Why Avoidant People Tend to Struggle with Defensiveness
In today's episode, we're talking all about why avoidant partners tend to struggle with defensiveness. While defensiveness is far from being the exclusive domain of avoidant attachment, many people will attest to the fact that avoidant folks are often quick to become defensive in response to relational tension or ruptures - and that this can form a key piece in the negative cycle of many anxious-avoidant relationships.
Understanding Defensiveness in Avoidant Partners: A Path to Deeper Connection
Navigating relationships can be a delicate dance, especially when it comes to understanding our partner's defensive behaviour. In a recent podcast episode, we delved into the topic of defensiveness in avoidant partners and how it can impact the dynamics of a relationship. Here, we explore the nuances of defensiveness and offer insights into how understanding and compassion can pave the way for deeper connection.
The Complexity of Defensiveness
It's not uncommon for individuals in relationships with avoidant partners to encounter defensiveness during conversations or conflicts. You may find yourself expressing a seemingly innocent comment or need, only to be met with a sudden and abrasive defensive response. This pattern can leave one feeling confused, hurt, and struggling to comprehend the origin of such reactions.
Avoidant Attachment and Defensiveness
Understanding the roots of avoidant attachment can shed light on why defensiveness becomes a go-to strategy for some individuals. Often, those with avoidant attachment patterns have learned to channel their efforts into being successful, competent, and productive as a means to gain validation and connection without engaging in emotionally vulnerable interactions. Therefore, when faced with expressions of need or emotional intensity, their defensive response serves as a protective shield against feelings of personal failure or unworthiness.
Compassion as the Bridge
Beneath the surface of defensive behaviour lies the tenderness and vulnerability of one's emotional landscape. By cultivating compassion and understanding for our avoidant partners, we gain insight into the depths of their defensive reactions. Recognising that defensiveness is a response rooted in self-protection can serve as a bridge to fostering deeper connection. Instead of immediately judging these responses as wrong or dismissive, approaching them with an open heart, curiosity, and compassion can pave the way for meaningful engagement and mutual understanding.
Expressing Needs in Relationships
For those with a more anxious orientation, expressing needs or concerns in a relationship can be particularly challenging when met with defensiveness. While there might be a desire to find the perfect script or tone to elicit a specific response, the path to deeper connection often lies in embracing vulnerability and honest, open-hearted communication. Engaging in conversations with a genuine spirit of curiosity and a willingness to be wrong or surprised can create the space for authentic, non-scripted interactions that drive growth and understanding.
Navigating Emotional Intensity
Another aspect to consider is the response of avoidant partners to emotional intensity. Struggling with their own emotional landscape, they might feel ill-equipped to handle intense emotional expressions from their partner. This discomfort may lead to defensive behaviours, such as dismissing or rejecting the validity of the emotions being expressed. Understanding this perspective highlights the need for empathetic communication that acknowledges the emotional challenges faced by avoidant partners.
Encouraging Growth and Understanding
In acknowledging the roots of defensive behaviour and underlying emotional vulnerabilities, a pathway to growth and understanding emerges. By validating and connecting with our partners on a compassionate level, we create opportunities for authentic engagement and nurturing of emotional intimacy. It's about recognising that every response from our partners is rooted in their own needs, fears, or pains and approaching these with an empathetic lens.
Closing Thoughts
Understanding defensiveness in avoidant partners is a significant step towards building healthier and more secure relationships. It’s an invitation to approach conversations and conflicts with open-heartedness, compassion, and a genuine willingness to understand the complexities of our partner's emotional landscape. While it can be challenging, this approach holds the potential to nurture deeper connections and pave the way for mutual growth and understanding within relationships.
In conclusion, fostering compassion and understanding towards our avoidant partners allows us to embrace vulnerability and non-scripted interactions, ultimately creating a space for authentic engagement and deeper emotional intimacy.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Have you experienced defensiveness or felt the need to defend yourself in your relationship dynamics, either as the avoidant partner or the anxious partner? How did you navigate or express this defensiveness?
