5• The Pattern of Conflict

“Actually,” Avi said, “when our hearts are at war, we not only invite failure, we invest in it. Let me give you an example.

“One Saturday,” he began, “I returned home at about 5:45 p.m., just fifteen minutes before I was to meet a friend for tennis. Problem was, I had also promised my wife, Hannah, that I would mow the lawn.”

There were a few knowing chuckles around the room.

“Well, I raced to the garage, pulled out the lawn mower, and mowed it in a sprint. I then ran back into the house to get dressed for tennis. As I raced past Hannah toward the stairs, I mumbled that I was going to meet my friend Paul for a game of tennis. I was just about to the stairs when Hannah called after me, ‘Are you going to edge?’

“I stopped in my tracks. ‘It doesn’t need edging,’ I said. ‘Not this time.’

“‘I think it does,’ she said.

“‘Oh come on,’ I objected. ‘No one is going to pass our house and say, “Look, Marge, the Rozens didn’t edge!” It isn’t going to happen!’ This didn’t sway her in the least, so I added, ‘Besides, I ran the wheels of the mower up on the cement as I cut around the edges. It looks fine.’

“‘You said you were going to mow,’ she said, ‘and that means edging too.’

“‘No it doesn’t!’ I countered. ‘Mowing means mowing; edging means edging. You don’t have to edge every time you mow. That’s ridiculous. Besides, I’m already late for tennis. Do you want Paul just to be waiting? Is that what you want?’

“I thought I had her at that, but then she said, ‘Okay, I guess I’ll edge then.’”

The knowing chuckles returned. “Guilt-tripping you, wasn’t she?” Miguel spoke up for the first time that morning, in a gravelly voice that matched his appearance. His wife, Ria, didn’t look too pleased by the comment.

“Exactly,” Avi said. “I didn’t want her doing it, so I told her that maybe I could edge when I got back. And with that, I threw on my tennis gear and left.

“I didn’t get home until after dark. I’d beaten Paul for the first time and was feeling pretty happy. I went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and poured myself a large glass of orange juice. Hannah walked into the room when I was in the middle of a long guzzle. I quickly dropped the glass from my mouth and was about to say, ‘I beat Paul!’ when she asked, ‘Are you going to edge?’

“The excitement drained from me in an instant, and I was immediately back in the irritated emotional place I had been a couple of hours earlier.

“‘You’ve been sitting around here wondering for the last two hours whether I’m going to edge?’ I badgered. ‘That’s pathetic.’

“‘But you said you would when you got back,’ she replied.

“I shot back at her: ‘I said maybe I would. But that was before I knew it was going to be pitch black.’

“‘But you said you’d do it.’

“‘Do you want me to put out my eye or something?’ I retorted. ‘Is that what you want? It’s pitch black. I wouldn’t be able to wear my sunglasses.’

“‘Then I’ll edge,’ she said.”

“Hell, let her do it!” Lou bellowed. “If she wants it done that badly, she should just do it herself.”

A few people chuckled at that, Miguel especially. Carol pursed her lips.

“Well, I didn’t do that, Lou,” Avi responded. “Instead, I raised my head piously high, inhaled deeply, and said, ‘Okay. I’ll edge to keep peace in the family.’ And then I stalked to the garage, pulled out the Weed Eater, and edged for two solid hours. If she wanted edging, she was going to get edging!”

A few in the group laughed at that as well. Miguel chortled so hard he nearly choked.

“But think about it,” Avi continued. “When I came back in the house, do you think my edging had kept peace in the family?”

The participants all shook their heads—even Lou, although he was barely aware of it.

“And it didn’t keep peace in the family for one simple reason: my heart was still at war toward Hannah. She seemed just as small minded, inconsiderate, demanding, unreasonable, and cold when I was edging as when I wasn’t. The change in my outward behavior didn’t change how I was feeling about her. In fact, if anything, the more I edged in the darkness, the worse she seemed to me. When I chewed up a piece of the fence because I couldn’t see well, I felt a perverse sense of satisfaction. It proved how unreasonable Hannah was being.

“As you might imagine, when I finally came back in the house, our feelings toward each other poked through every word, look, and gesture. In fact, if anything, we were less civil to each other than before—which ticked me off all the more, by the way. Here I had put my own eyesight at risk by doing what she unreasonably demanded, and she was still mad at me! The least she could do is be grateful, I told myself. But no, she’s impossible to please!”

Miguel started coughing in laughter. He brought his barrel-shaped fist to his mouth to try to quell the eruption.

“What is it, Miguel?” Avi asked.

