In this short video, I explain why so many men go quiet the moment a disagreement begins, and how we practise, by video, staying present and speaking up without a fight.
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Online therapy for conflict avoidance in men helps men who fall silent, give way, crack a joke or leave the room when a disagreement starts, and who pay for that calm later in distance, resentment or a sudden outburst. You work with me alone, by video and in English, in 1-hour sessions containing 50 minutes of therapy, at times that match your own time zone.
I help you understand why conflict feels so dangerous to you, and I help you practise holding your position calmly with your partner, your family and your colleagues. This page sits under online nice guy syndrome therapy, within my online psychotherapy for men. If the automatic yes is the bigger issue, look at online therapy for people-pleasing in men.
You can set up a free 30-minute call, choose a time for a session, read my client policy or drop me a line.
Online therapy for conflict avoidance in men is for men who would rather swallow a disagreement than have it out. You keep things smooth and let things slide, until the silence piles up and escapes as coldness or a blow-up nobody saw coming. You want to be able to say what you think and stay in the conversation while you say it.
This page is about backing away from disagreement. If one of these lines describes you more closely, follow the link.
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These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“In more than two decades of sitting with people, I have come to see the man who avoids conflict as someone who is afraid of his own force, not short of opinions. He goes quiet because, somewhere early on, he learned that speaking up made things crack. Beneath the silence there is usually a question, ‘If I push back, will you still want me in the room?’, and another close behind, ‘Give me some distance and I will deal with this by myself.’ Sometimes both come at once, as ‘Find me, but please do not make me talk.’ I do not accept that peace at any price is kind. A man who never disagrees is hard to trust, because nobody can tell where he stands.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Callum is 42, grew up in Glasgow and manages a civil engineering team in Calgary. When his director handed his project to a newer colleague, Callum said it made sense. When his wife booked a third summer with her parents in Ontario, he said that suited him. Questions about money send him out to the garage. Last week his 15-year-old left the car with an empty tank, and Callum roared so loudly that the whole house froze, himself included.
I would begin with the roar, because it shows how much has been stored up. In a first video session Callum would probably see that his easy-going calm and his explosion belong to the same pattern, and that the problem is not too much anger but too little voice along the way.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have kept the peace for years, and it is quietly costing you your voice and the closeness you wanted to protect.
No moment is too early and no reason too small. If difficult conversations fill you with dread, if resentment is collecting, or if the people closest to you say they cannot reach you, that is enough. Nobody needs to hand you a diagnosis, and nothing has to fall apart before we meet. In 22 years of practice I have worked with many men who kept the peace until it cost them something precious, and I recognise the point at which it needs proper work.
I usually start with one recent moment when you stepped back from a disagreement, and we go through it slowly. I will say clearly what I notice. These 6 questions can help you tell whether keeping the peace has turned into a problem.
If so, act on it. You draft the conversation in your head on the commute, leave the email unsent and wait for a right moment that never arrives. Meanwhile the issue sits in your gut, chips at your sleep and makes you curt with people who have nothing to do with it.
I would look at which conversations you avoid, with whom, and what you expect would happen if you had them. That tells us whether this is one awkward situation or a thread running through your whole life. If a conversation like this is waiting for you, book a session with me.
Both wishes are real, and each is protecting something. One part of you wants to be taken seriously and is tired of hiding its views. Another is convinced that open disagreement could wreck a relationship or reveal something ugly in you. So you keep quiet, feel unseen, then blame yourself for not speaking.
I will not ask you to silence the cautious part. It has kept your relationships calm for a long time. I help you understand what each side fears and hopes for, so you can choose when to speak instead of being steered by dread of a scene.
For many men who avoid conflict it does. A shift in your partner’s voice, a sigh across the dinner table or a sharp message from your manager can set off a sense of threat. You rush to smooth it over, agree too quickly or apologise just to make the tension end.
Wanting a calm home and a warm connection is nothing to be embarrassed about. What we work on is the speed of the alarm. You learn to sense it rising, to check whether this is danger or simply 2 people seeing things differently, and to find out first-hand that both you and the relationship come through a disagreement intact.
Of all the shapes this takes, the swing between silence and eruption is the one I meet most often. Weeks of swallowing end in a single trivial moment when everything pours out, far louder and harsher than you intended. Then comes the shame, and with it a fresh vow to stay quiet, which starts the cycle over.
Together we track the pressure as it builds and name what gets filed away each time you let something pass. I understand why you hold back, and I will still ask you to own the eruptions. The aim is to speak sooner and more lightly, while what you say can still be received.
Many men do. Your partner brings something up and you feel flooded, go blank, answer in single words or leave the room. It can look as if you do not care, when in truth you care so much that you cannot think straight.
