How to Stop Being So Defensive During Arguments

Here's a reliable way to tell that an argument has gone sideways: You started out discussing who was supposed to load the dishwasher, and you're now somewhere in the vicinity of a canceled dinner in 2019, your mother-in-law, or whether anyone in this household appreciates anyone else."It's like, ‘Wait, how did we get here?’" says Jessica Harrison, a couples counselor in Rhode Island. "That's a sign that somebody somewhere is being defensive."It can be difficult to recognize when you’re being defensive, because it rarely feels that way. It feels like accuracy—like you’re finally setting the record straight. Meanwhile, the actual problem—the one somebody worked up the nerve to raise—never gets solved. It’s now buried underneath four brand-new ones. As Harrison puts it: “Who can manage and conclude five arguments in one conversation?”The instinct to defend yourself isn’t a character flaw. It’s a protective reflex that can kick in when something threatens your sense of who you are. “We have the fight-or-flight response to protect ourselves from physical danger,” says Eli Kraiem, a clinical psychologist in New York who specializes in couples therapy. “But there’s also that same component to protecting our ego or our sense of self, which not everyone is as aware of.” In other words, a relatively ordinary complaint can feel like a verdict on who you are—especially when it comes from someone you care about. The alarm sounds, and suddenly you’re presenting Exhibit A for why you are, in fact, an excellent partner who does plenty around here, thank you very much.That protective instinct isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you need to set a boundary or protect yourself, says Dr. Jeff Katzman, a psychiatrist at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn. But when defensiveness becomes your default response during ordinary disagreements, it can take a toll over months and years. Partners drift apart while ostensibly discussing chores. Friends stop bringing things up. “Whenever we become defensive, we start to become more certain about our perspective, and we go to battle in some way,” Katzman says. “The more defensive we become, the lonelier we become.” The goal isn’t to eliminate defensiveness entirely. It’s to recognize it sooner, respond more thoughtfully, and know how to repair the conversation when you slip up. Here’s what experts recommend.Learn your body's tellDefensiveness often starts in your body before you even utter a word. Reuven Rosen, a couples therapist in Columbia, Md., asks clients: “What happened in your body the moment your partner said that?”The answers tend to be specific and physical. “There's going to be a knot in my throat, there's going to be maybe a tightness in my stomach, a tightness in my chest, maybe my heart's beating,” he says.These sensations are easy to overlook, but they can serve as early warning signs that you’re about to interrupt, deny, or fire back. When you notice your heart racing or your chest tightening, pause and ask yourself why you’re having such a strong reaction. That brief check-in can give you a chance to choose what to say next—instead of automatically going on the defensive. Ask what you're trying to protectOnce you notice yourself becoming defensive, reflect on this: “What am I actually trying to protect?” It’s probably not the specific point you’re arguing about. More often, it’s something personal—your belief that you’re a good partner, a dependable friend, or a competent employee. “When we're being defensive, we're ultimately trying to protect something, whether it's a value, a moral, our character, or our confidence in being able to do something,” Harrison says.Figuring out what feels threatened can quickly change the conversation. A request for more help around the house might come across like this: “You think I’m a bad partner.” But that’s not necessarily what the other person said—or meant. They might simply be asking you to take on more around the house.Harrison suggests asking yourself: “Am I protecting my character or my values right now, or am I actually listening to what this person is telling me?”Sometimes, you become defensive precisely because being a good partner—or friend or employee—matters so much to you. “It's a sign that they care so much that they're terrified of getting it wrong,” Harrison says.Trade certainty for curiosityDefensiveness has a way of making you feel absolutely certain: You’re right, they’re wrong, and if you could just explain yourself clearly enough, they would finally see it. But the harder you work to prove your point, the less attention you’re paying to theirs.Katzman, who has spent decades in improvisational theater alongside his clinical work, suggests doing the opposite. “The way out is not to think faster,” he says. “It's really to become curious sooner.”Improv offers a surprisingly useful model. Onstage, “blocking” means rejecting the premise your scene partner has introduced. If they announce that it’s raining and you insist that it isn’t, the scene has nowhere to go. “When we block each other, that's what defensiveness really does,” Katzman says. “I'm negating your reality, you're negating mine.”The alternative is the improv principle of “yes, and.” In an argument, that might mean acknowledging the other person’s experience before adding your own perspective. Another improv rule applies, too: “Make your partner look good,” Katzman says.That doesn’t mean agreeing with everything the other person says. It means remembering that you’re on the same team. “We're after understanding, not winning,” Katzman says. “The goal is to move from being certain to being curious.”Look for the 2% truthEven criticism that feels unfair, exaggerated, or badly timed often contains a sliver of truth. Kraiem calls it the “2% truth.” Finding that 2% can be difficult—especially when you’re busy cataloging the other 98% the person got wrong—but acknowledging it can quickly lower the temperature.Before you point out everything the other person has misunderstood, acknowledge the small part they got right. Say, for example, your partner accuses you of never listening. Your instinct might be to list all the times you did listen. Instead, try saying: “You’re right that I was distracted when you told me about your meeting tonight.” You’re not agreeing that you never listen; you’re acknowledging the part of the complaint that’s true. That can make