTS. It’s the un-seen, un-signed contract that everybody has agreed to. For other families, it’s ALL OUT WAR.
When conflict rears its ugly head, it’s a zero-sum game (as we witness, for example, in the haunting, virtually impossible-to-watch episode titled, “Fishes,” in the television show, The Bear.) For all of us, different seasons of life involve a different set of dynamics for handling the hurt that results from conflict.
It isn’t easy, as I said. But there’s always hope. And while I’ll likely never write a book about the topic, I have written three prayers in Prayers for the Pilgrimage about a topic that I’ve experienced firsthand in every case:
· “For Enduring Hard Things with Extended Family Members”
· “Before a Hard Conversation with a Friend”
· “For a Hard Conversation between Pastor and Parishioner”
If this you, hang in there, friend, and know that you’re not alone. You have a God who is in the business of doing impossible things. Trust this God. Trust that in Christ Jesus, this God wants you to experience health and life in all of your relationships. Kyrie Eleison.