There is nothing wrong with needing a breather. I help you see what the shutdown is shielding you from, and how to ask for time out in so many words, with a promise of when you will return, rather than simply going missing.
Let enough things slide over enough years and your own views grow hard to find. Asked what you want, you genuinely draw a blank, or you only know which answer will cause the least fuss. There is often shame underneath, a hunch that your real opinions would not be welcome. Your voice is still there. It has just been kept under.
I help you discover what you actually think, value and want, without telling you what that ought to be. I will encourage you to say it out loud on our calls, and help you decide what kind of relationships and life suit the man who says it.
If this sounds like you, a free call is a gentle first step, and booking a session lets you start right away.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
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Knowing why you avoid conflict helps, but what counts is the next time you stay and say what you think.
With me, you will come to understand why a disagreement registers as a threat, spot the habits that keep your mouth shut and rehearse something different in the situations that matter. Understanding on its own seldom holds once your pulse starts racing.
I take an active role, and I will challenge you when you back away on our calls too. Psychotherapy is my core training. Since 2010 I have also been a student of men’s work, which deepens that training and adds to it without replacing it, and Eli Buren, a dear friend and mentor, has been a central influence. I have sat in his work many times. Robert Glover’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy” shows how dodging conflict keeps a man stuck, and Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” offers a picture of strength that holds a line without attacking anyone. These 6 questions describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Why does my partner shut down when we argue? and Why do I get so defensive with my partner?.
I help you look beneath the avoidance. There is usually an old belief at work: that anger destroys, that disagreement means rejection, or that your feelings will be too much for someone. Glover describes how men sidestep conflict to stay approved of, and many men recognise themselves in that at once.
I give you my honest reading of what keeps you quiet, and I question explanations such as “I am just laid-back”. We look at where it started, often in a home where conflict was frightening or simply never happened in front of you. When you are ready, book a session with me and bring the conversation you keep postponing.
You can learn to feel the first signs: a tight jaw, a quick “it is fine”, the urge to check your phone or invent a reason to leave. Once you spot that moment, you have a chance to stay a little longer.
In our sessions I help you slow the sequence down and see what sets it off and what it shields you from. Then we practise staying, first with me on screen and then in a real conversation that week, until you can do it under pressure.
Staying calm does not mean feeling nothing. It means staying present enough to hear the other person and know your own view while your body urges you to run or hit back. Many men who avoid conflict flood quickly, with a racing heart and an empty head.
We learn to spot the first wave of that flood and what it is answering to. Then we find ways of calming your body just enough to remain in the exchange. Practice between sessions is part of the deal, because composure under pressure is built by doing it again and again.
Knowing your own limits comes first. Men who sidestep conflict often have just 2 gears, surrender or explosion. Moore and Gillette describe the Warrior, the part of a grown man that can act and hold a line with clear purpose, and its shadow, which either bullies or crumbles.
What we look for is a third gear: steady, quiet and precise. We rehearse actual sentences for actual people until they come out of your mouth, and I will push back when you swallow them again.
It gets easier once the dread of someone’s reaction is pulled apart from your own sense of what is right. Men who avoid conflict often let a decision drift until somebody else makes it, which spares everyone an argument and leaves you with a choice you never made.
We lay out the options, count what each one costs and help you choose even if someone may object. You will hear my opinion, and I will point it out when you are hoping the disagreement will simply evaporate, but the decision stays with you.
Life gets calmer, oddly enough. Small differences are aired while they are still small. Your partner knows your position, your team hears your view before the decision is made, and friendships survive an honest moment. New habits help, such as raising a niggle on the day it happens and asking for 20 minutes instead of storming out.
We decide together which peacekeeping habits to retire and which to keep. Your steadiness and your love of harmony are real assets. What changes is where they come from, so your calm becomes a choice made from strength rather than a retreat made from fear.
You can also send me an email
You do not need to explain it perfectly. We start with one conversation you have been avoiding.
From the first session I listen for the main pattern, help you put words to it and give our work a direction. You can begin without a diagnosis and without having to recount your whole history.
This is part of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on how you relate. If the conflict lives mostly between you and your partner, and they will join, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. If you know you want a series of sessions, a therapy bundle gives you savings and a plan you can rely on.
My questions are practical: why now, where the avoiding hurts you most, what you have already tried and what you hope will change. Often we replay a single recent moment when you fell silent, frame by frame. Your life story can wait.
Before we finish, you hear my first impressions and a suggested way forward, and then you judge whether my approach fits you. If you would rather speak first without committing, book a free 30-minute call.
Working alone suits you when the pattern travels with you, showing up with your partner, your boss, your parents and your friends. You can work on every one of those relationships while nobody else joins the call.
From one week to the next I keep us on course and challenge you honestly. For the broader view of how I work one to one, see online psychotherapy.
