How to Stop Being Defensive in Your Relationships in 10 Steps - TWR Podcast #92

I love you guys! You are awesome! Thank you for your wisdom

I'm so glad, I found you guys. Y'all help me you get out of emotional absuvie relationship. With the tangligble useful tools to practice and language to describe my experiences. You're my favorite podcast on youtube right now. I watch all your episodes, Keep going! you're authencity has help me feel less alone. Love you guys

I am very defensive. I did not know about this flaw until it was brought to my attention by my husband. It seems I have been defensive my entire life. However, I am usually not aware. If I am told not to do something, I will listen. If I am told that I did something that to me, I did not do, I will feel attacked and the need to defend. this is all very frustrating.

Wow this was so good! 😢

I just discovered this channel. Thank you. I needed this in my life

John from UK. I have just discovered this channel and it’s like everything I have ever needed to know about myself and giving me insight in overcoming the issues I have carried with me and struggled with nearly all my adult life. The informal and sometimes light hearted real life approach is so refreshing. These two professional guys are sharing with us decades of experience and knowledge. If you need advice on improving your relationships then start by listening to what they are sharing and start with yourself and the need to understand yourself. I am going to watch the whole series in the next few weeks. JT

Feels strange, hearing the word reality being used to describe emotion.

Learned a lot from you guys the last past weeks, many thanks. I was curious if you could do a postcast about ADD/ADHD in relationships.

Where’s the vids? Y’all literally saving my life rn 😂

13:20 "I'm not having this conversation with you" is not a boundary in this context, yes. But. Your audience is learning, meaning, they don't know this yet, and don't know the full context (which in my opinion you provide, but I think that they'd need repetition and thinking over - not only hearing out - to connect the dots). I really appreciate that you mention confusing boundaries with defensiveness! This is so important. But I'd love even more if you said it in a way that can't be weaponized by a person who has low self-awareness. Because next time their "victim" puts a real boundary of being away from a person who just wants to pour toxic shit on them (which is totally valid, nobody needs to hear e.g. deflection about themselves), they will say "this is not a boundary, you just don't want to talk to me because you know you're wrong, you're defensive and avoidant / stonewalling". The problem with people with immaturity, or still insufficient self-awareness, is they easily pick up things like that and use it to support their defensiveness - to attack other people. It's so much easier than destroy this wall they've built - it's not them vs rest of the world. They are also outside the wall and need a huge amount of humility first before themselves to get through that. Otherwise they'll just use the information as bricks. Defensive people love deflection and mirroring. This is a manipulation that puts all their faults as a projection on the other person. And the problem is, the other person can't really straighten this, the blame is already devalued, word vs word. Trying to explain facts is pointless as they're already in a fight mode and want to crush you to protect their ego, and are reluctant to accept facts - because they usually can't self-regulate. They will use pseudo-logic as another brick if you bring that up. So. The 'victim' HAS to put a boundary of protecting themselves in contact with a defensive person. Nobody should be a witness to that nasty outburst. So when a learning "defensor" encounters this information, I'm almost sure they will use it against the person they're hurting. Because it's always 'the other person' who is wrong and doesn't want to accept that, it's always 'the other person' who never apologizes, always 'the other person' who lacks empathy etc. This is the definition of being defensive. It's a doom loop because when they can't swallow truth about themselves (first rule: protect your ego) and it's present, they'll just stick it to anyone else and project. Especially because of what you're also saying at 19:00, they don't recognize their feelings = they don't care what others feel, it means they have a potential of completely dismissing the other person, so even natural empathy (which evolved to keep us safe - in group) won't help here, it's a self-sabotage, they don't care if they hurt someone, all they think of is "don't take the blame, don't own it, don't take the responsibility". They'd rather train the other person to shut up and not speak up ever again, because this way they can't push their bullshit. They don't care if someone unheard, invalidated is miserable because of them, because it's not their feelings to face. It's so convinient just to ignore the fact people are anxious because of you, as long as there is no confrontation and you don't have to be challenged. If they fail at facts, they'll attack personally, anything to avoid owning up their stuff. They are a bad person, despite their pain, because they're choosing to be one. A bad person is someone who hurts others and does nothing to stop that because doesn't care about it. And they can choose to stop being a bad person, work on themselves. It's not so demanding to change your attitude and openly talk "I recognize I'm defensive and that it hurts you. I'm educating myself and trying to build awareness and eventually stop that". Costs nothing to break the "bad person" label. Seek feedback yes but also take initiative to do a follow up, be proactive, don't sweep things under the rug - apologize properly (validate how you hurt the other person, that you regret that and how you're going to fix it), for the past and every time you slip back. You've probably built a LOT of resenment in people and only changing your behavior won't fix that. I dare any defensive person to agree with "I'm a bad person" and go from there. I used to be one too.

I have been looking for clear practical steps that feels like I can remain authentic and true to me to navigate relationship communication in a respectful way for both people for a while. I really appreciate that this is delivered in a way that projecting labels on the other person to justify defensiveness for our own wounds and our reactions is not used. Thank you for tools to get to the root cause of defensiveness that can have me empowered in all my relationship communication . PS the 'potty humour' feedback you mentioned- I love that way you both talk, keep the 'potty humour' :-)

For a podcast about not being defensive, it certainly felt like your response to the negative viewer comments was a significant amount of justifying and, dare I say, defensive. I really love the advice you guys give and I'm not knocking the content. I just feel like maybe you could have saved the viewer comment piece for a different podcast because it could lead to viewers having a harder time trusting the rest of the message. Just my opinion. Keep up the good work!

Just found you two - watched 3 podcasts back to back - loving you!! So honest and so brilliantly human as you deliver such brilliant content! Thank you - I have many hours of listening to look forward to. Btw lmb 😂😂

If you read the comments, I say thanks for these channel. It’s refreshing and you say things in layman’s terms but also have excellent materials. Any episodes or links to ending a marriage with composure and no ill will.

Thank you for this thorough break down. I've struggled with this in relationships my whole life and sadly it's taken this long to finally seek change with it. Will be watching your channel more often for more help with my relationship

Thank you guys so much for this! I am so defensive I felt defensive even clicking on this episode 😂. Thanks to you guys I am not in a better place to accept my wounds and heal from them

Thanks guys. Love the party humor shoved in-between the lessons. I had to forward the podcast to my ex. HOPEFULLY SHE WILL TAKE YOUR ADVICE !

How do we approach or bring up to partner that they might really benefit from listening to this video on defensiveness without them getting defensive to me and causing a fight?

You do not have to use curse words and still be real and authentic!

Thank you for this ❤