Reflect on a recent conflict or disagreement in your relationship. How did defensiveness play a role in that situation, and what emotions or fears do you think were underlying the defensive responses from both you and your partner?
Have you ever felt dismissed or invalidated when expressing strong emotions or needs in a relationship? How did this make you feel, and how did you respond to your partner's defensiveness or dismissal?
From your perspective, what would be a healthy way to express needs or concerns in a relationship without triggering defensiveness in yourself or your partner? How can you balance being assertive with being compassionate towards your partner's vulnerabilities?
Consider how defensiveness may be linked to your or your partner's attachment styles. Do you notice patterns in how your attachment styles influence your reactions to conflict and emotional expression?
Reflect on a time when you struggled to show understanding and compassion towards your partner's defensiveness. What could you have done differently to foster a more open and empathetic communication in that situation?
How does vulnerability and openness contribute to reducing defensiveness in relationships? How comfortable are you with showing vulnerability, and how does it impact your interactions with your partner?
Think about a recent instance where you felt extremely emotional and your partner responded defensively. What do you think were the unspoken fears or discomforts that led to their defensive reaction, and how might you navigate these emotions together in the future?
Reflect on how self-worth and self-trust play a role in managing defensiveness. How does a strong sense of self-worth lead to healthier responses in challenging situations, and how does it influence your ability to trust yourself and your partner's intentions?
In what ways can you build a culture of openness and emotional safety in your relationship to reduce defensiveness and encourage honest communication? How do you think this would impact the overall dynamic and connection with your partner?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:25]:
Welcome back to another episode of on Attachment. In today's episode, I'm answering the question of why avoidant partners can struggle so much with defensiveness. So I'm often getting questions from folks who are more anxious leaning and who are in relationship with avoidant partners and who really struggle with this in conflict, in conversations, or maybe just in casual interactions, that there seems to be this real sensitivity and that their partners are very quick to become defensive. Often in response to things that can feel kind of innocuous, almost to the point where it feels like you don't really know what happened. You say something that you feel is pretty innocent and all of a sudden you're getting this big defensive response. It seems to escalate a topic of conversation or a rupture.
[00:01:21]:
It really takes the heat up very quickly in a way that can feel quite sudden and abrasive and confusing for you if you're on the receiving end of it. Now, of course, defensiveness is not something that is exclusive to avoidant folks, but I think it would be fair to say that it's a pretty common thing for people with more avoidant attachment patterns to really struggle with, and for that to be something that they lean on as a strategy to keep themselves safe, to protect themselves when they are feeling under attack. And it may be that their perception of what constitutes an attack might be quite different to yours, but that's all part of being in relationship, right, is recognising that our intention is not always the way something lands. And so trying to cultivate a level of understanding and curiosity for someone else's experience so that we're not just judging their responses as being wrong or bad and kind of vilifying them for that, we're actually approaching it with a bit more, as I said, curiosity, compassion, openness, non judgement, because that's really what's likely to get us the engagement that we're looking for, rather than just then making someone wrong for their defensiveness, which I think is where most of us go. And I know that for me, even still, it's a real practise of not immediately saying, why are you getting so defensive? You're being so unreasonable. Because that can be how it feels sometimes. And yet I think I certainly know from experience, and I'm guessing many of you listening will too, that that tends not to play very well. That if you start attacking someone for their defensive response, then that defensive response is likely to amplify rather than minimise.
[00:03:06]:
So that's what I'm going to be talking about today, sharing some thoughts on why, from what we know about avoidant attachment and its origins and the core wounds, why defensiveness arises as a really natural response and how we might start to work with that in a partner or even in yourself. Right. If you're listening to this and you notice that you have more of these defensive patterns, I think, as with anything, the more that we can bring consciousness to kind of connecting the dots on what purpose that behaviour is serving, then we're much better placed to come up with a healthier alternative and another way of doing things that meets the need or creates the safety, without having to rely on strategies that amplify conflict, that amplify disconnection, that amplify hurt and misunderstanding and leave us feeling worse off. So we'll be talking about all of that and more in today's episode. Before I dive into that, a quick reminder. You might have heard me share last week, or if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen me share there, that I'm running a 28 day challenge called the secure self. It's kicking off on the 13 February and it's going to be all about building self worth and really understanding the different pillars of self worth. So if you followed me for a while, you might have heard me say before that I don't really love preaching self love advice, just telling people to love themselves more.
