Communication 101 – Part II – Defensiveness

According to John Gottman, relationship coach and researcher, defensiveness is the number two most common problem in communication breakdown! It always escalates the conflict.

Why we act defensively…

Ever had your back up? Felt pushed, trapped or scared? Ever felt like something was being asked of you that you couldn’t deliver? Every human being has an automatic response to defend themselves when threatened. Whether that’s raising our fists or walking away – whatever we do to avoid a threat is our own defensive strategy. But the problem in marriage is we often interpret someone’s complaint as a threat. And perceiving every complaint as a threat means we stay in a defensive mode.

Criticism, talked about in the first article, may encourage defensiveness because we feel attacked. However, what ever causes us to respond defensively – we must own it, and work at eliminating it.

What is Defensiveness?

Defensiveness is our attempts to divert the attention away from a complaint – off of us so we need not admit to anything we have done wrong or off of the problem that we have no idea how to fix or are just too tired or uncaring to work on.

Defensiveness can include any of the following:

1. Pointing out something similar the other person has done (accuse the accuser) “So you’re telling me YOU never forget anything!!”

2. Denying the problem. “You’re making too big a deal of this.” “You’re imagining that.” “No it only happened three times not four.” (Correcting minor points is a way of diverting attention off the complaint).

3. Denying the person. “It’s your own fault – if you weren’t so OCD about everything.” “You’re over-reacting just like your mother! “You’re too emotional.” Or, “If you didn’t have to have all this fancy furniture….”

4. Making excuses intended to induce guilt or shame for having brought up the complaint and neutralize it (You’re such a nag.) “Don’t you have anything better to do than think of all the things I do wrong?” “If you spent half your time cleaning this place you wouldn’t be so pre-occupied with what I am doing.”

5. Appealing to a noble reason, or something of higher moral value. “Well I put three meals on the table and a roof over your head, so what are you complaining about!” “If I wasn’t so busy taking care of your kids, and doing fifty loads of your laundry….”Or, “I had to be late – I was helping my friend.”

6. Denying personal responsibility. “I was drunk” “I’ve always had problems with my temper.” “It’s not my fault – they made me late.”

Making the Problem Real

Any excuse we make without first acknowledging that a complaint is real and acknowledging it as a problem is defensiveness. To say, “You’re right, I did leave my shoes at the door. I’m sorry. I’ll move them” or, “I’m sorry, I am late for dinner,” is all it takes to move towards problem solving. To say, “Yes, we are short of cash this month. I’m not sure what we will do about it but yes, I shouldn’t have bought this new thingamajig,” may be humbling but it is REAL.

It accepts responsibility.

It acknowledges the relevance of an issue.

But instead, we justify, moralize, or attack. It is both humbling and frustrating to accept the fact that life isn’t perfect and we have to work in these imperfections, that we fail, we make mistakes, we forget things, and/or we let others down. But until we acknowledge that we do these things we cannot resolve a problem.

One of the reasons why we get defensive is we expect more of ourselves. Or, we feel bad that we have disappointed the one we love. But both things are a reality. We are never as perfect, smart or capable as we think we are, and we will always, no matter how much we love someone, fail them in some way. Contrary to what we think, by acknowledging the complaint is real, and sincerely apologizing when necessary, REPAIRING a problem is not that hard.

Responding to others who are defensive

We usually recognize and react to defensiveness in others. We move towards anger, or criticism, as discussed in our last article. Instead, we could be of help to one another if rather than reacting when we see it, we become a broken record that restates the complaint softly – “I’m not attacking you. I am not saying everything about you is bad. I am stating the facts of what I see, or need, or feel. I love you. I want to resolve things. I am pointing out a behaviour/problem that is bothering me right now.”

We can cut through the defensiveness by getting straight to the solution – “Please don’t make this bigger than it is. All I need is an apology. You hurt my feelings.” Or, “All I need is a few minutes of your time to help me solve this problem.” Or, “Can we take some time to sort out the problem later.”

REMEMBER – everything we do, every word we say whether it is to protect ourselves or not, will either make us more connected as a couple, or more disconnected. We can spend our lifetime being defensive and actually succeeding in making the complaint go away, keeping our pride intact and avoiding the problem – but we will grow apart, face resentment, and find ourselves some day alone.

Lay your armour down.

What we’ve learned so far:

• Trying to neutralize a complaint will not make it go away.

• Admitting that you’ve made a mistake or a problem exists allows you to move closer to each other and solve things quicker

• Having some suggestions ready for solving a problem can help you cut through another person’s defensiveness