Avoid, Then Capitulate

Collaboration works through exploration. Here’s what I mean by that.

We’re all a bit like icebergs. A small part of us shows above the surface, but the real mass, the values and experience that actually shape how we respond to things, sits underwater where no one else can see it. Other people only see the tip, and they build assumptions about us from that alone. Most conflict comes from exactly this gap: neither person can see what’s actually driving the other.

To work through conflict, you have to explore what’s under the surface, both yours and theirs. Once you both understand what’s actually going on down there, solutions tend to become obvious, and because you both arrived at it together, you both actually buy into it.

The catch is that almost none of us are trained to be collaborative, and the moment you actually need the skill is usually the moment you’re too emotional to use it. So instead, everyone falls back on whatever style of conflict was trained into them, not through a course, but through personality and life experience layered together over time. Some people are trained to fight and win. Some avoid. Some capitulate.

I was trained to avoid first, then capitulate once avoidance stopped working. I know this about myself. I know it doesn’t serve me. I still fall into it every single time.

Knowing that, I’ve built myself some guardrails.

Rule 1: Never answer right away. Give yourself time to think, even when you feel completely certain, calm, and clear. You’re probably not as settled as you think.

This past weekend, someone asked me a favour. I said I needed time to think, even though I already knew my answer was no. I felt sure of it. I said I needed time anyway, because I’ve surprised myself before.

Rule 2: Don’t poll people outside the conflict. I broke this one almost immediately, because I assumed everyone would agree with me. They didn’t. What I got instead was a pile of other people’s values and beliefs that had nothing to do with mine, which left me more confused and a little guilty, not more decided. Interestingly, the opinions split cleanly along gender lines: the women leaned toward capitulating, and the men said, “Do what makes you happy.”

Confused and stuck, I spent Sunday morning just sitting with each possible answer to see how it felt. Saying yes felt bad, and saying no felt equally bad.

Rule 3: When you start to cry, snap, or turn into someone you don’t like, stop and take a break. So I rode my bike. That should be its own rule. Find your version of the bike ride. It feels indulgent when there’s a conflict to resolve, but it’s not optional. Most of us were trained to think enjoying ourselves is somehow wrong, especially with work left undone.

Rule 4: Once you’ve fallen back into your old pattern, return to the process. After my ride, I felt clear again. This morning I emailed the person who’d asked the favour and asked to meet again, since there’s no clean answer yet. We need to explore what’s actually underneath the request, and what’s underneath my resistance to it. Once we both understand that, a solution will show up that actually works for both of us.

If the other person doesn’t want to meet that way, that’s simply a new conflict, and the only real move is to explore why, using the same process all over again, more practice. Endless practice.

Rule 5: Implement the solution, then go live your life. Sooner or later, another conflict will show up, and you’ll get to do all of this again.

I still don’t know how this particular one turns out. But writing through it, same as the collaborative process itself, has already done what it needed to do.

When You Remember the Discussion Differently Than the Agreement

I’ve noticed something about how my ex and I approached decisions differently during our separation negotiations, and it’s made me think more generally about how mismatched decision-making styles can quietly sabotage even a well-intentioned agreement.

I tend to gather information until I run out of time or simply have to decide. I’ll tell the full story, get into the minutiae, circle a topic from every angle before I feel ready to commit to anything. My ex, from what I could tell, worked the opposite way: too much information and he’d start to shut down, mentally stepping back from the decision entirely rather than wading through it all with me.

I think about our actual negotiation meetings now and can see exactly where that mismatch caused real damage. I’d tell story after story, walk through every detail I thought mattered. At some point, I now realize, he simply stopped absorbing any of it.

How do I know? Because we’ve had disagreement after disagreement since, both of us convinced the other broke the agreement. I’ll think: how does he not remember we agreed to this out loud? We discussed it for at least an hour, on three separate occasions. But our written agreement doesn’t always reflect those lengthy conversations, partly because time and money pressure eventually pushed me to sign it before every detail was fully nailed down.

At the time, I was certain the agreement captured everything we needed. In some ways, I still think that it’s one of the longer, more thorough agreements I’ve come across. But when it comes to actually applying it to real decisions, we still get stuck, because we walked away from those meetings with two different understandings of what we’d actually settled.

I’ve thought a lot about how to prevent that gap from forming in the first place. What I’ve landed on isn’t a guaranteed fix, just a few things worth trying if you and your ex are heading into real conflict over an agreement:

Keep the agreement’s flexibility limited where you can. Vague, adaptable language sounds reasonable in the room, but it leaves too much room for two different memories of the same conversation.

Make sure the final document actually reflects everything you both deemed important enough to spend real time discussing. If it came up more than once in your meetings, it should be written down, not just assumed.

Get it reviewed by someone whose perspective differs from your own, not necessarily by gender, but by how you and your ex tend to process things differently. I had my dad review mine, and looking back, I doubt he actually read the whole thing; it was long enough that even I understood why. That alone should have told me it needed simplifying. I never had anyone review it who processed information the way my ex did, and that gap might have caught something before it became a recurring fight.

Build in a trial period for anything that doesn’t need to be locked in immediately. Testing a new arrangement in practice, before it’s permanent, tends to surface misunderstandings faster than any amount of additional discussion would.

I have been thinking about how to prevent this from happening, and all I have are suggestions. If there is considerable conflict between you and your ex, then you need to:

1. Have limited flexibility in your agreement.
2. Ensure that it reflects everything you deemed important enough to discuss in your meetings.
3. If you are a woman, have both a man and a woman review the agreement on your behalf and vice-versa. I had my dad review mine, but in fact I don’t think he even read it because it was so long. That should have been a clue that we needed to simplify our agreement. I didn’t have a woman review it, and that might have pointed out where I went wrong.
4. Have a trial period testing out your new agreement for things that do not need to be decided right away.