5 Defense Mechanisms That DESTROY Relationships

If you don't want to sabotage another relationship simply because you don't know any better, then you've got to watch this video. So stick around.

Relationships are one of the three major areas in life that can make or break your entire future. And what you bring into them can also determine whether or not there is success or a failure. I discovered this the hard way sometimes when my greatest problem in my relationships was me and yours might be you. And here's what I mean. So much of our relational life comes from the things that we learned early on. Now I myself unfortunately didn't have my parents around a whole great deal early on. And as a result I learned to fear abandonment more than anything else. Well, that caused me to have certain defense mechanisms that were brought into each of my relationships. From a work life balance, from a romantic level, from a family level. All of those things, all of those things taught me to behave in a specific way, which taught me to cling to my abandonment and worse yet, my self sabotage, even if I was in a perfectly good and healthy relationship. Why? Because I was leading with my fear and leading with my insecurity. And I don't want that for you. Instead, I want you to have amazing relationships that actually have health and well being and fulfillment on a regular basis. In order to do that, I knew that there was a source, but I really wasn't sure what that source was or even how to break it down. And then our director of Life strategy here at the Journey Principles, Michael Garner, helped help me understand and put a name to the face of these invisible enemies, if you want. So Michael helped me put a name to the face when we started breaking down what we refer to as the five attachment styles. And basically these become your overall defense mechanisms that bleed into your relationship and many times can cost you valuable relationships. So let's go ahead and jump into these individually so I can give you a better understanding of each one of them, how they were shaped, so you might be able to identify who you are and why these matter to you specifically. So as we break these down, I'm going to give you some background information as well as more information what the defense mechanism looks like when it's being used. Now, as we go through these, here's what I want you to do. I want you to mentally rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 being least like me to being most like me. Okay, 10 being most like you and one being least like you. So we can hopefully help you identify which attachment style, quote unquote and defense mechanism is Preventing you from having the best of your relationships. Attachment style 1 what we refer to as the dismissive Dismissive people often come from homes with little or no affection and they place a high value on personal independence. The dismissive person grew up learning to take care of themselves and therefore oftentimes having a difficult time dealing with addressing specific issues. The dismissive person learned to restrict their feelings because they were never used to getting so much comfort or nurturing out of their actual parental role models. Dismissive people are not very comfortable with any kind of expression of emotion and prefer to keep things simple by making everyone kind of take care of themselves and their own things, if you will. When issues are present in relationships, dismissive people often present as everything is fine and that whole I'll get over it quickly kind of thing. You see, a dismissive person is often more of an introvert than not, and they will always feel a little more drained by other people with long periods of time. Now, when it comes down to the defense mechanism, dismissive people also have a limited range of emotions and and only likely feel safe when they express anger. Here are some experiences growing up that many dismissive people actually have in their defense mechanisms. One. As we mentioned before, little to no affection. Two, Personal independence is kind of like overdone. And three, issues were rarely addressed, ignored, or even downplayed to a certain extent. Attachment Style number two the appeasers. Appeasers work hard to make everyone else around them happy and here's why. They grew up in an environment in such a way that they had overly critical parents who weren't allowed to actually stretch their legs. And, and as a result, what they did is they learned to pick up on social cues that actually prevented them from actually moving forward in such a way that is actually healthy. Instead, what they did was they learned how to basically manipulate a situation to always be able to be over giving to people so they could stay out of trouble or stay out of harm's way. This is where it gets a little tricky. Appeasers, unfortunately, oftentimes go through a situation because they're not actively expressing themselves, end up creating bitterness and resentment in their heart, and they end up bringing that into relationships. Appeasers often have a tendency to become a little more passive aggressive, which is how they short cycle their relationship with their overall defense mechanisms. So the appeaser's main defense mechanism is passive aggressive behaviors. Appeasers want to please so much so that they'll sacrifice themselves and then they'll get resentful about it and then that bleeds into the relationship, which is why it's so important. Now, before we move too far ahead, do me a favor. Go ahead and take the time to subscribe to the channel where you actually get regular updates on things that help you master any area of your life and content that can actually help you move forward. As always, help me smash that bell so you never miss out and you're always the first to know. With that said, let's jump back into the attachment styles. Attachment style number three is what we refer to as the martyr. Now as you might imagine, martyrs in normal terms end up trying to