Confrontational Encounters

Some people like confrontation, and some avoid it. I've known alot of people that thrive on confrontations and I've never been comfortable with them, nor have I understood why those people liked them. Confrontational encounters are one way of achieving conflict resolution which I have always tried, in the past, to avoid. However, I am coming to learn that sometimes, when encountering a situation involving some people, the only way to resolve the conflict is through confrontation. The only other choice you have is giving in. The more i think about it, the more I realize that I have almost always given in when a conflict arises, no matter how I felt about it. While one of the reasons is that it is easier to give in, the other was an overwhelming feeling of dred that overcame me when the conflict arose. It is all about my family, which members many strong willed, yet weak minded, women. I say weak minded not meaning that they were not intellegent, because we are a smart family - but weak minded in the "common sense".  There are times when my "common sense" deserts me, but for the most part, I have pretty good instincts which I have ignored so many times during my life - because of the confrontational aspects of the situation. I'm going to work on this, because 9 times out of 10 I was right, and the other person was wrong, and I ended up sufferring the consequences of the mistake in the end. Most of the mistakes I've made in my life could have been avoided if I had gone with my instincts rather than the opinion of someone else. I've made progress during the last week with this aspect of my personality, both with my daughter and with the woman that adopted my dog.  If I can keep it up, I might actually become more of a whole person - at least in my own mind.