[00:04:38]:
And not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think that it just doesn't really land for a lot of people because no one really knows what it means and it feels really far away and hard to even imagine feeling self love if that's just not where you're starting from. And I think for a lot of us that is not where we're starting from. So I always tend to rely on concepts like self worth and self respect and self compassion, self discipline, self trust, which I feel more easily translate into tangible practises and acts and building blocks so that we can start to really repair that relationship that we have with ourselves, which is so foundational to any relationship that we'll ever have with anybody else. So I'm holding a 28 day challenge where we're going to have four weeks, four themes, an online community and two live calls. With me, so I'm hoping that it's going to be lots of fun. We've already had lots of people sign up in the last week, which is really great. And if that sounds interesting to you, it's all linked in the show notes if you want to cheque out the details. It's also hopefully relatively easy to find on my website, stephanierigg.com.
[00:05:42]:
So I'd love to see you there if you're interested. Okay, so let's talk about this avoidant attachment and defensiveness now, as I flagged in the introduction, and I want to emphasise here, that's not to say that every avoidant person is going to be really defensive and people who aren't avoidant won't struggle with defensiveness. I know for myself that I can be really defensive and really committed to seeing myself as right and as good. And to the extent that my partner, or anyone else for that matter, shares with me that they don't like something that I've done or that they've interpreted something that I've said as being other than what I intended in a way that I feel is an unfavourable depiction of me that's really hard for me to receive, and I do definitely feel defensive about that. It just tends to look different. Right. If you're more anxious and you have more of that people pleasing streak in you, then your defensiveness is likely to come out as more of a fawn type response. Right? It's more of a I've got to change your mind and kind of soften this and persuade you as to why I'm actually good and why you don't need to see me that way.
[00:06:55]:
But it tends to be through more engagement and more connection. Right. But ultimately it is a defensive response. It's not just accepting the way someone's perceived you and apologising for it, it's trying to persuade them as to why they're mistaken. So I think that's defensiveness as well. Right. And it's really important to recognise that rather than just again labelling someone else as defensive and letting ourselves off scot free. But what you're likely to see, if you have a more avoidant partner, their defensiveness is likely to take the form of more of a wall up, more of a quick smackdown response, kind of a batting back, a disengagement, an escalation.
[00:07:33]:
It is likely to be more of a fight response than your more fawning type response of going into that, like collapsing people pleasing thing of, I need to change your mind about me. The avoidant version of defensiveness is likely to be just trying to shut it down and block it out. And so it can look quite different, right. And that kind of defensiveness, because it's foreign to you as someone with more anxious attachment patterns. Foreign in the sense of that's not how you would approach it. It can feel like a bit of a slap in the face, or it can feel quite like an affront, something that you're unfamiliar with and uncomfortable with, and that can feel really threatening to your system. We know that anything that takes the shape of disconnection or pulling away is going to be really activating for you. And so when your partner becomes defensive, particularly if that's in response to you voicing a need or a concern, or expressing something that's not feeling great for you in the relationship, having them shut that down very quickly and disengage, can feel not only like you're a little bit shaken up by the rupture and the tension, but it can feel like a rejection of whatever you are bringing to them.
[00:08:46]:
And it's really easy to then fall into the story of you don't care about the hurt that I'm bringing to you, or the concern that I'm bringing to you, or whatever else it might be, because you're just totally unwilling to engage. And that obviously can exacerbate whatever pain we're in, because we then layer on all of these other stories of this person doesn't care about me at all because of the way that they're responding to me. If they cared about my emotions, if they cared about my well being, they would want to hear this. Now, as with all of these things, there's layers here and there's nuance and there's context. And on the one hand, I'd say that, yeah, of course, healthy, secure relationships. We want to create a culture and an environment in the relationship where concerns are welcomed and that each person is really genuinely invested in and wants to receive and hear whatever might be bothering the other as part of a commitment to the emotional hygiene of the relationship. And I think it's fair to say that most of us are not perfect in that respect. And for a lot of us, it is really hard to receive that.
