What to Say When Your Partner Gets Defensive

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Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, your guide to creating relationships that feel good. If you frequently find yourself bumping up in conversations and wondering why you leave them not feeling understood, or like suddenly your feelings weren't attended to or you were consoling your partner, or the problem you started with got completely derailed to your partner's feelings, this conversation is for you because this likely means that you are in conversation with your partner and they have gotten defensive. If you're new here, I have several episodes in my library around defensiveness. One of my favorite ones is actually with my husband where we talk about the difference between defensiveness and assertiveness. I have other ones talking about the negative cycle that couples regularly regularly get stuck in that lead us to stop feeling close and connected. I wanted to do something different in this episode. I wanted to bring to you the real life experience of a conversation that we had, and I want to bring it to you if you happen to be the person on the receiving end of defensiveness. If you've been here, you know that Greg is my defensive expert. He is the one who gets right into his self-protection mode, and it's part of our negative cycle. Now, I always like to remind people that just because I'm a couples therapist doesn't mean we don't get stuck in our own cycle. And it's not that the goal of a relationship is to never fight or to not have conflict or to not disagree or to never have those moments where it's like, are you ever going to stop being defensive? But instead, the goal of our conversations is to move through them with greater understanding, curiosity, and then coming back to connection. I love the view of conflict, that it is a chance for us to get stuck in something and then to pull back from it, understand our deeper feelings and needs, and then to be able to share that with our partner. That is a powerful thing because ultimately what comes out of that is a deeper understanding of who you are as a person and who you are in your relationship. But for so many of us, we were taught not to to fight. We were taught not to have conflict, and that's just not realistic. It's not healthy in a relationship. So when this situation happened with Greg, it was this moment where I was stepping into clear communication and assertiveness. And this is different than the position that I've taken in the past. And in the past, you know, I think of when Greg and I first started dating, not in those honeymoon days— that's not when our cycle appeared— but later on as we were entering the second stage of a relationship, when we're differentiating and trying to figure out who are you, who am I, who am I with you, I would go into criticism and blame easily. That was my position. And often that position was because I was trying to connect with him. But when he got defensive and I went to that, we completely lost the plot. We completely lost what we were talking about. And this was a moment where that didn't happen, and instead we stayed focused on the key issue. And I love learning through stories and examples, and this is the very reason why I'm bringing this one to you. So we have a moment of disconnection, and something didn't feel good for me. So that night at bedtime, we had put the kids to bed and we had time for us to talk and connect. I did not address this in the moment, because in the moment I felt too frustrated, I felt too escalated to be able to bring it up. And I trusted that I could bring it up in a way at another time that we could move more productively through it. And so I started the conversation like this, and this is a really important thing to keep in mind when you have a defensive partner. So now here's what I want to emphasize. I probably spent the first 10 years of our relationship hoping and waiting for him to be less defensive. And instead, I've recognized that defensiveness is something that is the first response that shows up. And it doesn't mean that Greg is gaslighting me or manipulating me or sidestepping taking accountability. It is a default pattern that so many people learned. And the first 10 years of us being together, I spent that time wanting him to change, wanting him to be different, and those conversations didn't go anywhere. Now, we both worked on this over time, but today it's really about the focus of the self. What can I do when I meet my partner's defensiveness, when I'm confronted with it? Because that's all that we can control, is how we respond. So the first thing I had started with And when I had shared with Greg what had happened and my experience, I had named the behavior right away without attacking him. So I was holding this kind of boundary without then making him the bad person. And so I initially said, you were upset about something, and just because you were upset, that doesn't make it okay to take your feelings out on me. That was part of the entry into the conversation. And that, of course, did not get met well because then Greg went into wanting to explain why he did the thing he did. And I think that's a really natural response for someone to want to do because in that moment, it's like saying to someone, well, hang on, see my goodness, see how good I really am, right? So I'm saying to him, just because you're upset doesn't mean you can take your feelings out on me. And he immediately went to that place of, okay, wait, well, just— I'll tell you why I did the thing. So then I said, I said calmly and assertively, this is probably one of the most powerful things you could do when the conversation starts to get hijacked by their defensiveness, by them wanting to explain their intent. I said to Greg, no, I don't want to hear your side yet. You haven't seen mine. This has been such a shift. In how I have understood what happens between partners, which is if I start by sharing something with you, it is not now your time to then tell me your thing because I am asking you to cross the bridge and to come over and understand what is happening for me. This is often where couples really get stuck because you are then escalating in passing this hot potato back and forth of who's side you're trying to see. And one of the most important things, and I did say this to Craig, but one of the most important things for us to remember is that I do want to understand his experience. We're a partnership. Of course I do. The catch here though is it's really hard for me to then hear his experience if he can't come and live in mine. And I think what's really interesting is when I said, no, I won't hear your side yet. Oh, let me tell you, people-pleasing, good girl caregiver Tracy was so uncomfortable because in some ways it kind of sounds like I'm stonewalling him or I'm saying, no, get out of here, I don't want to hear what you have to say. We've all had those moments, right? We've all had those moments where someone says, I refuse to hear what you want to say. That is not what I was saying because here's what I've come to learn is defensiveness jumps cross the line, but repair takes turns. This is me saying I want us to take turns and we're having my turn first. Now you might be listening and say, well, why do you get to go first? I'm going first because I was the one who I asked him first, can we talk tonight? And two, can I share what happened and can you just listen? And he agreed, he said yes, let's talk about what happened. So I'm initiating that and I'm asking him, come, come over to my side of the bridge. If you haven't already heard me say this before, one of my favorite analogies for couples is to think about your relationship as a bridge. And so on one side is your experience and perceptions and assumptions and stories, your feelings, your needs, and you are inviting your partner to cross the bridge over to you, and then you take turns. But oftentimes what ends up happening with partners is we break the bridge of connection, and that's where we stop then being able to come together.

