Irritation and anger wash over me
frequently when I enter my bathroom at home. After checking out the mess that
is in front of me one day, I go in search of my mother or sister. Unable to
find the latter, I complain to my mom, “Mom, Hayley still hasn’t kept the
shower clean.”
The cleanliness of the bathroom we
share is a major source of conflict for my sister and I. The combination of all
her discarded clothes on the floor and her hair in the drains and all over the
wall of our shower irritates me immensely. Now, I think it is also fair to
admit that my irritation does not stem entirely from the mess itself. My
intense irritation at what I have found in my bathroom also arises from the
fact that I have talked to my sister several times previous to this occasion
about the mess. Other times, I simply ignore the mess because I don’t have time
to worry about it or time to try to persuade, and frequently end up arguing
with, my sister. My avoidance of the mess is also evident in my turning to my
mother to help me get through to my sister. Since I find that when I ask her to
do something it does not typically result in any action, I find it beneficial
to get my mother involved since I know that my sister is more likely to listen
to my mother than me.
This problem has been plaguing us
for a substantial amount of time. Determined to resolve this issue, my mother
and I came up with a plan to manage the cleanliness of the bathroom. It sounded
reasonable to me, so I agreed. My mother assured me that she would talk to my
sister about it. I later heard that my sister would go along with this plan as
well. Hopeful that finally this conflict with my sister would go away, I
eagerly cleaned up my mess for the day shortly after our plan was set in place.
Unfortunately, in the next few days, I found that my sister was not living up
to my hopes. One morning recently I walked into the bathroom, and found her
hair covering our shower as usual. Anger bubbled inside me but I had to ignore
it because otherwise I would make myself late for work. Even though it has not
been working out perfectly so far, I hope that given some more time this new
plan will work and my sister and I can amicably work together to keep our space
clean.
My conflict with my sister
addresses several concepts covered by McCornack. First, those occasions where I
ignore the mess and don’t mention it to my sister even though I am irritated
are examples of avoidance. When you are engaging in avoidance of conflict, you
simply ignore what is bothering you (McCornack, 2010). Secondly, I would
consider the instances of my attempts to talk to my sister about our problem
and her resulting apathy my cumulative annoyances. Each time I talk to her and
she does nothing, I remember the next time I try to talk to her. This pattern
leads to my increasing annoyance and irritation on each occasion.
While I hope that this problem
works out soon, for now I will be enjoying my sister’s absence while she is in
Germany and keep my bathroom cleaned the way I like it.
In what ways do you typically handle conflicts? What is one
situation where you handled conflict using one of the methods covered in the
textbook? Was the conflict resolved?
Reference:
McCornack, S. (2010). Reflect
and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s.