the other person more receptive to what you say next.The challenge is resisting the urge to debate whether the criticism is technically accurate and focusing instead on the feelings behind it. “We focus more on the intellectual perspective,” Kraiem says, “as opposed to: How can I connect to this person and understand where they're coming from, even if it doesn't make 100% sense to me?”Retire "never" and "always"Certain words carry tiny invitations to fight. Two are especially potent: “never” and “always.”"When you default to these absolute words like ‘never’ and ‘always,’ you invite defensiveness in the other person," Katzman says. "They're just going to come up and try to prove you wrong." Tell someone they never do the dishes, and you’ve handed them a debate they can win on a technicality: They did the dishes last Thursday. Now you’re arguing about Thursday. The real message—”I need more help,” or “I need you to see everything I'm doing”—never gets delivered.The same goes for grievance-stacking. Adding a second grievance, then a third, then the thing from last month, doesn't strengthen the case; it simply creates more things for the other person to dispute. "Somebody winds up having to defend themselves on seven fronts," Katzman says, "instead of just staying with the one thing that you're trying to figure out."Reflect back before you explain yourselfWhen someone tells you that you hurt them, your first instinct might be to explain what you meant—or why they misunderstood you. But to someone who has just made themselves vulnerable, that explanation can sound like an excuse. It can also leave them feeling even less heard.Kraiem recommends starting by summarizing exactly what you heard the other person say, then checking that you understood correctly. Don’t repeat a few words and immediately pivot to your side. Instead, he suggests saying something like: “What I’m hearing is that after the ice cream spilled, I raised my voice and used words that hurt you, and that left you feeling alone. Am I getting that right?”This approach can also keep you from getting sidetracked into an argument about who said exactly what. Kraiem recently watched a couple spend several minutes going back and forth—”You said this.” “No, I didn’t”—before he stopped them. “Let's focus on the feelings that were felt in the room when this conversation happened,” he told them.Acknowledge the impact—even if you remember it differently When Rosen’s 10-year-old son told him that he had shushed him after he tripped on the stairs and cried out, Rosen immediately wanted to dispute that version of events: “That didn’t happen. That’s not how it went.”Then he noticed a dropping sensation in his stomach. When he paid attention to it, Rosen realized what the complaint had stirred up: a fear of how his son viewed him. Rather than argue about exactly what had happened, Rosen focused on how the experience had affected his son. “I’m sorry that that happened,” he told the boy, even though he didn’t remember it that way.You don’t have to agree that every detail happened exactly as the other person remembers it to acknowledge that the experience hurt them. And doing so doesn’t mean your intentions—or your version of events—don’t matter. It simply means they don’t have to come first. Once the other person feels heard, you can explain what you remember and what you meant.Keep a repair line in your back pocketSometimes the best thing you can do in the middle of an argument is stop trying to defend yourself and ask to start over. Be especially careful with the word “but”: “I see why you feel that way, but…” Everything that follows will probably sound like a rebuttal—and erase the acknowledgment that came before it.Kraiem suggests memorizing a few simple repair lines: “I can see why what I did landed that way.” “You're right—I see how I hurt you.” “Help me understand what I'm missing here.” His favorite, and the one he uses at home, is: “I'm sorry, can we try that again?”These phrases won’t prevent every argument or mistake. “We're not going to eradicate fighting or mistakes that we make,” Kraiem says. What they can do is help you recover—to acknowledge that something came out wrong and give both of you a chance to handle the conversation differently.Revisit the conversation afterwardYou won’t always realize you’re being defensive while the argument is happening. Once you’ve calmed down, return to the conversation and explain what was behind your reaction. Harrison suggests wording it like this: “I'm sorry I responded that way. I realize you were just saying you wanted more help. What I was feeling was that you were telling me I was a bad partner—and I know that's not what you were saying. But I want so badly to be a good partner that I felt like I had to defend myself.”Don’t rush back with an apology before you’ve figured out why you reacted so strongly. Otherwise, it can feel forced. “You're just kind of white-knuckling it,” Rosen says. Take some time to figure out what fear or insecurity was driving your reaction. Once you understand what you were defending, a sincere apology will probably come more naturally.Ask what you want from the conversationKatzman once found himself on the verge of arguing with a stranger at a restaurant. On a cold, windy night, he held the door open while his family walked inside. A woman seated near the entrance complained loudly about the draft. A waitress offered to move her, but she declined, saying she would be fine if “that man” would stop letting in the cold air. Then Katzman’s family was seated directly beside her—and she continued complaining.Katzman could feel himself preparing to respond. Then the woman’s husband caught his eye and winked.“He winked at me in a way that I felt like, oh, you see me,” Katzman says. “And I should see myself and wake up to the fact that I don't need to get into this argument.”Before you continue an argument, ask yourself: “What am I hoping to accomplish here?” If you’re trying to understand the other person or resolve a problem, the conversation is probably worth having. If you simply want to prove that you’re right, stepping away might be the better choice.Katzman still thinks about that wink when he feels himself getting pulled into an unnecessary argument. You can borrow it—or come up with your own cue that reminds you to pause and consider whether the conversation is worth having, he says. Sometimes the least defensive response is deciding not to argue at all.