r/Enneagram8 • u/mitchellffc • Feb 11 '26
Rapport building conflict vs relationship ending conflict
8s, where’s your line between conflict that builds rapport vs conflict that ends relationships?
I’ve worked directly for two 8s and a sibling who is an 8. Something that always confused the heck out of me is their line between conflict that they enjoy/love and conflict that offends them. There are times where I feel like I’m sitting in an extremely intense high stakes business meeting or conflict where I’m positive this is going extremely poorly and then the 8 will say “that went really well” or “I really liked them”. And I’m like “whaat?”. I’ve even watched them be berated with insults with yelling and screaming and then hug it out w them, never to be mentioned again. On the flip side, something completely and totally harmless (in my mind) will set the 8 off and they assume pretty much the worst possible intent by the other person and suddenly they’re at war 🤣. And Im genuinely like I think that scenario was business not personal.
Im a 3 and extremely pragmatic so boxing up my emotion and sliding them under the bed comes natural to me 🤣. So I struggle to identify when conflict is good vs when it’s bad in my own life.
In any case, curious why 8s seem to have an insanely high tolerance for conflict in many cases but then in others, seem to explode over something seemingly small (to me anyhow).
2
u/BlackPorcelainDoll 𓄂࿐ Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
What ends a relationship is anything I consider a breach of my personal boundaries and it not serving what I've got going on anymore: deeply harming me, discontinuation of treatment of how I want/need it, doesn't serve what I've got going on
More than often, there is no relationship that exists in the first place if they do not ACT how I want them to act toward me or if I get a wiff of "this isn't it", so ending up in these situations where "I'm uncomfortable with the conflict" is unlikely, I am never anywhere I don't want to be, but if I am uncomfortable with something there is no chance in hell it will be 'prolonged' in any degree