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How to Deal with Your Husbands Defensiveness

Writer's picture: Rachel JonesRachel Jones

Updated: 18 hours ago


A few weeks ago I celebrated my 33rd birthday. For me, birthdays are huge. I am a middle child and I felt the most seen and celebrated on my birthday. I probably have higher expectations for birthdays than others may have, too.


This year my husband asked what I wanted for my birthday and I originally did not have any ideas, but was able to gather some and share them with him. All the ideas I sent and to my surprise, I didn't open a single one of them. I told myself it wasn't a big deal and that it was the thought that counts, but it kept eating away at me the next day so I decided to address it with my husband.


I was nervous to share my hurt and how I was feeling because I was worried he would get defensive or also not feel appreciated for putting in the effort to get the gifts he did. I started the conversation with him by saying:

"If you could work on not getting defensive with what I am sharing and listening to how I am feeling, I would appreciate it."

I then proceeded to share how I was feeling hurt and the story I was telling myself was that "what I want is important." Surprisingly, that phrase I started with helped my husband a lot. He was able to hear how I felt, empathize, and validate my perception, and care for me in that moment which made it much easier for me to hear his perspective and what truly happened on his end.


I'll be using this phrase often now after seeing how it worked for dealing with my husband's defensive reactions and wanted to share it with you as well. And remind you that even couples therapists have challenging relationship dynamics.


While this small step may help, I wanted to add more info on why our partner can get defensive and how to shift it together.


How to Deal with Your Husband's Defensiveness or Your Own


Defensiveness shows up in our relationship when we perceive criticism, conflict, or disagreement as a threat (real or not) to our sense of self, safety, or connection. It also shows up because it is what we saw modeled in other relationships, primarily our caregiver's relationship.


Most defensive reactions and responses are a form of self-protection--our brain gets a signal and says "This is familiar" and then we try to protect ourselves and our partner by trying to get out of what is familiar to a place of safety. Unfortunately, our getting out of it does not allow both partners to feel safe and often does not get to what is truly needed in the situation. The brain learns from a past experience/s that if it engages in whatever is in front of it then it may feel rejection, punishment, or emotional pain so instead of facing the potential of that it learns that if we respond defensively it may get the other person to leave us alone which then results in us not feeling what was familiar--rejection, punishment or pain. You might say "That's not logical" and you're right, it's not. It's an emotional reaction to try and get to safety and it's missing the logical part of the brain. We need to have compassion for our self-protection and accountability to change the reactionary response to a more need-fulfilling response.


To summarize this: Our partner gets defensive as a form of self-protection. This self-protection is connected to unresolved wounds, feeling unheard or misunderstood, fear of being wrong or inadequate, previous rejection, punishment, emotional pain, a fight or flight response triggered, feeling a lack of emotional safety, or feeling a power and control imbalance.


Overcoming defensiveness is possible. Similar to what I shared above, starting with "I" statements can help reduce the defensive reaction and increase understanding. I also mentioned having compassion as a tool--when you can express compassion for your partner's self-protection and where they stem from, it can help your partner soften too and step into accountability to engage differently.


You can also:

  • Pause before reacting--this is great if you know you tend to respond defensively. Take a breath before responding. Lead with the "I" language and be curious about what the defensive reaction is about for you.

  • Assume good intentions--THIS IS SO POWERFUL! Unless you are truly in a relationship with an abusive partner, your partner typically has a good intention for you even if the impact is not matching. When we assume good intentions and remember our partner is most likely not trying to hurt us, this helps us have compassion for them and can help shift how we engage with them.

  • Practice Self-Awareness--I mentioned this above with curiosity about your defensive reaction. When your partner is defensive, you can be curious about the why behind it, and if you are the defensive partner, you can be curious about yourself and explore the why behind your reaction. The why is not an excuse, but simply a compassionate reason for what produced the reaction.

  • Build emotional safety--Defensiveness reduces the more that we feel safe and seen in our partnership. Work on building trust and open communication in your partnership.





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