From the author: The text of the report that I gave at the evening of life stories “Verb”. Topic of the meeting: “Family” My childhood was spent in a difficult environment. On the one hand, I had fairly good relationships with almost all my loved ones. Meanwhile, they had a lot of tension with each other. The extended family consisted of several camps, which, as it seemed to me then, were in conflict with each other. As a little boy, I was surprised and sad, frightened by this state of affairs. I saw everyone as generally good people, every person could be loved for something. Why can't they get along with each other? Many in the family tried to win me over to their side. And I absorbed like a sponge their complaints against each other, which they did not directly express, and dreamed that everyone would make peace. Maybe that’s why I later decided to become a psychologist. It was important for me to find a solution, a way to reconcile my loved ones. Later I realized that, in fact, they were not in conflict, but were at enmity. Or secretly, indirectly, “behind the scenes”, plotting each other’s intrigues. Or, when they lost their temper, they fell into furious abuse, sometimes almost leading to fights. Unfortunately, they hid from each other specific complaints, suspicions and questions that accumulated and created very negative images of each other. It was already difficult to distinguish between them where reality was and where it was fiction. Based on these fantasies, the relative simply seemed like someone dangerous and was experienced more like an enemy. Now I differentiate in my understanding two terms - conflict and enmity. Conflict is a confrontation between positions and ideas. Enmity is a confrontation between people. In an open conflict, there is a desire to clarify, convey, and clarify something important. Direct conflict is the path to dialogue. In enmity there is a desire to morally destroy the other; this is the path to the destruction of relationships. In the conflict there is specificity, clear dissatisfaction and its expression. In enmity, everything is merged, muddy, the person is simply completely “painted black.” If people in a couple do not openly conflict, then they accumulate many fantasies about each other. These fantasies paint an image of the enemy. And the partners, who should be one team, begin to think that there is a traitor and an enemy nearby. In my work as a psychologist, I did not immediately come to this understanding. At first I tried to realize my childhood dream and reconcile the married couples who came to my office as quickly as possible. It turned out to be something like a manager's forced smile. There seems to be a smile, but there is a lot of falseness in it. But the true relationship remains unclear! After such a consultation, I had an unpleasant aftertaste in my soul; I had the feeling that some important part of the work had not been completed. I even thought about leaving couples counseling... But, thanks to supervision (communication with an experienced colleague-mentor), searching, reading and reflection, I came to a surprising discovery for myself - a couple should not be reconciled, but rather taught to conflict! If a couple has lived through the existing conflict or crisis quite courageously and honestly, they themselves easily, practically without external support, find the path to reconciliation. Recently a married couple came to my office. The couple have been in a relationship for about ten years. In the last few years, the husband has been very busy building a business, and the wife has been raising children; they communicated little with each other about the relationship. And they came with the fact that interest in togetherness began to fade. The excitement and desire for common prospects was lost. In the process of working, my colleague and I (I accept couples with a female colleague) noticed that when communicating with each other they were overly cautious, basically “stroking each other’s fur,” but the conversation smelled of something rancid. Then we invited them to quarrel. And it turned out that when the husband makes a claim, he attacks his wife like an avalanche and does not hear feedback. At the same time, he gets the feeling that he is alone and there is no point in talking, since no one will answer anyway. Wife opposite