Okay.

So then I also said to Greg, because we were struggling in this, there was still his urge to want to prove that he was doing a good thing and he didn't mean to. Okay, so his urge was coming up. And then I said to him, I need you to recognize your impact on me before I can take a turn to see what you were experiencing. That matters because we're saying your impact has to be seen. Before I can then see your intent. And couples get stuck right there because they're so focused on the intent. So if you are someone who gets stuck in the blame or passing the hot potato back and forth, or you get defensive, here's something that I want you to remember. When you find yourself wanting to argue what position you're coming from— no, I had good intentions, no, I— okay, you have to inside of yourself say, you are good, It's okay. This does not mean you're a bad person or a bad partner. They're not going to leave you because you made a mistake. You're good. And in holding that inside of you, it's going to completely change what happens next. Okay. So then this was a really interesting thing that I said to Greg, because of course you might be thinking, well, Dr. Tracy Dalgleish then just made space to hear Greg and his side in that perspective. I had repeatedly asserted myself in saying, please come and see my side. Please understand what this was like for you. I had tears. I was telling him how it felt to be me. It was really hard. So he sat in my experience and then he said, are you ready now to hear where I was coming from? Are you ready to hear this? And again, I can't emphasize this enough. Me 20 years ago, 15 years ago, she would not have said this. And I think there's this both/and that I'm holding in here. So I'll tell you what I said. I said, my nervous system is overwhelmed. I'm not ready to hear your side yet, but I would really like to hear it in the morning over coffee. Huh. That, that right there is saying I have a boundary, but there's a door that I am not refusing to have that conversation with him, but instead I'm protecting it. Take that. As a shift of how we understand what we do in relationships. Okay, just hold that for a minute. You are saying that I'm not going to refuse having the conversation, but if I do it right now, it's not going to work out to our benefit. So I'm actually protecting us together, because when you ask me to cross the bridge with you, I want to make sure I can actually hear you and understand you. And in that moment, it was such a powerful, assertive thing for me to say I can't, not yet. And I did say to him, and again, I need you to understand, human first right here. I'm a human first. I had said to him, this is really hard for me to say that. I want to rush in and to hear what you have to say, and at the same time, I need to recognize that I'm feeling raw, and I don't think I can do that in the best way that you need me to.