He raised his hand in front of him, telling Avi to wait a moment while he got himself under control.

Avi broke out into a big grin himself, as he watched this large man struggle to choke off a case of the laughs.

Clearing his throat, Miguel finally said in a pinched voice, “Sorry. Your story reminded me o’ somethin’,” he said. “Happened two nights ago.”

Ria’s eyes widened as she turned to look at him.

“I had to do the dishes. Knew Ria would have a cow if I didn’t. Even though I had to work early in the mornin’.”

Lou smiled to himself at the image of this hulk of a man leaning over the sink, dutifully washing the dishes.

“And then,” Miguel continued, “when I finished, she came in. Started snoopin’. Wanted to see if I’d done it.”

“I did not!” Ria objected, too strongly.

“Yes you did. Like always.”

“I was just coming in to get something to eat.”

“Right,” he laughed. “That’s why you were lookin’ in the sink? For food?”

Now it was Lou who burst out laughing.

Ria’s face started to turn pink. “Well, I wouldn’t have to do that if you would just clean up like you should,” she shot back.

Miguel shook his head.

“I take it you mentioned this, Miguel,” Avi interrupted, “because you felt these warring feelings we’re talking about?”

“That’s right. But who wouldn’t? Right? She just said it herself,” he said pointing at Ria. “She’s always hoverin’. Checks what I do. Doesn’t think it’s good enough.”

Carol stirred beside Lou. “Maybe she’s not hovering, Miguel. Maybe she’s just tired of having to do everything.”

Lou was aghast, partly because he was feeling a kinship with Miguel at the moment and partly because it was so unlike Carol to put someone on the spot. “What did Miguel do to you, Carol?” he said. “Maybe this woman should be grateful her man will do the dishes even though he carries the burden of making a living.”

“Oh, so women don’t have their share of burdens, Lou?” It was the woman Lou had noticed at the back of the room before they started but had not met. She had tired of Lou’s domination of the dialogue and could restrain herself no longer. “Including career burdens?” she continued. “Are you saying that only men know about that? For that matter, perhaps women don’t even have names in your mind. Maybe we’re all just this woman or that woman. Even worse, maybe I’m just that black woman. Is that the way it is? Should we all just be happy for what we’re able to do for you? Is that the way it is in your house, and in your company?”

Lou felt blindsided. He was about to pounce when Avi interrupted. “Hearts at war, that’s what we’re talking about,” he said. “Gwyn, Lou, Carol, Miguel, Ria, the rest of us—do you feel what I mean? How are we seeing each other—right now? As allies? As enemies? These are warring feelings.”

Lou glanced over at his assailant, who was seated on the other side of Elizabeth. So her name is Gwyn, he noted.

Avi paused for a moment. “Go ahead, look around,” he said. “Are we seeing people, or are we seeing objects?”

Most in the room avoided each other’s eyes despite the invitation to look.

“When we start seeing others as objects,” Avi continued, “we begin provoking them to make our lives difficult. We actually start inviting others to make us miserable. We begin provoking in others the very things we say we hate.”

“How so?” Lou asked.

“Can’t you feel it?” Avi asked. “How our emotions are beginning to run away from us, and how we are beginning to provoke hostile comments and feelings in each other?”

Lou had to admit he could feel it.

“We see the same pattern in my story with Hannah,” he continued. “Let’s diagram it, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

“To begin with,” he said, “Hannah asked me to edge, didn’t she? And then complained and badgered me when I objected.” He then drew the following on the board:

THE COLLUSION DIAGRAM

“Why are you calling this collusion?” Pettis asked.

“For reasons that will become clearer in a few minutes,” Avi answered. “Make sure I come back to that, will you?”

Pettis nodded.

“When Hannah asked me to edge,” Avi continued, “how do you suppose I began to see or regard her?”

“As demanding,” Miguel answered. Glancing at Ria, he added, “Unreasonable too.”

Avi wrote this in the area he had marked with a 2.

“Let’s face it,” Lou said, “she was a nag, plain and simple. Not saying she always is; Hannah’s probably a wonderful lady. But in this case, she should have just done it herself and stopped complaining.”

“Okay, Lou,” Avi chuckled, as he added “nag” to the board. “Would it be fair to say I was seeing her as an object?”

“As an obstacle, definitely,” Lou answered.

Avi added this as well.

“So when I was seeing Hannah—as we’ve listed here at number 2—as a nag and so on, how did I act? What did I do?”

“You protested,” Gwyn answered. “You didn’t think you should have to do it, and you told her so. A bit childishly too I might add.”

Avi smiled good-naturedly. “Yes, thank you, Gwyn.”

