Vera Nazarian, an American professional writer of Armenian- Russian origin had no easy life. At the tender age of eight, at the height of the Cold War, she fled from the former Soviet Union as a refugee with her parents with nothing else but a couple of suitcases. In one of her writings from ‘The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration’ she echoed her personal experiences and hardships: –

“If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.”

We all need coping skills to sail safely through our earthly trials, more so within the context of relationships. Relationships, whether inter-family, friendships or budding intimate relationships can be a great source of love, pleasure, support and excitement. Yet, when things get rocky they can also be a source of grief and anguish.

A Dutch measure which seriously attempts to identify coping mechanisms is referred to as the Utrechtse Coping List which dissects coping skills into different distinct subscales. When we attempt to disentangle the particular situation and work in a goal-oriented way to solve the problem such attempt is termed as confrontation. On the other hand, palliative coping is when we seek distraction to avoid thinking about the problem and avoidant coping is when we ignore the problem, run away from it or as they say hide it under the carpet. Other subscales are social support where we strive to seek comfort and understanding from other people, depressive coping where we become so overwhelmed by the problem to the extent it seriously affects our psychological balance and emotional coping where we do recognize the problem and burst into frustration and anger.

The complexity of our psychological make-up is often shaped and re-shaped through our multiple life experiences. We all go through episodes of trust, respect, care and a sense of fraternity. But when we least expect it, a thick cloud of distrust, a feeling of being cheated or abused or ill-treated perhaps from those closest to us seems to hang over us compelling us to engage into the particular coping mechanism that suits each particular enfolding event.

Research into what makes relationships work successfully tend to focus on three major areas of coping with relationship problems. Primarily people in successful relationships do not try to force the others to be exactly like them; they work to accept difference even when this difference is profound. That is what makes us unique. Secondly, once relationships either focus on repeatedly picking over past events, or else are based only on the hope that things will be better tomorrow, they tend to go off the rails. Relationships operate on the present, the immediate. Thirdly, partners within a relationship have to respect individual choices, obviously so long as these are in harmony and conducive towards a common vision or goal shared by both partners.

The human fight (confrontation) or flight (avoidant coping) response dates back to prehistoric times where fight was manifested in aggressive and combative behavior and flight was manifested by fleeing potentially threatening situations. Today, fight or flight responses have assumed a wider range of behaviors. The fight response may be manifested by angry, argumentative behavior and the flight response may be manifested through social withdrawal from our closest ones.

When and how should I confront? Should I shrug off the issue at hand hoping that it will simply evaporate? Should I distract myself to avoid confrontation and hide the pain? Or should I let the steam out and display my utter disgust, frustration and anger. These are not easy questions to answer. But the way forward is to be handled with great care and if need be, through seeking professional support. As they say, thinking without action is futile, but action without thinking is fatal.

The great theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in his famous Serenity Prayer which has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs seems to capture the essence of our discussion:- Dear God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

(THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN PINK MAGAZINE IN 2011 – AUTHOR GORDON P VASSALLO)