Like this:

Ever been randomly reading blog posts one morning and suddenly come across one that made you say, “holy crap.  That’s me all the way”?  One that suddenly defibrillated your dying muse?  (“Clear!  -ZAP!!-”)  One that unleased a whole torrent of thoughts about yourself to the point where you’re not sure how you’re going to separate and organize them into a coherent post?

Well I’m going to try today.

The post that kickstarted me I found over at The Jason Show, about confrontation and Jason’s difficulties with it.  And after reading, I realized that it described me in a nutshell.

I tell myself that conflict is seldom productive, that cooperation is much better.  I tell myself that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.  I tell myself that I prefer to pick and choose my battles carefully, and fight only when I must.  I tell myself that there is a usually a better way to solve a problem than direct confrontation.

All of this just masks the fact that I try to avoid confrontation at all costs.  Even when I have to, I procrastinate.  I delay.  I try to find excuses to put it off or avoid it altogether.  I find ways to make it as easy and painless and quick as possible.

And even more, I dread when people confront me.  Because all too often it means I screwed up.  Possibly irrepairably.  That someone important is going to think less of me.  Or I’m going to have to suffer a humiliating moment.  Or I’m about to get fired from another job.

That last one, as of late, has been a real biggie.  Whenever I get called into a manager’s office, especially with the dreaded line “Dave, can I see you in my office for a minute?” I’m actually on the verge of a panic attack.  And the relief that I feel afterwards when it turned out to be little more than a routine discussion about the day’s work actually makes me weak in the knees.

This is no way for a man to live his life.

Part of the problem is that I don’t deal with heated confrontation very well.  I tend to either be a doormat and take it, or I get pushed beyond my rational boundaries and explode in a fit of rage.  Exploding with rage tends to have more immediate and harsher consequences, so all too often I choose the other option, and end up seething and hating myself because of it.  I can’t seem to find a middle ground.

This has admittedly caused me a lot of problems in the parenting department.  I have trouble expressing parental firmness and sternness when it’s called for without becoming angry.  Too many times I found myself verbally ripping into my kids, particularly my stepson, who I am only now starting to redevelop a relationship with.  That’s a story I’m still getting up the courage to fully tell about, but suffice to say the problems we had with him weren’t helped by my rants.  I would give full vent to my frustrations, which would just feed on itself to fuel my anger, stay pissed off for a while, then end up feeling like complete shit for showing them a side I didn’t want them to see.

So all too often I’d end up going to the opposite extreme, being too permissive and nonconfrontational, just to avoid the unpleasantness and the associated feelings.  Which would markedly undercut my parenting abilities.

Case in point: at one point during Christmas weekend at the inlaws, nephew JJ was being a real obnoxious brat (partly because he knew the Chunt was next door, but that’s another story), not listening and arguing and talking back to everyone, and rather than dealing with him I walked away, feeling that urge to just erupt and let him have it.  Fortunately Yes Dear was present and, likely sensing my frustrations, stepped in and put JJ in his place without missing a beat, then went back about her business.  I went outside, scared at how close I came to going on one of my verbal rampages to another one that I love dearly and the lasting damage it would have caused.  That’s a side I don’t want him to EVER see, or anyone else for that matter.  My other nephews and niece were present as well, and they wouldn’t have needed to see that either.

And don’t forget we’re raising another child as well.  I consider AJ a second chance in the parenting department, and I don’t want to get it wrong again with another one.

Let me contrast briefly with Yes Dear, since I mentioned her.  She’s the complete opposite in the confrontation department, sometimes to the point where I believe she actually relishes it.  She’s always been the warrior, ready to step in, take up arms, speak her mind, and walk away with no regrets.  Given the state of her family, I can understand why.  There are times when I think she needs to more carefully choose her battleground, but she gets results much better than I do.  She has the knack for (usually) stepping into a situation, applying precisely the amount of force needed to make her point, and then backing off.  And she knows exactly how to express herself in any given situation, what tone to use, how much anger to project into it, and when to use compassion.

Little wonder that she has the reputation in the family as the mean one, the one not to be trifled with.  She’s totally unafraid to express her opinion.  The ongoing joke-that-really-isn’t is that mates and prospective mates for our children have little to fear from me, but plenty to fear from her.

Unfortunately, a good bit of this stuff I got from my Dad.  He was too generally a nonconfrontational person, but when pushed he tended to push back hard.  He too would hold things in until the pressure became too much, and then explode in a frightening matter.  There were a couple of occasions in my life where his anger turned physical toward me, something that would have appeared totally out of character to those who never saw that side of him, and something which I have absolutely no doubt he regretted his whole life.  And being in his shoes now, I see where he was coming from.  The only thing I fear more than being a humiliated doormat (something my dad would NEVER allow himself to be) is having to pay the consequences for completely losing it and hurting someone physically or emotionally.  And though I have enough self control to keep situations from going physical, I can’t say the same for ugly and hurtful things coming out of my mouth in anger.

So in a nutshell, no I don’t manage conflict very well.  I never was very good at finding that assertive middle ground, and find myself praying that any confrontation I may face naturally takes that course so I don’t have to choose between blowing my stack or laying down.

And not that I don’t believe in meaningful therapy, but I don’t relish the idea of sitting on a shrink’s couch and having all my relationships from the past, particularly with my dad, cross-examined, to figure out why I shun confrontation.  I have stated before that he was fundamentally a good person, but like everyone else not perfect.  He did what he had to with what he knew, and sometimes it was good enough, other times it wasn’t.

So usually I just take a page from the R. Lee Ermey school of psychology, understand that this jackwagon isn’t going to find his self-confidence to deal with conflict in namby-pamby land, and just suck it up and deal with life’s battles one day at a time.