At a glance
How to stop being defensive starts with seeing that your answer arrives before you have chosen it. You want to be understood, and the sentence that comes out tells your partner that they are the problem. Here you will find what that speed is protecting, and what to say in its place.
Clinical insights from 22 years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 22 years of full-time, face-to-face clinical practice.
- They already have the better sentence. Almost every client who does this tells me afterwards exactly what they wish they had said, which tells me the words were there and something got in front of them.
- One honest per cent. A small concession that is genuinely meant moves a couple further in my room than a full apology offered to end the conversation.
- The denial is audible. When a client tells me they are not being defensive, in that particular tone, both people in the room hear it at the same moment.
Clinical notes: My observations are anonymised and compounded from my session notes since 2004.
Why does my answer come out before I have decided to say it?
Something in you hears a verdict on the kind of partner you are, and your answer is already moving. The feeling comes first and it sits closer to alarm than to anger: a drop in the stomach, heat rising in the face, the jaw setting while your partner is still finishing the sentence. Only then does a thought arrive to explain the feeling, and it points straight at them. What comes out takes one of 2 shapes, and both are self-protective: I have done nothing wrong, or look what I have to put up with1.
Your partner starts with the dishwasher and you answer the last 6 months. What you want in that moment is for them to understand what your day was actually like, and the sentence you reach for sends them to the far end of the sofa. By the time you hear yourself, they have stopped talking about the dishwasher and started talking about you. The speed is the part worth trusting as information: nothing that fast was decided, so there is nothing there for willpower to grip.
What is my defensiveness protecting?
It is protecting what being at fault has come to mean to you. In my experience that sits in one of 3 places, and which one it is changes what helps.
- The meaning of fault. Where being at fault once came to mean being unlovable, every fault has to be denied, and one small admission feels like a large risk.
- An old job you still do. If you were blamed as a child for things that were not yours, getting your defence in early was intelligent then. It kept running after the people it was built for had left the room.
- Nothing left in the tank. By Thursday evening an ordinary request arrives as one more demand, and your answer comes out harder than you meant it to.
The person in front of you installed none of this, which is why the force of your reply fits an earlier conversation better than this one. Working out which of the 3 is doing the work in your case is worth doing slowly, because the answer decides whether you need a different sentence or a different amount of sleep.
If the same thing happens when you get feedback at work, read more about imposter syndrome and about why nothing you do ever feels good enough.
Why does it escalate within a minute?
Your defence is itself a complaint, so now your partner has something to defend against as well. Each answer hands the other person a reason for their next one, and within a minute you are arguing about the argument, with neither of you able to say what was asked for.
The opening seconds carry more than their length suggests. When newlywed couples were filmed discussing a disagreement, the first 3 minutes alone carried much of what the whole discussion carried2. Claims that an argument can forecast a divorce have been disputed since, and the narrower point is the one I rely on: how a conversation opens shapes how it closes. Going quiet belongs in the same picture. Where one partner withdraws and the other presses harder, both of them report less satisfaction with the relationship3, which is close to what couples describe to me when they say the fight ended without ending.
Where one of you raises everything and the other defends everything, the load is not evenly split. One of you carries the work of starting the conversation and the other carries the work of changing something, and naming that out loud is fairer than halving it. I will not help either of you win the point, because a point won in the living room gets paid for later in the week.
If your answer regularly turns into a list of what your partner did, read more about blame shifting. If this habit travels with contempt, criticism and silence, read more about the 4 habits that do the most damage.
What if the complaint really is unfair?
Then say so, plainly, after you have acknowledged whatever part of it is fair. The order of those 2 sentences does more work than the wording of either, because few people hear a correction before they have been heard.
Sometimes there is nothing fair in it at all. Then there is nothing to accept, and saying that calmly is not a defence. Taking responsibility for a part has never meant agreeing with an accusation you believe is false. Sometimes the opposite is true and you simply did the thing, where an even-handed version of events would be a dodge and an honest account is what your partner needs to hear. And the reverse reflex deserves naming: agreeing with everything to end the conversation protects you just as efficiently, and leaves your partner alone with the problem.
If your partner steadily tells you that what you remember did not happen, read more about gaslighting in a relationship. If agreeing quickly is your easier reflex, read more about never being able to say no.
What can I do differently in the next conversation?
Take responsibility for a part of the complaint before you say one word about your own side. That is the whole move, and the word part is what makes it honest. It is not an apology for everything and it is not a concession of the argument.
- Buy 2 seconds. Say I can see that, with nothing after it, and breathe once.
- Own a part out loud. You are right, I could have noticed how tired you were.
- Then your side. After the admission rather than instead of it.
- Notice where it lands. Instead of ruling on whether the complaint was just, feel what happens in your chest and your jaw as it arrives. That is an aid to understanding, not a measure of anything.
- If you are the one complaining. Name the specific thing and the request. A request has somewhere to go; an accusation has only a defence.
- Practise it cold. Write out the conversation you keep having, and how you would like your half of it to sound, at a time when neither of you is in it.
The first change you are likely to notice is catching the sentence a moment after it has left your mouth. That feels like failure and it is progress. In my clinical judgement it is the step that arrives first, and it is worth more than it feels like at the time.
These steps are the wrong instrument in 3 situations: where the reflex fires faster than those 2 seconds every single time, where each of you waits for the other to concede a part first, and where what is being called a complaint is a steady run of criticism that leaves you smaller each week. If what you feel as your partner begins to speak is fear rather than frustration, these steps ask the wrong thing of you, and sitting with someone who follows what actually happens between you is the better next move. What stays open in any one couple is how much of the speed belongs to this relationship and how much to a much older one, and that is worth looking at closely rather than guessing at.
Questions people ask
Is couples therapy the right place to work on defensiveness?
Yes, when both of you will sit in the room while the habit is actually happening, because it shows itself within minutes. I work with what passes between you rather than the account each of you gives afterwards.
What happens in a first session if we argue like this at home?
I ask you to talk to each other about something live rather than describe it to me, and I stop the conversation at the moments where it turns. That is slower than it sounds, and those moments are where the useful material sits.
Can I work on this alone if my partner will not come?
Yes, and it is worth doing, because the half of the pattern you own is the half you can change. Working alone also shows how much of the reflex arrived with you rather than with this relationship.
Would individual therapy suit this better than couples therapy?
Individual work fits better where the reflex fires everywhere, at work and with family as well as at home. Where it appears mostly with one person, couples work reaches it faster.
How do I choose a therapist for this kind of problem?
Ask how they work with conflict in the room, and whether they will interrupt a live argument rather than let it run. A free 30-minute call is enough to hear whether their way of working suits you both.
If you catch yourself arguing back before your partner has finished, my masterclass on communication gives you room to practise listening first.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- The Gottman Institute, The Four Horsemen: Defensiveness
- Carrère, S. and Gottman, J. M., Predicting Divorce among Newlyweds from the First Three Minutes of a Marital Conflict Discussion, Family Process, 1999
- Bretaña, I., Alonso-Arbiol, I., Recio, P. and Molero, F., Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction, Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.
