How to stop being defensive in your relationship

Defensiveness is a common posture that people take in a relationship during communication which can lead to a sudden breakdown in the direction of your conversation. Many times, people like it when you take responsibility when you are wrong, it can become an issue when your partner feels that you are often on the defensive side.

To be defensive means to always attack a correction or give unnecessary explanation for why you did something that offended your partner, it can also be a way of evading your responsibility in an issue.

Defensiveness can show up as a feeling and or through your behaviour. You may get defensive when you feel overpowered by shame or anger due to the person’s attack, and this can result to you keeping malice or being critical in return. Though when you get defensive, it may make you pass the blame to the other person while you feel better in that moment, at the end of the back-and-forth struggle, the whole conversation may become bitter to chew and end up affecting your esteem too. Most times, men are usually quick to notice this in their women and they mostly tag it as disrespect or being un-submissive in a marriage relationship.

Usually, people who get defensive have a history of being emotionally traumatised, rejected, criticised or abused from a young age.

Some of the signs that shows that you are being defensive include:

· Refusing to take responsibility for your actions.

· Choosing not to apologise but argue instead.

· Passing the blame to your partner.

· Using hurtful statements to avoid the real truth.

· Bringing up past issues of your partner to overshadow the main facts.

· Using silent treatment to shut out your partner.

If you find yourself always being defensive in your relationship, these are some of the impacts it can have on you:

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· Your attitude may not align with your true intention so you end up portraying yourself in a negative light instead of just being humble to admit your weakness and correct the issue.

· You create a more hostile environment during a conversation which leaves your partner uninterested to continue.

· The problems will shift from the main issue to your character so you end up apologizing without yet fixing the main issue.

· It can lead to negativity in your relationship.

· Your partner may start resenting you when it becomes consistent thereby impacting your connection.

So how can you stop being defensive? Here are few things to do:

Build Self Awareness: You need to become aware of when it is happening. It’s easy to avoid confronting your behaviour or acknowledging that you are behaving in a defensive manner. It is important to take note of your emotional state and the thoughts running through your mind when you are faced with such situation. When you begin to build self-awareness, you will be able to build self-control mechanism along the process. While you may not be able to express how you feel in that moment, acknowledge your emotions within your heart, understand how you feel but choose not be controlled by it, instead shift the emotion into a positive posture.

Confront the issue before you confront the emotions: It is important to respond to your partner based on their feedback or request. If your partner accused you wrongly, take some time to be compassionate and let them know that you appreciate their words and you apologise if they misunderstood you, then reassure them of the truth itself. You might want to apologise before stating your reasons, this can calm the nerves of your partner. Communicate with facts and appeal to the logic side of your partner before shifting to the emotional part of how you feel especially when you are dealing with a man. When sharing your emotions, take responsibility for it and express it to feel better. For instance, “I am sorry about my actions, I didn’t mean to ignore you during the virtual meeting, I was focused on some other parts of my work, and I got distracted”. When your partner acknowledges this, you can then say that “but I also feel bad that I behaved that way and I felt embarrassed when you accused me, but I would work on your feedback and improve better”. If you get overly emotional, you may always turn every feedback moment and argument into a time to win and be pacified hence the need to balance your emotions and logic.

Build your self-esteem: It is possible for your partner to focus more on your apology than trying to pacify you, do your best to remind yourself that it was just a mistake, and you are not perfect. There is no need to go down the path of self-persecution afterwards. We all make mistakes hence offer grace to yourself and journal down how you feel. Your partner can address your emotion when they feel better so don’t ruin the moment yet.

Speak to a professional: It is possible that you also need to seek for therapy to address your upbringing and experiences so as to troubleshoot why you feel that way often, this can help you address the foundational reasons behind your behaviours. Send an email to [email protected] and we can talk about it.

You would notice that when you begin to show more listening ears, vulnerability, responsibility and humility in your relationship, things will flow better. Cheers to a better YOU.