TL;DR — I get defensive when there’s conflict and want to find new ways to try to eliminate the defensive reactions. Advice that has led to meaningful improvements in others’ relationships would be appreciated!
Defensiveness has been destroying my (45M) relationship(s) for a long time, especially when it comes to my wife (41F). We’ve been married for 12 years.
I’ve gone to therapy. I’ve read books. I’ve watched videos. I’ve engaged in a number of ideas to try to reduce my tendency to get defensive when confronted with difficult conversations, but the results have been pretty terrible across the board.
The defensiveness takes many forms.
First, I usually avoid talking about the issues unless she brings them up. I have a perception that every conversation about difficult topics is going to turn into a fight, and as a result, I tiptoe around the topic and try to do things to “make up” for hurting her, even when I know what I actually need to do is address the hurtful behavior directly. This makes things worse before the conversation even happens. Sweeping things under the rug just gives you a lumpy and ugly rug; trying to build a new table on top of that lousy surface never works.
Once we do start talking, sometimes I offer an alternative perspective in order to facilitate understanding and compromise. I somehow never manage to convey this effectively, and it comes across as argumentative and dismissive, even when direct statements are made like, “I hear you when you say “X” hurt you, and I want to learn from it so I can do better next time. This is what “X” looked like from my perspective. I obviously misunderstood something, so let’s talk about what went wrong so I can make different choices next time.” My wife’s responses to this usually feel incredibly dismissive (she often directly tells me that my experience is wrong or just doesn’t matter) or like a personal attack, and I get frustrated by it. I think she’s feeling like I’m dismissing her emotions with even the briefest mention of my own experience, and she’s just responding in kind. After that happens, I usually retaliate with my own complaint about something she does that hurts me, and it goes into a downward spiral.
Sometimes I tell her that she’s right and that I’m sorry, even when I disagree with her interpretation of things, just because the issue is obviously important to her, and I want to honor her feelings despite my disagreement. In other words, I stop trying to “fix” things and make her feel better, and just accept her feelings as they are, while attempting to learn something without her having to hold my hand and explain it to me in detail. I usually miss the big picture in this by focusing on just the one tiny issue at hand instead of the relationship as a whole and the bigger picture that the small issue represents.
Other times, I’m genuinely defensive because I feel like my words or actions are being taken out of context or simply twisted to mean something entirely different from what I intended. I understand that this isn’t necessarily intentional on her part, but I don’t think I convey that understanding very well in the moment. When we’re talking about difficult relationship issues, I don’t always express myself effectively, and I can’t expect her to understand me perfectly. However, if I then say, “Hang on, that’s not what I meant,” her response is, “It doesn’t matter what you meant. That’s what you said.” Then I inevitably start arguing over the details of what was said and the meaning of individual words and phrases. Pure defensiveness.
And there are still other times when I am just too tired or frustrated to deal with conflict and refuse to engage because I know I’m going to say something stupid or offensive if I try. This usually takes the form of, “can we talk about this another time? I’m really tired/busy/distracted and won’t be able to have a productive discussion.” (Then I go back to my previous pattern of waiting for her to bring it up again.) Or I do engage in spite of this knowledge and inevitably say something that’s genuinely disrespectful or dismissive.
I know that defensiveness is a learned behavior, and my goal is to UNLEARN that behavior and replace it with a more respectful and caring method of communication when there’s conflict.
I also know that defensiveness just makes her more hurt and angry over whatever the original situation was, and then trying to reduce that pain distracts me from any efforts I could be making to fix the underlying issues that keep popping up. I am constantly putting out fires of my own creation instead of building a stronger foundation that is less likely to burn.
Has anyone else gone through this and successfully learned new thought and behavior patterns that helped their relationships? I feel like this could drastically improve all my relationships, but I don’t know where to start at this point.
My wife is on reddit, and she most likely will show up in the comments here with her own perspective on our issues or explicit details of specific arguments that are the most egregious examples of this defensiveness. I didn’t bother with a throwaway account, because she’ll know it’s me no matter how much I try to disguise it. Her comments are likely to be less than flattering toward me. I want to get ahead of that and say that defensiveness is far from the ONLY problematic behavior I engage in. Many of these behaviors are longstanding issues that lead to the difficult conversations where my defensiveness takes hold. This also isn’t a comprehensive list of all the ways I’ve ever been defensive… just the ones that seem to repeat most often. I’m choosing to focus on defensiveness in this post because it’s a major problem, and going into every detail of our relationship would be far too much for a single post. I know my performance as a husband has been lousy for a long time, and my goal is to work on major issues individually and put those pieces together into a new way of living and relating to my family, in the hopes of salvaging relationships and being a better person.
Thanks for listening, and your advice is appreciated!
4 comments
Part of this is also her.