Choose couples work when the relationship itself has stalled: one of you chases and the other retreats, the same fight comes round every month, or trust has thinned. At that point you both have a part to play in the room.
With both of you on screen, I help you map the cycle between you, take ownership of your share and find safer ways to differ. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, far more than patching up after a single argument.
That depends on how firmly the pattern holds and what is riding on it at the moment. If a hard conversation is coming up, meeting more often for a few weeks can help.
My usual starting point is a session every week or every fortnight. If the gaps are too long for new habits to take, I will say so, and I will say when we can meet less often. Before a major conversation, a short burst of back-to-back sessions over a few days is another option.
Choose a bundle once you can see the work will need a run of sessions and you would rather commit than decide each time. For a man whose habit is to let things drift, booking a course is already a small act of holding his ground.
A bundle brings real savings and a clear structure. I can help you estimate how much you are likely to need, and the options are set out on therapy discounts and bundles.
We are finished when you can disagree, keep a boundary and stay in a heated exchange without a session to prepare you for it. Conflict may never feel comfortable, yet it stops ruling your choices.
Reviews stay honest and out in the open, and an endless therapy is not what I want for you. Sessions can become less frequent, pause or end, and coming back one day with a different concern takes nothing away from what you achieved.
Not sure this is the right place to start? Here is how it compares with the closest options.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy for conflict avoidance in men (this page) | You go quiet, give in or leave when a disagreement starts. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online nice guy syndrome therapy | Avoiding conflict is part of a wider pattern of hiding your needs. | Video sessions over a few months |
| Online therapy for people-pleasing in men | The reflexive yes to requests is what you most want to change. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
| Online therapy for men in relationships | You want to work on yourself as a partner more broadly. | Video sessions at a pace you choose |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men who avoid disagreement by going quiet, giving in, joking or leaving, and who pay for it in resentment, distance or sudden outbursts. We explore why a difference of opinion feels perilous to you, and you practise voicing yours without heat.
My page on online avoidant attachment therapy is about pulling back from closeness itself, while this page is about men who back away from disagreement, even with people they want near them. It sits under online nice guy syndrome therapy.
Come when avoiding conflict is costing you respect, closeness, career chances or peace of mind, or when the silence keeps ending in outbursts. You do not have to wait for a crisis. Noticing the pattern is reason enough.
I look at what you stop yourself saying and what that silence has cost over the years. When the same retreat happens at home, at work and with friends, it deserves real attention.
Yes, in most cases, though the pace varies from man to man. Steering clear of conflict is something you learned, typically in a household where arguments were frightening or happened only behind closed doors. Anything learned that way can be relearned through understanding and steady practice.
In my clinical experience, many men discover that they have plenty of anger and very little experience of using it well. With you I would start with small, real conversations, so trust in yourself grows one exchange at a time.
It is a real fear, and it deserves a straight answer: most relationships grow stronger when both people can disagree. Silence tends to wear a relationship down more slowly and more surely than honest disagreement does.
I help you speak clearly and respectfully, so silence is not simply replaced by attack. And if a relationship truly cannot bear you having opinions, that is worth discovering, and we will face it carefully together.
Because nothing you let go actually goes. It gets stored. Once the store is full, something trivial opens the door and it all comes out together, and the force of it confirms your belief that the lid must stay on.
We work on noticing what you are filing away and saying it while it is minor. Then the choice is no longer silence or explosion. There is a steady middle ground where people can take in what you say.
On your life as it stands: the disagreements you sidestep, the people involved and the price you pay. I might ask how arguments went in the house you grew up in. Before the hour is over, you will hear my reading of the pattern and my suggestion for where to begin.
You do not need to prepare. You can book your first session whenever you like, or begin with a free 30-minute call.
A sensible first stretch is a couple of months, meeting weekly or every other week, which leaves room to try real conversations and learn from how they go. Where the pattern grew out of frightening experiences, expect it to take longer.
From 22 years of practice, I would choose a defined first stretch with a frank review over vague, open-ended sessions. At the review we look at how you now handle disagreement and agree what comes next.
Begin on your own, especially if you are the one who goes silent. A partner pushing for help is one of the most common reasons men begin, and that is a good enough reason. Video suits this work well, because you can talk from a room where you feel safe. You need privacy, headphones and a stable connection.
If the cycle between you turns out to be the main problem, couples therapy by video may come next. Not sure which comes first? We can decide on a free call.
The work is individual psychotherapy, booked as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. The prices page always shows the current fees in US dollars.
When you plan a run of sessions, a bundle takes 10 per cent off and sets out a structured plan, as described on therapy discounts and bundles.
Choose your first session in the calendar, or ask for a free 30-minute call if talking first feels easier. Times appear in your own local time zone.
If no time suits you, contact me directly. Then take the step you have been putting off, and book.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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