From the author: No one builds relationships in order to suffer in them. But, unfortunately, suffering in relationships is not so uncommon... Conflict relationships are those relationships in which the main form of interaction is conflicts and quarrels. Life in such a relationship is like walking through a minefield: it can explode at any moment, and you don’t always know where. It seems that such relationships are doomed to a quick end, but, paradoxically, this is one of the most durable forms of relationships. An example of such relationships could be families with a chemically dependent family member (alcoholism or drug addiction), families with a domestic tyrant (various types of psychological and physical violence), emotionally codependent couples. The war between partners, which does not stop for a single day, makes these relationships painful and almost joyless. And it is sometimes not at all clear why people in such relationships continue to live for years? Often the partners in such families themselves come from parental families, where this kind of interaction was normal, it is familiar and familiar to them, and many are sincerely convinced that “everyone is like this.” " The familiar is not as unsettling as the unknown. And there is a skill to deal with the familiar. And indeed, they know how to survive in such destructive relationships, they learned this in childhood. Firstly, you need to make yourself less sensitive, in order not to feel the pain that is certainly present in any war, and in order not to hear your own needs, which have not been satisfied in this relationship for years. Secondly, you need to develop an arsenal of various manipulations through which to communicate. A feature of interaction in such a family structure is ambiguity, non-transparency: everything needs to be done so that it is not clear who is responsible for what is happening, and even better, make one participant in the conflict responsible, and call him guilty. Then there is a great opportunity to be offended. Guilt and resentment are constant companions of such relationships; they do not allow either partner to break this vicious circle. Because if you are guilty, then you will not be able to leave until you atone for your guilt, and they are not offended at all in order to stop contact. Resentment is a veiled message to another to feel guilty. And if the other is often guilty, then he, quite naturally, will feel angry at the one who makes him feel guilty, again offending the first. Double messages are another tool with which conflict situations are created in such relationships. This is a form of interaction in which two opposite, mutually exclusive messages are given at the verbal and non-verbal levels (come here - get out). And it doesn’t matter which message the partner responds to, he will end up in a trap in any case. Another “advantage” of such a relationship is that it is an excellent field for competition. In such relationships, there is competition for everything: who earns more, who contributes more to the relationship, who is more of a housekeeper, who is a better parent, who is smarter, who is more resourceful, and so on ad infinitum. But most of all, in such a couple they compete over who caused the most pain to whom and who was more offended by whom. And no one can seriously admit how much pain he caused to the other... Another undoubted benefit of such relationships is that you don’t need to develop yourself anywhere else. Over a considerable period of time, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, the participants in such relationships are occupied only with them: they conflict, quarrel, sort things out, briefly reconcile and again create situations in which conflict arises. No favorite activity, no hobby, no hobbies, no other valuable relationships. Such destructive relationships are often all there is in the lives of their participants. And then another reason becomes clear why it is not so easy to end them: by losing this relationship, a person loses everything, if only because there is nothing else. And then you will agree to.