[00:09:53]:
And defensiveness, I think the more we can really honestly see defensiveness as a fairly natural response to feeling attacked or caught off guard or villainized, being told that we're wrong or bad, when that just isn't our intention. Defensiveness really arises quite naturally. And so I think that it's useful in particular with avoidant attachment, because the expression of defensiveness can feel quite confronting, again, particularly if you're more anxious, and that's just not your style. It can be helpful in fostering that compassion and the humanness of it, really seeing into that humanness to understand what might be going on beneath the surface there. And for a lot of avoidant folks, they might not have really conscious awareness of this. It might not be a direct story that they're telling on the inside or their internal script. But what we know about avoidant attachment is that in the formation of that attachment style, those strategies, often what you'll see is a child who has had their emotional needs denied in some way. And because of that, they tend to channel their efforts into being successful, into achieving, into being good, being useful, being productive, all of these things that can get them the connection and the validation that they're yearning for without it being a direct emotional engagement in a way that, for whatever reason, has proven to be unsafe in their family system.
[00:11:30]:
And so because they've sort of switched that part of themselves off and really gone all in on being successful, being good, performing, achieving, being competent is a big one. Being, as I said, successful, this is really, really essential to their self image. And in order to feel like they're doing well and they're okay and they're a good person, they really need to feel like they're successful. And so oftentimes when we come into relationship and you've got an anxious partner who their blueprint tells them that it's really important to always be on the lookout for the bad things that might be happening or the ways in which our relationship is imperfect. And I'm going to bring all of those things to you because I really don't want anything bad to happen. And I feel like we have to get ahead of all of these potential leaky holes in the boat so that the ship doesn't sink, because that terrifies me. The idea of us not being together terrifies me. And so I think we should just talk about all the problems all the time to try and solve them.
[00:12:34]:
For someone who really prides themselves on feeling like they're doing a good job, that can feel like a constant bombardment of here are all the ways in which you are not measuring up, here are all the ways in which you are failing in being my partner. Here are all the ways in which I am disappointed in you, or you're falling short. And so defensiveness can arise in that context almost as a way to reconcile all of that and to make it not feel so big and not feel like such a personal failure. Because for someone to have to be on the receiving end of that when that's their story and that's the way they receive all of those things, is you are not good enough, you are failing. They kind of have to defend against that because it's just so painful, so deeply painful to their self image to receive it in that way. Even though that's not the way you intend it, as I'm sure it isn't for most people, it's not your intention to tell someone that they're a failure. But recognising that, that's often, whether it's conscious or not, how your partner is going to receive it, I think we can start to go, okay, maybe it's making a little more sense why my partner responds in that way to something like me expressing a need, me saying that I'd like more of this or less of that, or whatever it might be. And of course, there are better and worse ways to express needs that are more and less likely to elicit defensiveness.
[00:14:02]:
But even still, I think the simple fact of expressing a need sometimes, or expressing a concern or a boundary or a worry or an insecurity can be perceived as a personal attack on someone who has that sensitivity and that really strong commitment to wanting to be good. And I think the more we can feel into that and go, oh, this hurts you because you really, really want to feel like you're a great partner to me, then we can start to access some more of that compassion. And I think, as a side note, it's why it's so powerful to really reorient ourselves to the things that are going right in our relationship and really being very generous with our appreciation and vocalisation of those beings acknowledging what our partner is doing. Well, because that's the stuff that they really need to hear. Someone who really prides themselves on feeling like they're doing a good job, feeling like they're succeeding like that, you do appreciate them and you do see their efforts making sure that that really significantly outweighs, not even just that it's on a level playing field, that it really outweighs all of the things you're bringing to them that you're dissatisfied about. Right? Even though from your perspective, you're bringing those things with the good intention of wanting to make sure the relationship is really strong and healthy. So I think one other aspect of the defensiveness from the avoidant perspective can be when their partner is very emotional and because again, we know that for avoidant folks there can be almost an underdeveloped emotional landscape that, as I was explaining before in that avoidant attachment origin story, often that part of themselves gets siloed or kind of locked away because it wasn't nurtured in their family of origin and it wasn't really valued, it wasn't welcomed. And so they learn early on that that's not safe or that that's not going to get me what I need.
