I have trouble understanding why anyone wants to seek conflict. I had a friend once who wanted to fight--with her fiance, friends, family, everyone really but me. I simply wouldn't engage, but she ended up deciding that she wanted to fight with me, too, so I quit talking to her. It wasn't worth the effort to maintain a friendship that I felt was unhealthy.
One of my daughters has begun to seek conflict whenever she is the slightest bit troubled. I've had to call her off of me probably 5 times this week. It's exhausting and troubling because I don't know where or why this urge to seek conflict comes from. Today's was about something that she misunderstood, and when I explained to her what I said, she kept going on about how she heard something else. I told her that she had misunderstood and that it wasn't a big deal, but she kept going on about how she was RIGHT...so I walked out of the room and shut the door on the conversation. My goal is not to engage her, but she doesn't seem to get it and won't let up. The other night after sending her out of the house for 15 minutes, she simply walked back in and started the fight where she left off before going outside. I'm at a total loss about what to do with her. I don't like the aggravation and anger that I feel at her because of her fits and silliness, but I don't know how to avoid them since she won't seem to let go when she has the need to be RIGHT.
And since she's my daughter I simply can't cut off contact with her.
So, I struggle to maintain my anger and frustrationg and not completely lose my temper. The things she wants to fight about are so itty bitty as to hardly matter, but that doesn't make the situation any easier to live with.
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