MANAGING CONFLICT IN A
SHARE HOUSE
(A) DO NOTHING

Often, doing nothing can lead to a conflict getting worse. Let’s have a look at what could happen if Caitlin did nothing:

Caitlin ended up doing nothing, but getting more and more annoyed with Rachel until she was really horrible to her and Rachel ended up crying in her room. By doing nothing constructive to solve the conflict, it became worse and has ended up damaging Caitlin’s and Rachel’s friendship.

However, doing nothing can sometimes help a situation work out.

Let’s look at one possible outcome where Caitlin chose to do nothing about the conflict but the situation worked out fine.

In this instance:

  • More people became involved in the situation (a new house mate moved in)
  • Fred had a conversation with Rachel that helped to resolve the conflict that Caitlin was experiencing

So although Caitlin decided to avoid dealing with conflict directly with Rachel, in this instance another person (Fred) intervened and his actions helped to address the issues that were going on for Caitlin. Caitlin was kind of lucky in this case that Fred came along and sorted it out for her. Things may not have gone so well if Fred had not moved in just at the right time.

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