129. Every Time I Bring It Up They Get So Defensive
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your marriage. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
We all have sore subjects in our marriages and topics where one partner gets defensive. Defensiveness is so common in any type of betrayal.
In this episode, I share 3 tools you can use right now to get past the defensiveness in these conversations.
If every single conversation feels difficult and leads to defensiveness, you are keeping your marriage in survival mode.
I want you to be able to have important conversations with your partner, without the defensiveness, so you can get through the tough stuff and start to rebuild the connection and intimacy.
Click the link to listen, and let me know what you think - I’d love to hear from you!
If this episode hits home and you’re ready to work with me, book a call so we can chat. On the call, you’ll share what’s going on, what you’ve tried, and I’ll share how I can help. Can’t wait to connect!
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos, welcome back to the Relationship Reset with me, your host, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, speaker and podcast host of this dope podcast. Today's episode is called Every Time I Bring It Up, They Get Defensive. Now we all have very sore subjects in our marriages in which we know or unconsciously may not see our red buttons for our partners. They get triggered. They get defensive, it just gets ugly. I also wanna talk about why defensive is so common, why defensiveness is so common in betrayal. Again, as I've always said, betrayal isn't just you cheating on your partner or sleeping with somebody else. It can literally be a ton of different things, stepping out financially, stepping out by lying, stepping out by idolizing your job over them. Like it is an entire catalog of ways. There are an entire catalog of ways to betray your partner. And so this episode, I'm gonna walk you through how I coach couples through these moments of defensiveness without blowing up because what's happening right now is that you are building up the courage to talk to your partner about something legitimate, something that legitimately hurts your feelings. And no matter how you deliver it, no matter how calm you stay and you have so many like forms of this, you even argue about your delivery and how good it is and they still get pissed off. That still the script either gets reversed on you, they become triggered, or defensive and the entire conversation started out calmly by you wanting to talk about something and it just blew up. So what I want to remind you of first, we're going to talk about the fact that this frustration that you're having is normal. This trigger that they're having is a normal reaction. Is it a reaction that we never want worked on? No, but it is normal. Okay. The frustration is normal and their reaction is normal. The reason why it's so common is because it lights a whole bunch of red lights in their minds. Okay.
So why your partner gets defensive is because whatever it is that you're bringing up, they're seeing as a threat to their character. The thought that they're having is, this is more than you just reminding me about something. You are threatening who I am as a person, who I have either worked up so hard to be different from or who I am actively working so hard to be different from. And now that you bring it up, it feels like a full blown attack on their character. And so what do they do? Defensiveness is a form of self protection. That's all they're doing. They're protecting their character and they're having these two thoughts that go on in their minds, right? I have it written down here, which is the first thought that they have is if they continue to admit what they've done, It's a reminder to you. And in essence, they'll lose you. And I think you don't realize that as heavy as that is. I don't think you realize the weight of that. Because if both of y'all have decided to stay and work it out, the constant reminder unconsciously, I know that you're not trying to threaten their character, but just that reminder puts them at a place of if I continue to acknowledge, which I've done already that I did something wrong, it's another reminder to them and I will lose them.
The second thought that they're having is that if I continue to stay in this conversation, it makes it even more real that I'm a monster. I don't think that you realize the intense amount and I know what you're saying as they should, but intense amount of guilt and shame that they are walking around with. And these are specifically the partners that have decided to stay and work things out. They now have to live in an environment that was originally healthy, that is now unsafe and they are reminded every day that they did that, that they broke the healthy status of the relationship. They did that. And that is why they become defensive, dismissive. They deflect. They get angry.
And what they're not seeing and what I know that you know is that their defensiveness is the very thing that kills your progress, that kills the progress that your relationship is trying to do. And in essence, you feel unheard. so then you shut down or you escalate or they feel attacked. And so they retreat or they get angry and the pattern and the hamster wheel of this toxic pattern keeps going and going. And at the end of the day, nothing, absolutely nothing gets resolved. Why? Because it's not just the betrayal that is going to break this marriage. It's the inner ability to talk about something so pivotal and crucial that is going to break it. It's not about the betrayal breaking your marriage. It's about the fact that y'all don't have the skills and the tools to rebuild, to have normal conversations about something that was hurtful. That's when you know the healing has begun.
