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Relationships
Can Our Relationship Survive a Conflict About Values?
Making sense of our romantic and political differences.
Posted August 8, 2023 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- Conflicts about values, issues, politics, and gender roles are inevitable in any long-term relationship.
- Learning how to communicate and empathize during conflicts can be crucial to sustaining the relationship.
- Red flags for value conflicts include sustained and persistent contempt or cruelty in tone or behavior.
A healthy relationship can certainly accommodate differing views on money, politics, and even gender. Let’s remember that we are not partnering up with someone to be with another version of ourselves! Part of the appeal of someone else might in fact be some of their differences. If handled well, a little friction or even conflict over opinions can add dynamism to a relationship. The key is how these are handled or if you can do conflict well. If we get into negative conflict patterns that include things like contempt, stonewalling, or personal attacks, then obviously this doesn’t bode well.
However, it is important to be aligned in what we might call "core values." This is something that Stan Tatkin stresses in his work with couples. To paraphrase him, we can’t always live on love, but we can live on values. These could be things like a shared sense of respect, responsibility, or notion of justice, especially as it concerns the relationship. For instance, if you both share the value of equal collaboration in a relationship, you might work toward what that means (even if you disagree in specifics).
What if you realize that you and your partner have different values?
The most important things to do is try to be honest about how the other’s "challenging value" makes you feel personally and try to stick with personal statements ("This makes me feel x.") rather than outward judgments and attacks ("I can’t believe you are x."). I think we also need to remember that we live in polarizing times, and social media tends to fan rigid and dogmatic views about issues such as gender.
We can very easily fall into the trap of seeing our partner as a caricature or stereotype of what we see online. We might ourselves be mouthing views or ideas that we have heard online and parroting these views and tones in our relationships. We need to be very careful not to conflate our partner’s discomfort or anger about a film such as "Barbie" with some of the misogyny online.
These kinds of conversations take a lot of work, and my caution would be, in a relationship, to look for what we call "attachment fears"—how the difference in values triggers concerns about the security of the relationship (i.e., Do our differing opinions mean that he or she won’t be there for me when I need them?). Teasing that out can be very difficult but important to separate.
Are long-term relationships more resilient to value conflicts?
Our time together matters a lot in managing value differences. At the beginning of a relationship, it might be a lot harder to manage because you don’t have an established secure attachment or bond to give you some cushion in the conflict. I think we are also trying to sort out what values we have and what matters to us when we are younger and dating, and perhaps a differing opinion on politics is something that matters to you in a relationship.
How you handle this conflict, however, is always more important than what the conflict is about. It can point to potential challenges in the long term—perhaps we see a side of our date that creates major feelings of distrust or nonsafety. These can be important to track and monitor.
Another problem I see is when people swallow or suppress their difference of opinion in order to smooth things over with their mate. In the long term, this is a receipt for resentment or suppressed sense of individual differentiation, which is crucial for a healthy relationship.
What if one partner wants to "educate" the other partner on an important issue?
This can be tricky because I can see many cases where this feels patronizing or paternalistic. Rather than "educating," I would prefer to stress listening to what the issue is for the other partner and why it matters to them (without refuting, only asking questions). Active listening can be a form of education and personalizes the issue for both partners.
What if we can't find a solution to our value conflict?
Sometimes in couples’ therapy, we talk about learning to sustain or live with irresolvable issues. We never want to force a resolution that doesn’t seem fair or appropriate for both partners. Sometimes we even need to widen our scope of our partner because we can often get fixated on this one negative issue and ignore the broader positives or great values that we admire and appreciate.
When do you know if it's time to break up on account of a value conflict?
This is a difficult and individual question for everyone. However, I think a general rule is that if the tone shifts to ongoing and consistent forms of contempt, cruelty, or stonewalling, then I think either a professional couples therapist is needed, or it may be an insurmountable conflict.
