Being around your conflictor for a long time is, in the best of times, "fine." Or it seems that way -- you don't notice any major suffering so long as you're both trying to get along (and it should be noted that ime each person believes he/she is trying way harder to bend to the others' ways). It's just life as you know it...
But after being away from your conflictor for a while, you feel much better. It's like moving from a smoky room into a wooded forest where the air is fresh and clean and refreshing. Or like walking and experiencing, for the first time, ease and comfort in each step... it seems that there used to be pebbles inside your shoes, but now they're gone and you can move fluidly and comfortably. So there you go, breathing fresh air and walking on cushioned soles, and it isn't until you're faced with re-entering the smoky room and re-inserting the pebbles in your shoes that you realize how awful those things were -- how they will instantly cause you discomfort and how they are to be avoided at all costs. But you do (or I did, by accident tonight), and now the smoke burns and the pebbles cut your feet. It's awful, and now that you understand the cause and have experienced relief, it is all but unbearable where it was "just life" before.
Interestingly, you don't fully appreciate the bliss of the fresh air and pebble-free shoes until you're once again interacting with your conflictor at close range. So I guess if there's anything positive about the experience it's that, lol -- they make you appreciate their absence.
It's a painful thing to interact with these two, even when they and I are trying our best to get a long... there's just a disconnect, but also constant inadvertent jabs at each others' weak spots. It's truly awful. Pebbles and smoke.