fall on the sword to protect everybody else. Well, in an environment when they're growing up, what happens is they're typically in an environment where parents are actually angry and even violent sometimes. Why is that important? Because the martyr learns how to stay out of harm's way by avoiding obstacles at all cost. What happens is they end up having a low sense of self worth and that bleeds into their relationships, causing them to have a defense mechanism by allowing someone else to control them. Which means they never actually discover their full authenticity or how to control their own lives, because their life is built around the service to other people on a regular basis. So much so they completely lose sight of their total self worth. So martyrs end up losing themselves in the process. And as a result, they stay out of everybody's way. They never get as far as they can, they never strive to become something more, and they never actually learned that their own life actually matters. In fact, oftentimes they actually end up with one of our other defense styles, which is what we refer to as the dictator. Being controlled and being manipulated for their entire life. The one thing that a martyr can learn to do is learn to actually do things in regards to personal development, to grow themselves to build their self confidence so they can erase the backstory of being overly angered and controlled or even abused as children. So the one thing a martyr can learn to do in order to better their relationships and better themselves is to spend time developing true self confidence, which only comes by value of personal development. And this channel is a great way for you to get the research and the data that you need in order to actually apply the things that can help you build the self confidence, help you get the breakthrough you need, and erase the defense mechanism of being controlled by other people. All right. Attachment style number four is what we refer to as the dictator. Think about this when you think about the dictator in the world of really world power, or even in the office place or something like that the word dictator has a very, very unique term, and it means a lot of different things as it relates to power, control, and authority. All right, so here's the thing. People who have the attachment style of being a dictator, okay, struggle with two defense mechanisms that are key. One is control, and then one is anger to influence control. Inevitably, what happens is in these types of relationships, this person becomes very obnoxious and boisterous, Angry even. That scares the other person in such a way that they actually want to retreat, which is how the dictator remains in control. The trick is for the dictator to learn that they have to be transparent and vulnerable on a regular basis in order to actually build a true relationship and not always have to get into a situation where they have to feel angry, right? Dictators simply need to learn to trust. Now, trust can be built over time, right? But people who struggle with that need to be aware that their controlling nature, if you will, and their argumentative nature and their anger nature is destructive to their overall relationships. Attachment style number five is the idealist. Now, the idealist grew up in an environment like I did, unfortunately, with unpredictable parents, Meaning there was a lot of rugs being pulled out from under. Maybe they grew up in a single parent household, maybe they grew up in a double parent household where people were kind of like, to the side. Inevitably, what happens is there's no real foundational structure. And as a result, they spend all their time seeking that foundational thing. But when they start to get it, they end up with a defense mechanism of self sabotage. In other words, they're so used to things being out of control and unstable that it becomes unnatural for them to understand what a normal quality life and quality relationship feels like. So what they do is they toss a grenade in everything with self sabotage. So what that looks like is, is maybe a relationship is going great. The next thing you know, a phone call happens, a bad thing happens, and the person is like, I knew you were cheating this entire time, totally out of the blue, trying to sabotage what is already good because they don't know what good feels like. I can say that from personal experience because this was my personal defense mechanism, if you will, and attachment style that I personally had to work through and mature through. Okay, here's the trick. If you're an idealist, then inevitably what you need more than anything else is to know that safety and transparency and trust is built over time. And you can rely on people who illustrate trustworthy behaviors in an effort to actually build stable relationships. Also, one of the techniques that I personally use is when I feel like this tension's coming up in me and I want to basically go and throw a grenade into something. I do my best to absolutely count to 10, take some deep breaths, and say, what is the outcome that I want most? I find that that technique's been able to help me a lot with my own personal style, which I'm being very transparent and vulnerable with you on right now on camera. Now that you've got a better understanding of each of these attachment styles and their defense mechanisms, be on the lookout for the ones that you really kind of identify with and the ones that you feel most triggered towards. Make sure you take the time to watch that. In the meantime, I want you to go ahead and take an advantage of the seven relationships. You must have the Win at Life free ebook that I'll put in the description below. And that way you can actually keep moving forward. If relationships is something you're really working on. Do me a favor, check out this video right here because I think it'll help you a lot. And in the meantime, also do me a favor, subscribe. I'd love to keep helping you with more information. Take care.