You want to talk openly with your partner. You want to be able to talk about small things and big things. You’re calm, open, thinking talking about your relationship is a good thing, but you find you have to be so careful in how you say things to not trigger your partner’s defensiveness. It’s exhausting and disappointing.

Let’s be real, probably sometimes you come at your partner kind of harsh and their defensiveness is justified. We’re all human. You don’t have to be perfect to expect to be heard or taken seriously.

Or maybe you’re more of the timid type and it takes a lot of courage for you to finally bring something up to your partner. Within a minute, your partner is explaining why this isn't their fault, showing you how this is actually your fault, deflecting by pointing out something you did last week, or going silent and leaving the room. You're left wondering why you bothered, frustrated and possibly hurt.

We’ve all been there before in one degree or another. Defensiveness is one of the most common relationship issues I see in my office. It’s almost never the whole reason couples come to see me, but it’s pretty rare for me to see a couple that doesn’t deal with defensiveness in their relationship at least sometimes. In fact, it’s so rare, I can’t think of a couple I’ve seen in 16 years of therapy practice that hasn’t had to learn how to manage defensiveness.

This article is for the person receiving the defensiveness. I’ll write another article about what to do when you feel yourself getting defensive.

I have three steps to help you deal with a defensive partner. They go in order.

Black and white photo of man looking at himself

Step 1: Look at yourself

This is the step we’d all prefer to skip over. It’s so much easier to see our partner’s bad behavior than to notice how we can change. I want to be clear that I’m not blaming your for your partner’s actions nor suggesting that their defensiveness is your fault. AND, we have to acknowledge that you are a part in this relationship dynamic. What I am asking you to do is take responsibilty for your part. (And only your part. You can’t change your parter for them. Only they can change their behavior.)

Ask yourself: is the way I’m bringing this up inviting defensiveness?

When someone feels attacked, they defend. They may counter-attack or withdraw completely, but either way they're trying to feel safe. This is human nature, not a failing in your partner. You probably react the same way when you feel attacked. If you are coming at your partner with an attack, defensiveness is the expected response.

So how do you talk about problems without inviting defensiveness?

Change criticism to complaint. The Gottman Method of couples therapy is strong on teaching this skill. A criticism is an attack on your partner's character. A complaint is talking about a situation and how it affects you. A complaint says there’s a problem between us and I want your help solving it. Criticism says the problem between us is you, your defects, and your flaws.

Say your partner is late for plans again. A criticism sounds like, "You're always late! Don't you care about anyone but yourself?" The problem here is your partner’s selfishness. Words like always and never are attack words, and they're likely to bring out defensiveness. A complaint sounds like, "It was hard for me when you arrived late today. I felt anxious and embarrassed to be waiting there alone for so long. I don’t like feeling that way. And then I start wondering if you really care about me. And I don’t like feeling that way either. I know you could tell I was off and that changed your mood too. How can we do this differently so it works for us both?" The problem here is something between us, it’s how we each reacted to the lateness and the other’s emotion. We can be on the same team in solving the problem.

You can read more about changing criticism to complaint in this article.

Say less. Way less, like 90% less. Say what the problem is—briefly—and then what you want instead. And stop there. We often overwhelm our partners with too much information in a way that feels like an attack .

When people go on too long, give too many examples, or slide into blaming their partner's character, the problem becomes too big to solve and their partner gets overwhelmed. In my office, I often hear some version of, "If I'm really that bad, why do you want to be with me?" when someone is on the receiving end of too much complaint. Now they're fighting about who has been worse to whom, and the original issue gets lost in the hurt feelings and defenses.

Try two or three sentences, one issue at a time. "When our friends were over and you shared that story I told you about work, I was so embarrassed. Please don't do that again." You don’t have to go into all the other times your partner has embarrassed you or to dwell excessively in how bad you felt. If you can ask simply and your partner can meet your request, you save yourselves A LOT of energy spent in a long fight.

