Defensiveness is an interpersonal pattern that focuses on maintaining power, rejecting blame and saving face instead of tackling problems.

In this article we will learn what defensiveness looks like, and how to prevent it in yourself and in others

What’s Defensiveness

Defensiveness is a tendency to respond to feedback and criticism with emotional overwhelm and behavioral self-defense, instead of listening or looking for solutions.

Many people naturally resort to defensiveness when faced with feedback, criticism, and complaints.
But that is not to say that it’s always wrong. Defensiveness can be a valid and effective response when appropriate and calibrated to the right circumstances.
For example, calmly defending oneself against mistaken, exaggerated, or smearing accusations is often the smart choice.

However, defensiveness can become an issue when it’s exaggerated nad miscalibrated.
In those cases, it exaggerated defensivenss can signal mental weakness, stunt progress, and undermine relationships.

Sources of Defensiveness & Personality Psychology

While criticism and contempt are more related to interpersonal power dynamics, defensiveness is often more related to mental empowerment, including:

• Fragile self-esteem tends to increase defensiveness, while men with stronger and less fragile self-esteem often feel less of a need to defend
• Fixed mindset, or seeing traits as immutable, tends to defend more, while men with a growth mindset believe they can improve, so are more open to feedback (Dweck, 2006)
• Status concerns, which may lead more potentially narcissistic men to defend and counter-attack more
  • Power-hungry personalities, who tend to see any feedback or criticism as an affront to their dominance

Defensiveness in Relationships

When it comes to intimate relationships, John Gottman’s research includes defensiveness is his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
He distinguishes between:

• Righteous indignation, which is a form of power-move counter-attack. Ie: ‘Oh, you mean I don’t have time for us because I’m breaking my back to pay our bills?‘
  • Counter-attack, with a more direct pushback, for example ‘This chicken tastes like nothing, how about you focus on that‘
• Self-victimization, ‘accepting’ the feedback but also taking it personally, letting it undermine one’s self-esteem, and not processing, discussing it, and working on it

Why the first is most common in men and the second is more common in women, both lack the personal power to listen, openly discuss, and potentially work on the issue.

Consequences of Defensiveness

Common relationship advice suggests that defensiveness does three bad things:

1. A sense of not being heard or not caring about our partner
2. Escalates arguments into fights
3. Fails to solving issues, including in the long-term as partners stop bringing issues up

But at The Power Moves we add an equally important issue:

• Signals lower value with one’s inability to take a criticism without making it personal and feeling undermined by it. That is fragile self-esteem and thin-skin

Examples of Relationship Defensiveness

Here are a few defensiveness examples:

1 – Defensiveness Against Hidden Judgment: Blue Valentine

This is an interesting example of defensiveness. It’s not out of place because her questioning hides an hidden contemptuous and judgmental attitude.

Let’s watch:

Albeit her way of communicating is very poor, his defensiveness adds to the problem

Her:  It doesn’t ever disappoint you? <- doesn’t make her point clear, it might be a critique?
Him: (starts to get irritated) Why? Why would it disappoint me? <- defensive right away
Her:  Because you have all this potential <- still unclear, is she unhappy with her husband career?
Him: So what? Why do you have to f*cking make money off your potential? <- defensive counterattack

His reaction is pure defensiveness. He probably feels judged and feels he needs to defend his lack of ambition. But it’s not all his fault here. Her passive-aggressive approach partially instigated it.
However, because he jumps to the most negative coclusion, he will never know for sure if his wife is disappointed by him, or if she believes he could do more because she genuinely thinks he has great potential.

2. Invalidating Feelings: Carrie and Aleksandr (SATC)

This is an example of defensiveness following an attack with emotional outpouring:

Carrie: How could you abandon me like that when I gave up my party for you
Alex: I didn’t abandon you<- defensiveness stripped to the bones :)
Carrie: I sat on a bench, alone, in a museum
Alex: Let’s not do this now. I’m tired. I had a stressful day<- makes her feel uncared for

Leaving the room, in the end, is an example of refusing to engage, or stonewalling.

3. Gaslighting Defensiveness: The Break Up

The last one is interesting as it’s both sneaky and common.
Men do this most often and that’s how many fights end up looking like he is calm and she overreacts.

Let’s watch:

Her: Oh come on, really? (…) I wanted 12. Baby wanted 12.
Him: Why would you want 12 lemons? <- sneaky defensiveness: pretends he forgot
Her: Because I’m making a 12-lemon centerpiece.
Him: So, no one’s even eating them? They’re just show lemons?  <- defends by framing her will as ludicrous
Her: (..) I’m glad you find that amusing, but I cannot fill a vase with only three lemons <- she does great in staying calm
(…)
Him: Let’s scratch the centerpiece, because the chicken could use a little lemon. Guess what? We make a better meal versus something visually nice to look at <- defends by disrespecting her idea, a power move

He frames her request as making no sense. That way, he makes her look as if she’s overreacting for nothing. This is a type of behavior that drives many women in relationships crazy.
When he says “better meal versus something visually nice” he implies her idea was silly and that her cooking needs improvement.

That fight was 70% of his making, and 30% her overly emotionaly start up. The biggest turning point was defensiveness when he could have owned up to his mistake.

Fixing Defensiveness

For all the harm that defensiveness causes, don’t worry: there are many ways of extirpating it:

1. Remove or address disrespect first

First of all, if you’re being defensive because your partner is overly aggressive or critical, you must address that issue at the source.
Scour our website for how to gain respect, set boundaries, and teach your partner better approaches.

2. Accept differences & that some issues are normal

Many men tend to be perfectionists, believe that any of her concern is a problem, and believe that it’s their responsibility to ensure everything is perfect.

If you’re the same, then you must accept the fact that it’s not on you to fix everything, and that non-critical issues and differences are normal and OK.
They don’t require you to defend yourself.

Also, remember: if she cares more about something, maybe your only task is to remind her that it’s her responsibility to take care of it.

3. Take responsibility and openly address critical issues

Some sneakier low-value people defend because they don’t want to take responsibility.
Instead, have the courage to look at the issue and, if possible, finding a solution.

Instead of addressing the superficial attack, you might want to address the underlying cause right away. Emotional intelligence is what will help you here.

Example:

Her: you always work so late, I’m tired of it <- the real complaint is that she wants more time with him
Him: that’s true I’ve been working a lot recently. Do you feel like I’m neglecting you?

And here’s a great video example from Ashton Kutcher.

4. TPM root-cause solution: empower yourself

Finally, the root cause solution is to develop an antifragile ego and a stronger, more resilient self-esteem.
That will help you not just with the defensivness, but with life in general because you become a higher quality man who gets more out of life.
See: