Conflict resolution or conflict avoidance?

I had a conflict with a family member this weekend. It's been a few months in the making but this weekend it reached a boiling point with both of us and needed to be addressed. That sucks for me, because I do my best to AVOID AVOID AVOID any and all conflict or confrontation, even if it means compromising what is best for me. I am still thinking about what happened and what I did about it. Did I do the right thing or the wrong thing, and why?

This person that I had the conflict with can be bossy, controlling, and meddlesome. Usually I can deal with this by keeping my mouth shut and not taking it personally. In many ways I understand where the behavior comes from, and that helps me keep an emotional distance from it all and just laugh it off. Lately, though, I have been increasingly annoyed with her getting involved in things that didn't concern her and this had made me wary of interacting with her and left a very bad taste in my mouth. So when she started up with the bossiness this weekend, I lost it and was bitchy back. Or perhaps it was Andrew that was bitchy back, in my defense. :) This was all through text messages, and I guess he could only handle me sitting back and taking her shit for so long before he took matters into his own hands and dealt with things himself, since I was incapable of sticking up for myself. So, Andrew's text back started things down the path towards major conflict, but that is what needed to happen. I got some very nasty text messages back over the next few hours, to which I either replied very briefly or deleted without reading. Things had gotten nasty enough that I knew one of two things would happen (from previous experience with this person):
1. I wouldn't talk to her for years
OR
2. I would do something different than the last time this happened

On my drive home from Atlanta I tried to stay distracted by Smodcast and music and such but this conflict was all I could think about. God, I hate that feeling of being absorbed in conflict and stress! Finally it hit me what I should do and I picked up my phone and called the person. I told her I was sorry for what I saw as my contributions to the problem. That I appreciated her generosity and her willingness to help. That I knew she meant well and that I wanted her to know that she was appreciated. And that I would work on my side of things to try to avoid these types of conflicts in the future, that I would try to be better.

The problem is, I don't know if that was the right thing to do. It SEEMS right to apologize if you think you did something wrong. And the only thing I can control is myself and my own reaction to things. I can accept my own faults and try to improve myself. I can take every bad situation and try to grow from it. I can welcome a chance to practice humility. I can recognize that there are always two people in every fight and that each person has a part in it.

I can't change her. I can only change me. I don't want to convince anyone of their faults. I want to face my own faults and accept people for who they are. I want to remove people from my life that I cannot get along with. I do NOT want to try to change people I do not get along with so that they can remain a part of my life. That is why I feel I choose my friends very carefully. If I have a conflict with you and you don't mean that much to me, I won't face the conflict with you. I'll walk away. That is not the right thing to do with your family members. The right things to do is improve communication. I don't know if I can do that, but I can lay myself down and take the sacrifice for the relationship. It feels better for me to know that I acted through my sense of right and wrong, rather than through a sense of fairness. No, it's not fair that she doesn't have to face the music for her own patterns of behavior. But she isn't aware of those patterns and I am not interested in enlightening her! So what do I do? I do what feels right to me and employ the golden rule. How would I like to be treated? I would like my feelings to be acknowledged. I would like some validation. I would like my family member to show love towards me even during a time of conflict. I would like to know that the relationship is more important than the argument. And so that is what I did. And I feel a million times better - in a way. I feel better because the conflict is over, but I do not feel that I made that relationship any stronger or better. And I guess that is why I am struggling over whether I did the right thing. I do not feel validated or loved or that my feelings were acknowledged. I do not feel that I will be treated in a more respectful manner in the future. In fact, my primary goal right now, as far as this relationship goes, is to avoid contact as much as possible. How is that any kind of resolution? How am I any better off for having changed my pattern of behavior and facing the conflict rather than avoiding it?

I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I have a lot of doubt. I think I did what felt good, not what was ultimately the best thing for our relationship in the future. I am so afraid of conflict and fighting that I was willing to take the brunt of the responsibility for something that was NOT primarily my issue. It may be better than avoiding the issue entirely, but it's FAR from ideal. How do you learn how to fight? How do you learn to stand up for yourself?

Edited to add:
I also want to mention that one reason I felt compelled to address this conflict, when in the past I had avoided it, was that I can't stand to make the people that I love and trust suffer through this with me. I feel that it is not at all fair to expect people to listen to me bitch and moan about a bad relationship IF I AM NOT WILLING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!! I had this problem when I was married (and about the same person!) and I learned my lesson. If you are going to bitch about something, you have a responsibility to try to change it. In other words, do something or shut the hell up! Again, I need to learn to stand up for myself. Maybe some day I will figure this all out.