Pay attention to timing. Bringing something up when you're tired, hungry, or in the middle of a different argument makes defensiveness more likely and fights messier.

You can read more about how to say less in this article.

I know it may not feel fair to put in extra effort to soften how you raise a problem when you feel hurt. But it’s worth the effort. Trust me. This is the most direct path to getting more of what you want and enjoying your relationship with your partner.

Black and white photo of couples having coffee and holding hands

Step 2: Have good emotional boundaries

Here's the hard truth: you can do all of the above perfectly, and your partner may still get defensive. Their defensiveness may come from their history, from how they were raised to handle criticism, from a deep fear of being a disappointment, or from their own perfectionism. What’s happening inside of them, their history or beliefs are not in your control and are not your responsibility to solve.

This is where emotional boundaries come in. Having good emotional boundaries looks like understanding what is your responsibility and what is not, allowing your partner to feel their feelings and have their reactions without you feeling like you have to solve or fix them.

Don’t take it personally. Their defensiveness might have nothing to do with you. Even if you did step 1 and gave the perfect introduction to the problem your parter might still feel defensive. You don’t have to make that mean anything about you. Let them feel the feeling. Let them deal with it.

Don’t think you have to solve it for them. You are not responsible for managing your partner's reaction by softening, over-explaining, or taking it back. Sometimes we get defensive because our partner has said something about us that we know is true and we don’t like. If you step in to rescue your partner from that feeling, they won’t change because you communicated that it’s actually not a big deal. Your solving it for them suggests that helping them feel not bad about their actions is more important to you than the change you’re asking for.

Don’t conclude you shouldn't have said anything. A defensive response doesn't mean you were wrong in what you brought up. Defensiveness comes up sometimes. Let it be. Let your partner deal with it. What you brought up is important to you regardless of how your partner receives it.

A client I'll call Dana (details changed) told me she had brought up a small request about household chores, kindly and in just a couple of sentences. Her partner replied, "Nothing I do is ever good enough," and Dana immediately apologized and dropped it. When we looked at the pattern, she realized she'd been doing this for years. She had quietly learned that raising problems wasn't worth the trouble, so she stopped raising them, and she felt more and more distant from her partner.

What Dana practiced was saying her piece, staying calm, and letting her partner have his reaction without rescuing him from it. Something like, "I'm not saying you're not good enough. You are wonderful. And I want to make some changes to how we do chores. I'd like you to think about it and we can come back to it." You can care about your partner's feelings and still let them be your partner's feelings. Many people need time to take something in, and they often return to the topic once the sting has passed.

Black and white photo of couples talking in therapy

Step 3: Talk about the defensiveness itself

If you've looked at your part and held your boundaries and the pattern continues, it may be time to gently talk about the defensiveness directly. Choose a calm moment, not during an argument or right after one. Keep the focus on what you want for both of you. You might say:

"I want us to have a healthy relationship where we can talk about problems and fix them when they are small. I find it's hard to talk about even little things because of your defensiveness. And that makes me feel distant from you when I really want us to feel close. Is this something you can look at and work on? Do you need anything different from me to help you be less defensive? I'm also willing to do my part to help us have better conversations?"

This is an invitation, not an accusation. You're naming a pattern that gets in the way of something you both want, asking your partner to be a teammate, and offering to do your part, too.

If this conversation doesn't go anywhere, or if you've both been stuck in these habits for so long that you can't talk about it without falling into a fight, a couples therapist can help. An experienced couples therapist can slow things down, help each of you feel safe enough to listen, and teach both of you new ways to bring up problems and respond to them.

A note on safety

Everything above is meant for ordinary, everyday defensiveness, the kind nearly every couple struggles with. If what you're experiencing includes contempt, name-calling, intimidation, controlling behavior, or abuse, or if you feel afraid of your partner's reactions, that is a different situation, and these steps are not the right place to start. Please talk with a therapist on your own, or contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

How to Deal with a Defensive Partner: Advice from a couples therapist in Riverside CA