For example, I have a couple, that have been married for over a decade. have two kids and they, she's a stay at home mom and he has a full-time job and also a business. And it wasn't until our recent session in which she pointed out the fact that she feels secondary to their business. And in his mind, he's building the business so that eventually she could be first. And she's like, I understand that, but like, I don't even feel cared for or loved. And they argue very interestingly, actually, their type of arguing is they don't argue. They just each retreat and get upset and.. not pour into each other. And so they're very deflective. They're very avoidant. And right now we're at the phase in the coaching. We've only had a couple of sessions where they're starting to open up about the ways that each of them actually have felt betrayed her with the business and him feeling a lack of support. That is also a form of betrayal. But now that they have the tools to be able to talk about it, they're starting to be in a much different place. Okay?
So these are the three tools I'm going to give you right now in order for you to pass the defensiveness. The first one is I want you to start pausing. Pausing is a gift, okay? In the middle of when you feel like the argument is starting to get angry, I want you to say, listen, I wanna talk, but I'm finding myself getting upset. So how about we take a beat or listen, I'm noticing and I could be wrong that you're getting upset. Should we should we pause and talk a talk a different time? Also, y'all choose the sometimes the worst times to talk about things like on your way to the movies, on your way to dinner, on your way to a date night at the grocery store. Like you guys can't be talking about heavy ish during these moments when your kids are in the car. I'm gonna do a whole episode on when to argue and when not to argue. What spaces and times are appropriate and which ones are inappropriate.
The second is I want you to start using ownership language. And what that sounds like is instead of saying you always shut down, I want you to instead talk about the impact that it's having versus the attack. When you say you always shut down, you are attacking your partner as opposed to saying when we talk about certain things like this, I start to feel alone or I start to feel a little bit hurt and then I feel alone. That's the impact that this conversation is having versus attacking your partner. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't send me a DM.
The third thing I want you to do, which so many people forget. It's so simple. You need to start setting the stage. You do not go to a show that is not set up. You do not invite people to your house without expectations. There is a stage for the conversation that you need to set up. For example, I want to be able to talk to you about something and I'm not bringing it up to shame you or guilt you or make you feel less than I'm bringing it up because I'm currently triggered by something and I think it's important that you know. My expectation is for you to just hear me out or my expectation is for you to even give me some guidance on what I should do or maybe just reassure me that you're not cheating on me like you're just with me. Do you see how different setting the stage helps. I've even had to set the stage in the middle of an argument to say, hey, hey, I'm so sorry. I think that we started out guns blazing. And I actually just wanted to talk about this from a perspective of the fact that I think things need to change, but I'm not blaming you because of the way things are now. I just want to partner with you on like what could be some solutions. That's it. That's it.
If every single conversation right now feels difficult and leads to defensiveness, you both are keeping your marriage in survival mode. You are not bridging. You are not building bridges. You are creating battlefields in your marriage. That is the cycle that you guys are in right now. And listen, if right now you feel like you're walking on eggshells in your marriage, we need to work together. I'm gonna coach you through how to have simple, not as heavy conversations so that y'all can get through the tough stuff and start to build connection and intimacy. You understand?
Okay, let me pray for you. Father God, I thank you so much for the gift of intimacy. I thank you so much for the gift of marriage as it is a true reflection of your love. You are the only one that forgives and loves us the way that you do and for that, I feel indebted to you and I love you. And I thank you for the reminder every single day that we must treat each other the way that you treat us. And that includes our marriage, the relationship with our kids, our coworkers, strangers at the grocery store. It includes everybody. I ask that you give us conviction during the times that we don't treat people this way so that we may be reverted back to the love of God and spreading your love. I thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.
Okay, if you enjoy this episode, make sure to leave me a review on Apple iTunes and share it with all of your amigos. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Feel free to send me a DM on Instagram or a TikTok at my handle, Karina F. Daves. Shoot me an email. I don't care what you do. I love this community and I'm so happy to be able to serve y'all at this capacity. I love you so much. All right, bye.
