Emotional Defensiveness

Defense exists for a reason. Sometimes this protection is imperative for survival, sometimes it’s important to keep the other team from winning. This makes it complicated when we think about intimate relationships.  Do defenses keep us safe or do they prevent us from feeling true, deep safety- one in which defense is no longer necessary or required? In both of these examples of defense, they keep us apart from the other- they keep us separate.  Again, this is necessary in certain circumstances, like trauma or when we are in a competition.  But our intimate partners should represent the safest place for us.  So when we protect our hearts emotionally from pain, we also unintentionally push away the people capable of loving and comforting us the most. 

It makes sense why this happens, no one wants to feel sad or lonely or afraid.  It’s much easier to engage from a place of anger or frustration, or to hide away and isolate (though arguably, this also hurts). Taking the risk of opening to what’s happening for you on a deeper level gives your partner the opportunity to listen to you from their heart, and not fight back with their own defensive stance.  *The most predictable part of engaging from emotional defense is you will find your partner’s defense waiting.  Supporting one another in understanding those places in yourselves and in each other is one of the most powerful things you can do for your relationship.  When you find yourself in a moment of deep openness together, not needing/using your defense, you will be more open to find the love and comfort of safety with your partner.  

So next time you find yourself walking away from your partner, scoffing at them in anger or frustration, making demands or feeling trapped by theirs, ask yourself “is there something else going on for me here? Something more vulnerable that would be really hard for me to acknowledge even just within myself?” If the answer to that is yes, try to articulate what it is.  Hold yourself in compassion and ask your partner if they have the capacity to hear you on a more intimate level as your teammate rather than your opposition.