[00:16:02]:
And so there can be a real internal disconnect for avoidant folks where they're not really comfortable with their own big emotions. And so by extension, they don't really know what to do with someone else's big emotions. They can feel really ill equipped. Again, going back to the thing of I really like feeling competent and in control. If someone else has got really big emotions and I feel like it's my fault, or that they're really upset with me or disappointed, they're crying, they're overwhelmed, I really don't know how to handle that. And so defensiveness there, again, of course, if you're on the receiving end of it and you are really emotional and all you want is for someone to just see you and validate you and understand, having someone almost reject or dismiss you in that moment through their defensiveness can feel incredibly upsetting and like an abandonment in and of itself. Right. You're emotionally abandoning me in this moment when I so clearly need you to be there for me.
[00:16:55]:
But for the avoidant person, again, I know this is really hard to have compassion for if you've been on the other side of it and it's caused you a lot of hurt and pain, but if we can have that ability to just step outside of our experience and walk around the other side and look over the shoulder of our avoidant partner and understand that for them that is so frightening to be faced with someone who's got these really big feelings, emotions, very expressive in a way that might feel quite out of control, and they just feel totally ill equipped, like they do not know what to do with it. And you're expecting me to do something and I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do. And so from that place, it might be safer for me to become defensive, to push that back onto you, to push the responsibility back onto you, to sort of say, that's not my problem, what do you want me to do about that? Or to try and undermine the validity of the emotions that you're expressing by saying that. I didn't mean to make you upset. So why are you so upset? Something in that vein that shifts the burden back onto you. When it feels like it's going to eat them alive, it's going to smother them and they're just not comfortable with being in that seat because they don't really have experience with it. It's not part of their toolkit, what they've really learned to do. So all of that to say there's a few different limbs there of why defensiveness might arise for someone with more avoidant patterns and why that.
[00:18:29]:
Again, as much as it can feel hurtful or abrasive or upsetting or dismissive on the surface, that when we peel back a layer and we go, what's this really about for this person? If defensiveness is a protective strategy, what are they protecting? What's the tenderness here that this person that I love is feeling that is leading them to have to come out with such a self protective response and to be able to do that, that's like really, really advanced relationship skills, right? To feel into that in a moment when we're feeling hurt and to be able to hold both of those things as true, to see someone's humanity, even when we feel hurt by their behaviour. So recognising all of that, and I think once we can start to see that and feel that and kind of touch that, then we have a much greater likelihood of being able to build a bridge between us. And whether that's voicing it and naming it and saying it feels like maybe you're feeling attacked and I'm really sorry, it's not my intention to attack you, but I can see that that's how you're feeling and I'm really sorry. Speaking to the pain that you think they might be in, speaking to the fear or the sensitivity and owning that, even though that's not what you intended, that that might be the consequence and kind of opening up the conversation for them to share that there's much more engagement, right. Potential there. Because all of a sudden you're not making them the bad guy, you're not making them the villain in a really express way. Even if, as I said, that wasn't your initial intention anyway, obviously, when defensiveness is arising, irrespective of your intention, irrespective of your delivery, that's how it's landing, right? And that's not your fault. We need to kind of remove this whole paradigm of fault and villain, victim and blame, and just go, okay, this is what is right.
