As a couples therapist helping partners navigating complex emotional terrain, I often hear some version of this early in therapy (and sometimes it’s just one half of the couple):
“We don’t really fight. We avoid fighting. So I don’t understand the problem.”
To many, this sounds like the gold standard of a healthy relationship — no yelling, no storming off, no slamming of doors. But as we know through some of the most successful, evidence based models for couples therapy, this may be a sign of conflict avoidance, and conflict avoidance often signals something else entirely: disconnection, fear of intimacy, and emotional suppression, which doesn’t tend to benefit couples or their connection.
This blog explores some reasons why couples avoid conflict, how it quietly erodes intimacy, and why effective couples therapy (and couples themselves) doesn’t shy away from conflict — it reframes what conflict means, and welcomes it.
What Is Conflict Avoidance in Relationships?
Conflict avoidance is more than not arguing — it’s about suppressing or ignoring needs, feelings, and relational tensions to keep things superficially “calm.” Often rooted in childhood experiences or attachment patterns, this avoidance can mask a lack of true emotional intimacy.
From an emotionally focused therapy lens, we understand this as an attachment injury. Partners avoid hard conversations because they fear that expressing needs will lead to rejection or escalation. But avoiding conflict doesn’t eliminate the problem — it just drives it underground, often creating distance, resentment, or passive-aggressive behaviour.
Case Study: When Silence Isn’t Peace
Take couples like Megan and Carlos who say, “We don’t fight — we just feel distant, or we just don’t feel connected.” As we work together in therapy, it becomes clear they are both suppressing their emotions. Megan fears being too needy, and Carlos fears being criticized. Their silence isn’t peace — it is emotional isolation.
With time, we can work to identify the negative cycle: Megan’s withdrawal leads Carlos to shut down, which further confirms Megan’s belief that expressing needs isn’t safe. Using a variety of evidence based interventions including Emotionally Focused Therapy, we reframe their behaviour as protective strategies — not character flaws or deliberate attempts to harm their partners — and help them reengage emotionally.
Terry Real and the Cost of “Adaptive Child” Responses
Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy (RLT) brings a powerful framework to understanding conflict avoidance. He distinguishes between our Functional Adult Self and the Adaptive Child — the younger, reactive self we developed to survive difficult relational dynamics in our past.
In conflict-avoidant couples, the Adaptive Child often shows up in the form of compliance, appeasement, or shut-down. One partner may retreat emotionally to avoid conflict, while the other may overfunction to maintain connection. Real calls this “losing yourself to keep the relationship,” a dynamic that slowly erodes authenticity and trust.
Real emphasizes that healthy relationships require fierce intimacy — the courage to speak difficult truths with love. In therapy, partners learn how to move out of outdated survival strategies which aren’t working for them or their partners. They develop some relational ‘self awareness’, and into relational empowerment: clear boundaries, direct communication, and accountability, without shame.
How the Gottman Method Addresses Avoidance
In The Gottman Method, John and Julie Gottman identify conflict avoidance as one of the “Four Horsemen” precursors to relationship breakdown — especially stonewalling. This is when one partner shuts down, goes silent, or disengages, often to avoid escalation. But in doing so, they signal to their partner: “You don’t matter.”
The Gottmans’ research shows that successful couples don’t avoid conflict — they manage it constructively. They practice what the Gottmans call repair attempts — small bids to de-escalate tension and reconnect emotionally, even mid-conflict. Therapy using the Gottman Method helps couples build the emotional tools to handle disagreement without disconnecting.
Why Therapy Welcomes Conflict
Conflict is not the enemy of connection — disconnection is. In therapy, we address conflict not to provoke pain but to uncover what matters most underneath the silence.
Working with avoidant dynamics helps couples:
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Create emotional safety: EFT teaches partners that emotional expression strengthens, rather than threatens, the relationship.
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Break relational patterns: RLT helps identify learned, adaptive responses and develop relational maturity.
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Replace shutdown with communication: The Gottman Method provides structured tools for addressing hard topics with respect and empathy.
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Cultivate vulnerability as strength: When couples risk showing up emotionally, even in conflict, connection usually deepens.
Practical Tips for Avoidant Couples
If you or your partner tend to avoid conflict, I suggest trying couples counselling. If you want to try something on your own first, try these:
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Name the avoidance: “I notice we often don’t bring things up when they bother us.”
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Use “soft startups”: A Gottman tool for bringing up concerns gently, rather than letting them simmer. Following that, use “I statements” instead of “you statements”, and avoid using “all or nothing language” which will only put your partner on the defensive.
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Speak from the Functional Adult: As Terry Real teaches, pause and respond from your grounded, mature, relational self, and not from fear or habit.
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Seek therapy with an emotionally focused therapist or a therapist that integrates some or all of these modalities: The right support can transform conflict into connection.
Final Thoughts
Avoiding conflict doesn’t preserve love — it dilutes it. But with the right tools and support, couples can learn to engage conflict as a path to healing, connection, and growth. Through the right kind of therapy, and your work, we help partners rediscover that intimacy is born not from perfection, but from emotional presence — even in the hard moments.
Conflict avoidance is not a flaw — it’s often a learned strategy. And in therapy, we meet it with compassion, skill, and the belief that love can be re-learned, re-engaged, and reignited.
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