Relational Abuse Vs Relational Conflict

How many of you have sought counseling for help with your "conflicts" in your relationship, when really what you needed help with was the abuse, or violence, in your relationship?

Relational abuse is not the same as relational conflict. 

Conflict is positive, it’s healthy, it’s life giving. There is a wrestle, a struggle, a back and forth, a give and take, an ebb and flow dynamic, an energy to it that reminds me of labor contractions. There is pressure, and there’s expanding and contracting, until finally there’s breakthrough! The process is necessary and produces More Life. 

“Angry conflict,” or “abusive conflict,” is an oxymoron. This doesn’t exist. Abusive relational dynamics is not just one form of a conflict. Abuse can’t produce life. There is no give and take with abuse. Abuse simply demands and takes.

If one person is trying to dominate and control, then it’s no longer a conflict, it’s an assault. 

There is never “it takes two people” or “two equal sinners” in an assault. There is a perpetrator and a victim. 

If you’re trying to solve conflicts when you’re really dealing with assaults, and wondering why you still have problems, this is why. You’re trying to cram a round peg into a square hole.

Abuse needs to be recognized as an assault, not a conflict.