For other people, the necessary evil is more of a pleasure. A fight with their cousin that leaves them enemies? Sure! Killing off their character's love interest's mother? Why not! Kidnappings? Plenty of them! Why not kick off pretty much every book with one? Oh, yes! Definitely! Since there has to be conflict, why not have fun with it?
It's easy to do bad things to the bad guy. Set 'em on fire, throw 'em off a cliff, trap 'em eternally in a crystal ball, anything to give them their just desserts. But the good guy? Even if they are the most annoying or pessimistic or klutzy person in the worlds, the reader is on their side, and it's just plain mean to do anything bad to a creature as innocent as your main character or unlucky as her side-kick. But we have to. Or want to.
Take your character and think hard about who they are and what or whom they love/want/need most. Short of killing off your creation, how can you take those things away from them? Is it possible to drag it out slowly, depriving them of one precious object or person at a time? How can you stop them from reaching their goals, and make it almost impossible (until the very end) to attain them?
A last tip: remember Murphy's Law of Writing: if anything can go wrong, it should go wrong. There is no such thing as good luck, not in fiction.
Whether you enjoy the bloodiness of conflict or hate it, it's necessary, and without it, the story would get pretty darn boring.
Whether you enjoy the bloodiness of conflict or hate it, it's necessary, and without it, the story would get pretty darn boring.