How to stop being defensive with your partner

Why do I get so defensive with my partner?

You hear the first few words, something in you reads them as an attack, and the answer is out before you chose it. I treat defensiveness as a protective reflex, usually an old one, and never as a character flaw.

• The definition. The Gottman Institute describes defensiveness as self-protection in the form of righteous indignation or innocent victimhood, to ward off a perceived attack.
• The first shape. “I have done nothing wrong.”
• The second shape. “Look what I have to put up with.”
• What your partner hears. Whatever the words say, your partner hears that the problem is them.
• Listening gone wrong. You do listen, you reach the wrong conclusion in under a second, and you answer that conclusion.

What is defensiveness protecting?

Usually one of 3 things: a belief, a history or plain exhaustion.

• The belief. Being at fault means being unlovable, so every fault has to be denied.
• The history. You were blamed for things that were not yours, and you learned to get the defence in early.
• The exhaustion. When you have nothing left, any request lands as one more demand.
• The old reflex. The reflex is old, and the person in front of you is not the one who installed it.

If feedback at work lands the same way, read more about imposter syndrome and about why nothing you do ever feels good enough.

Why does defensiveness escalate so fast?

Because it is contagious: a complaint meets a counter-complaint, and the counter-complaint gets met in kind.

• Within a minute. You are arguing about the argument, and the original complaint is forgotten.
• The research. Carrère and Gottman coded only the first 3 minutes of a conflict discussion between newlyweds, defensiveness included, and it predicted which marriages later ended.
• The caution. Prediction claims from this research programme have been argued about ever since.
• What holds. How a conversation starts shapes how it ends, and defensiveness in the first minute is part of the start.
• Scored points. I will not help either of you win the point, because a scored point is usually paid for later.

If you get in first, before any complaint has been made, read more about the pre-emptive fight.

What if the complaint really is unfair?

Then say so plainly, after you have acknowledged whatever part is fair.

• Order matters. Nobody hears a correction until they have been heard first.
• Nothing fair in it. Where there is nothing fair in the complaint there is nothing to accept, and saying so plainly is fair.
• No duty to agree. Taking responsibility never means agreeing with an accusation you believe is false.
• When one of you did it. Sometimes one of you did the thing, and then an honest account is needed, where a draw would be a dodge.
• The opposite reflex. Agreeing with everything to end the argument is the same self-protection wearing other clothes.

If your partner steadily tells you that what you remember did not happen, read more about gaslighting in a relationship. If agreeing is your easier reflex, read more about never being able to say no.

How do you stop being defensive in the moment?

Take responsibility for a part of the complaint before you say anything about your side. The Gottman Institute names this as the antidote, and the word “part” does the work.

• Buy 2 seconds. Say “I can see that”, with no “but” after it, and take a breath.
• Own a part. “You are right, I could have been more aware of how tired you were.”
• Then your side. Only after the admission do you say the thing about your side.
• Watch the first seconds. Stop arguing about whether the complaint was fair and look at what happens in you as it lands.
• If you are the one complaining. Complain without blame and say what you want, because a request has somewhere to go and an accusation only has a defence.
• Practise it cold. Write down the conversation you keep having and how you would like it to go, before you are in it.

The first thing to change is catching it after you have said it. That sounds like failure, and it is progress.

These steps fail when the reflex fires faster than the 2 seconds, or when each of you waits for the other to own a part first. That is what the session is for.

Questions people ask

Is being defensive always a bad thing?

No, it is a reasonable response to an actual attack. The trouble is that it fires at complaints too, and a badly worded complaint is still a complaint.

What if the accusation really is unfair?

Say so, after you have acknowledged whatever part is fair. Order matters more than content here.

How do I stop my partner being defensive?

Change the opening and leave the argument alone. A complaint about a specific thing, with a request attached, provokes far less of it than a sentence that starts with “you always”.

How long does it take to change this?

Nobody can give you a figure, and the research behind this article does not offer one. The first sign of change is catching it after you have said it.

Can I work on this if my partner will not?

Yes, because defensiveness is contagious in both directions and so is its absence. Working alone also shows you how much of this is yours.

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

How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.