” I don’t always express myself effectively, and I can’t expect her to understand me perfectly. However, if I then say, “Hang on, that’s not what I meant,” her response is, “It doesn’t matter what you meant. That’s what you said.” Then I inevitably start arguing over the details of what was said and the meaning of individual words and phrases. Pure defensiveness.”
It does matter what you meant.
It’s a bad shared dynamic.
The Gottman Institute talks a lot about defensiveness. Maybe check them out? They have lots of blogs and a free marriage minute. Trainings are very expensive though.
They also address seeing things from your partner’s perspective. Stepping into their theater. It’s not about one perspective being right. And it sounds like your wife struggles with that.
Married 35 years here. My wife and I had a very similar dynamic going, for decades, but with the genders reversed (she was the defensive one, and I was overly critical in general).
The good news is that this situation can be hugely improved. The bad news is that it takes a lot of time and work that involves quite a bit of emotional discomfort and/or suffering. We each had a year of individual therapy, and we had about 20 sessions of couples counseling on top of that. In addition, we read more than a dozen psychology books, and discussed them some) which actually helped a lot over time. There is good information in videos and podcasts as well (try Esther Perel on Spotify).
In our case, individual therapy was super important. It was our backgrounds that gave us traits that caused the conflicts. Each of our defensive mechanisms aggravated the other person’s “triggers.”
If you have that gut feeling that you are both good people, and that you could have a wonderful life together if you worked this out, stick with it! But don’t pussyfoot around. Get therapy. Find calm periods to talk seriously with each other and build communication skills without getting mad or shutting down. Expect setbacks, and work on shortening the time it takes to recover in between. Don’t keep shoving things under the rug, but don’t bring up several topics at once.
For you, my first book recommendation is “Hold Me Tight,” by Sue Johnson. It describes the “dynamics” that couples get into that keep them coming back around in a circle. Even if only one person of the couple figures the dynamic out, they can break the cycle.
Going to give you a few things that have helped my relationship. Maybe give you some ideas for approaching conversations in the future. It sounds like you both want things to work which is good!
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It sounds like your wife has some resentment or hurt feelings. Possibly one of the most important things you can do is try to understand what your wife wants when she shares these with you. Sometimes people just want to be heard and know that their thoughts and feelings are important. Other people like to try to find solutions. It sounds like your wife if the former while you prefer the latter. If she just wants to be heard, listening and letting her know her feelings are valid is one of the best things you can do. Whatever you do don’t try to minimize her thoughts and feelings or try to shift blame. By moving the goalposts to something she did that was mean it becomes a pissing match to one up each other and you aren’t trying to address the actual issue she brought up. You are showing her that her feelings aren’t legitimate and important. If you do have grievances it’s best to bring those up at another time instead of using these as ammunition for whataboutism.
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> “Hang on, that’s not what I meant,” her response is, “It doesn’t matter what you meant. That’s what you said.”
Does this happen often and is she correct that it is what you said even if it’s not what you meant? Everybody will say things occasionally that can be taken wrong but if it’s a common issue then this is something you need to address as it’s not a slip at that point it’s a personality trait of being rude. Best thing you can do here is to simply apologize for what you said if it was something rude. No excuses. Just apologize.
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> I’m really tired/busy/distracted and won’t be able to have a productive discussion.” (Then I go back to my previous pattern of waiting for her to bring it up again.)
This is good. If your wife feels like you use this too much then start suggesting specific dates and/or times to talk about an issue.
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I have found that deep complex emotions are extremely difficult to express in a kind and thoughtful way. Oftentimes we end up lashing out at the thing that hurt us especially if we don’t have time to effectively think and communicate these feelings. The best conversations my wife and I have ever had come from when we stop trying to win and simply listen to the other person. That allows the other person time to think about their emotions and phrase them in a thoughtful way. Oftentimes conversations become about one upping each other but if you can slow down and simply let each person get everything out regardless of how long it takes things will come out better. This goes both ways. When your wife brings something up do your best to simply listen so that she can take her time.
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> I understand that this isn’t necessarily intentional on her part, but I don’t think I convey that understanding very well in the moment. When we’re talking about difficult relationship issues, I don’t always express myself effectively, and I can’t expect her to understand me perfectly.
At one point in time it felt like I could never properly convey my feelings to my wife. I started noticing a pattern where I would start talking and try to word things carefully but she would interrupt as if she knew what I wanted to say. It resulted in similar feelings of never being able to properly convey my thoughts to her which sounds a lot like you. I had to sit her down and explicitly tell her that I needed time to properly convey my thoughts and magically that worked. I didn’t phrase it by telling her that she interrupts me. I said, “I have a lot of strong feelings and emotions that I need to share. In order to do so it takes me time to properly express these. Can you sit and listen for a bit?” It was the first time in what felt like months where I felt heard and like my feelings and opinions were valid.