[00:20:36]:
Now you are feeling that even though that's the opposite of what I wanted, that is real and true. And so if I'm going to be a good partner in this moment, if I'm going to be open hearted, then my role is to validate that. Validate how divincies you're being and really recognise that. I guess the final thing that I'd add to all of that is if you're someone with more anxious patterns and you're listening to this and you were hoping that I was going to give you the perfect script to deliver the voicing of a need in a way where your partner was guaranteed to not get defensive. I can't give you that. Right. And I wouldn't want to give you that because I think a really big part of your work, as someone who's more anxious, I say your work, but it's also part of my ongoing work, is recognising that I can only control so much and that it's much less about delivering the perfect script in the perfect way with the perfect tone, so that my partner responds in the exact way that I want. That's really just me being controlling and manipulative.
[00:21:44]:
Right. It might be with the good intention of avoiding conflict or getting a need met, but it's kind of an overreach. Right. It's that over functioning. If I can just tiptoe around everything and do it in the perfect way, then I'll never have to rock the boat. So it's really an extension of my stuff, or your stuff to be doing it in that way. And so I really think the better approach is actually to just wade into the messiness of it and to be honest and open hearted and to share what you're needing to share and to be willing to be wrong or be willing to apologise, be willing to kind of see what happens in a conversation and be surprised, rather than needing to rehearse it a million times and putting this huge amount of pressure on yourself to curate the moment so that it plays out the way that you want, and then blaming yourself if it doesn't. Or blaming them because they're so unreasonable because you said it in the perfect way and they still got defend right.
[00:22:44]:
All of that is really. Even though, as I said, it's coming from a good place. I'm sure that is actually keeping you entrenched in the same patterns, because it's an extension of that part of you that just wants to eliminate risk and control everything rather than actually be vulnerable. So trust that with a level of open heartedness with a level of genuine curiosity. So, like, I'm showing up to this moment with totally fresh eyes and no expectations and I'm just going to see what happens and see what's here and ask questions and listen to the answers, right? I'm not going to coach you. I'm not going to try and steer you one way or the other. I just want to be in this moment, present with you and see what happens, see what might be different from that place. Because, as you will have heard me speak about before, so much of what we transmit to each other in particularly intense moments when our nervous system is really on high alert.
[00:23:48]:
So much of it is nonverbal and so much of it is way beyond anything we could ever write down in a neat script. So I think that recognising that so much of our communication is from the heart and from the body rather than the words that we say, and feeling into our responsibility there and recognising how powerful it is when we start to change the way that we show up in that respect and just trusting that we can figure it out. And that even though the person that we're in a relationship with might not always respond the way we want, that every response is based in some sort of need or some sort of pain or some sort of fear. And that if we really want to build healthy relationships that are based on deep compassion and security and care, that that's part of our responsibility, is to seek to understand our partner's pain and fear and sensitivities, rather than just trying to make them suppress that or convince them why they don't need to feel that way. Because it's uncomfortable for us. So I hope that that's given you some insights, something to think about, something to reflect upon and maybe some takeaways, if this is a dynamic that exists in your relationship and something that you can take into the next time you encounter this, because you will, it's still something that I encounter all the time in my relationship, in myself, in my partner. So it's not one of those things that we're just going to eradicate because it's a human thing, right? Defensiveness is a very, very natural response and it's more about understanding the why of it rather than needing to eradicate it or make it stop or make it go away. I think we just have to change how we relate to these things and how we respond to them.
[00:25:45]:
Because that's really where our growth lies and that's where we can make a lot of progress in our connection with each other. As always, I'm so grateful for all of you tuning in. For anyone who leaves reviews and ratings, I read every single one of them, and I'm so appreciative always for your beautiful words. So thank you and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:26:08]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment, relationships, avoidant partners, defensiveness, anxious leaning, conflict, communication, connection, understanding, compassion, self-worth, self-love, emotional needs, emotional hygiene, secure relationships, emotional awareness, emotional response, emotional landscape, communication skills, emotional regulation, vulnerability, compassion, relationship dynamics, nonverbal communication, insecurity, emotional wellbeing, sensitivity, emotional support, anxiety, self-reflection.