“Oh, you’re most welcome,” she said, the edge still in her voice.

“So I protested,” Avi repeated, while adding that in the area he had marked as number 3. “What else did I do?”

“I would say you were trying to help her see the situation more reasonably,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t think you were being childish necessarily,” she added. “Bothered, certainly, but not childish. After all, you mowed even though you didn’t have the time. You were just trying to make your appointment.”

“Yes, his appointment,” Gwyn said. “That’s just the point. Maybe she had plans of her own. What about what she wanted to do? Shouldn’t that matter?”

“Okay, Gwyn, tell me,” Lou interjected. “What plans of Hannah’s required that Avi edge the lawn, and right then? What would that have to do with her plans, assuming she had any?”

“‘Assuming she had any?’” Gwyn repeated mockingly. “Can’t women have plans, Lou?”

“Of course they can have plans. That’s not what I’m saying. But don’t make me your plan. Don’t try to run my life and then act like I’m violating your civil rights if I don’t do just what you want me to do.”

“So you’re a racist as well,” Gwyn shot back with an I-figured-as-much nod.

“‘Racist’? What are you talking about? What’s your problem, lady? What did I ever do to you?”

“Gwyn, Lou,” Avi said in an imploring tone, “let’s hold on here. We might disagree about a lot of things, but how we do it makes a big difference. If we start seeing each other as objects, we’ll get to the point where we’ll need to see each other as disagreeable rather than as simply disagreeing. Once that happens, we’ll end up provoking each other just as Hannah and I did. Let’s not fall into the very trap we’re seeking to understand and avoid.”

This comment, like Avi’s invitation a couple of minutes earlier, appeared to lessen some of the rancor in the room. But Avi knew this was mostly illusion. Anger—or more precisely, war—was brewing just beneath the surface and threatening to sweep away their thoughts and emotions.

“Let’s come back to the story,” he said.

THE COLLUSION DIAGRAM

“So I protested to Hannah,” he said, pointing at the area marked 3, “and tried to teach her. And then, of course, I even ended up edging. In fact, I edged with a kind of ferocious intensity, didn’t I—with an attitude?”

Most in the room nodded.

“Given how I acted and how I was seeing Hannah, how do you suppose she saw me?”

“As self-centered,” Gwyn answered.

“And inconsiderate,” said Ria.

“And immature,” added Gwyn.

“Yes, okay. Thanks. I think,” Avi smiled wryly, adding these comments to area 4. “So let’s look at this situation,” he said, backing away from the board.

THE COLLUSION DIAGRAM

“If Hannah is seeing me as we’ve listed here at number 4—as self-centered, inconsiderate, and immature—is she now less or more likely to insist that I do as she says and to complain when I don’t?”

“More,” the group answered.

“So she’ll do more of what we’ve listed here at number 1, which means that I’ll see and do more of what we’ve listed at numbers 2 and 3, and she’ll then see and do more of what we’ve listed at numbers 4 and 1! Around and around we’ll go, each of us provoking in the other the very things we’re complaining about.” He paused to let that settle. “Think about it,” he said. “Each of us ends up inviting the very behaviors we say we hate in the other!”

“But that’s crazy,” Pettis observed.

“Yes, Pettis, it is. And because it is, we call this collusion rather than merely conflict.”

Pettis puzzled on that. “I’m not sure I understand the distinction.”

“The word ‘conflict’ is passive,” Avi responded. “It is something that happens to us. For example, something we refer to as a conflict might simply be the result of a misunderstanding. But many conflicts aren’t that way at all. Many conflicts are like the one we’ve been considering: they involve situations where the parties are actively engaged in perpetuating the trouble. In such cases, far from being passive victims of misunderstanding, we become active perpetuators of misunderstanding. The word ‘collusion’ captures this element of active participation more accurately than ‘conflict’ does, so we use it to describe conflicts where the parties are actually inviting the very things they’re fighting against.” At this, Avi wrote the following on the board:

COLLUSION:

A conflict where the parties are inviting the very things they’re fighting against

“And you’re right,” Avi continued, “this is insane. And yet this insanity prevails in large areas of our lives. It describes much of what happens between spouses who are struggling, parents and children who are battling, coworkers who are competing, and countries that are fighting.” Avi looked around at the group. “It also describes what has just been happening in this room, doesn’t it? We’re beginning to provoke in others the very comments and behaviors we are accusing them of.

“Despite the insanity of it, this pattern of interpersonal and inner violence can come to rule our lives and the lives of the organizations and countries where we work and live.

“In fact,” he continued, “this insanity tries to spread.

“Let me show you how.”