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Okay, I'm going to switch perspectives now a little bit because I want to acknowledge what Greg was able to do in this conversation, and I'm going to now speak to the defensive partner. So if you happen to get this podcast episode, I'm speaking to you on the other side. If your partner is to you. If you do ever get podcast episodes from your partner or the reels, know that they too want a more connected relationship. They're not sending you things because you are the bad one. They're sending it to you because they're saying, I want us to be closer. And that is such a beautiful thing when we can look at it that way. So when your partner says, I need you to recognize the impact, that is a moment for you to completely remove yourself from the situation. It is a chance for you to see that it is a privilege that your partner is sharing something so hard about themselves. And that is something that Greg and I have worked on. We've used that word together as a couple. It's a privilege. And so Greg now then, when he hears me say, I need you to see the impact, he is recognizing that it's not about him. He is not a bad guy. He's not a bad partner. He doesn't have to protect himself. But instead, I am opening my arms to him and saying, I'm trusting you to hold this really hard feeling. Can you come and meet me in that? That was one piece that I wanted to make sure I emphasized of what he did. And then when I said, I want to hear this tomorrow over coffee, he respected my boundary there. And true to my word, the next morning we pour— that's one of our morning rituals that we have. We wake up before the kids do. We sit and connect and talk about our days or talk about what hard things are happening or any repair moments we need to go back. That sounds too formal. We don't say like, okay, let's go talk about our repair moments. We just don't do that, but we had marked it and he, that night, trusted me that when I said, I can't do it tonight, I wanna do it in the morning, he trusted me that I am actually going to come back to it. And it was exactly that the next day. And I'm just gonna say hats off to Greg because he didn't come in with a pontification of here is the lecture of how I made all the choices I did. Greg went a little bit deeper. This was so cool because then he came to me and he said, I know why I did the thing with you. I'm really sorry because that's not the kind of person I want to be with you. And he said— he went deeper and he said, my shame got triggered and that was not about you at all, but I certainly put that out on you. And we ended up talking about how of course shame shows up in these moments and how it's such a human response and how it often doesn't come out that way and it can be really fast. We talked about our own triggers and pausing and slowing down. And really, the most important part that we came out of that was Greg having this mistake. So the way he said something to me and what he said exactly was a lesson. It was not me saying, you have completely shattered and broken our trust. It was instead finding this edge. And the edge is that when Greg felt triggered, what did he do? And then from there, what was actually the repair, the resolution, and the deeper lesson underneath that? As I'm saying that out loud, it's the end of the day. I've had a busy day. I don't know if I am saying this fully. I hope so. Let me try again. Should I try again? I'm okay. I'm just thinking out loud here. I just want to emphasize though that oftentimes what we do in our conversations with our partners, with the, with the person the most important to us— remember, we don't fight with people who don't matter to us. We fight with the ones we love the most. So the hardest relationships because they become our attachment figures. They become the ones we want to be bonded with, where we know we're important to them and that we matter to them and that they think of us, they consider us. And Greg didn't go into this list of why he did what he did, but instead he asked himself, what was this really about for me? And that is such a powerful question. Instead of then going into the rationale and the why of the why, et cetera.

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Okay, let me just wrap this up. I think it's so important for us to recognize, especially when we have defensive partners, that it can be so easy to spiral in. And the spiral often sounds like, why are you so defensive? If you were just not defensive, we wouldn't get stuck in this. And yes, your defensive partner plays a role in the cycle. And the cycle, the cycle is the enemy, not you versus me. It's us against the cycle. And when one person can call out, hey, we're in that cycle right here, we're doing the thing, that completely changes what happens next. I think what's so important is that you don't get to control whether your partner is going to be defensive or not.— and trust me, I tried, I tried, okay? But you do get to choose not to spiral in the cycle. And in the moments where I empowered myself, where I felt assertive to stay in my feelings and my truth and what I needed to be heard and seen from my partner, that allowed us to have a completely different conversation. Let me say these ones one more time. So that you can have them. I said, just because you're upset doesn't mean you get to take your feelings out on me. No, I won't hear your side yet. You haven't seen mine. I need you to recognize your impact on me before I can take a turn to see what you were experiencing. And finally, my nervous system is overwhelmed. I'm not ready to hear your side yet, but I want to do that tomorrow morning over coffee. I know for many of us it can feel easier to stay quiet, And there were probably many times in the past where I would have swept something like this under the rug and maybe it would just have boiled over at another time or seeped into resentment. You don't have to slip into either of those, say nothing or escalate into anger. Instead, you can find that assertiveness of being able to share the thing and then being able to invite your partner to see the impact on you and not getting stuck back in your spiral. All right, I want to put a caveat on this conversation because if you are in a relationship where every time you share something it is flipped— I'm talking about every time, every time you share something it is flipped— they become the victim, they then tell you 10 things that you've done wrong, and then suddenly you're feeling bad about who you are. If that is something that happens every single time, then I need you to go get help and support for you. Because that is a completely different scenario than just dealing with a partner who is defensive and isn't quite yet aware of their defensive patterns or even working to change their defensiveness. All right. Thank you for clicking play today. I love having these conversations with you. I love bringing real life moments to you. And if you're looking for more support, especially on how to deal with your defensive partner, I know someone in my Be Connected program actually just asked this. Question to Dr. Tracy Dalgleish and got step by step what to do and how to slow it down. And I just love when people are in those stuck moments and can get the immediate support that they need. So I've got the link in the show notes for you to join Be Connected. I also have my monthly live coaching call that so many people benefit from. But hey, if you are really in those sticky patterns and you have tried everything, consider reaching out to me for a couples intensive. I've got a few spaces available over the summer and I would love to to support you in a more deeper, meaningful way. All right, thank you for clicking play. I will see you next time. I have to remind you at the end of every podcast episode that the information provided here is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental healthcare provider. See you next time.

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