Defensiveness | Dr. Margaret Paul

“How Can I Get Him To Stop Hurting Me?”

By Margaret, on April 8th, 2013

Are you aware of the system you have created with your partner that may be causing you pain?

I have worked with couples for 44 years, and one thing I can tell you for sure: relationships are a system, and each partner has an equal part of the system. People come together at their common level of woundedness – their common level of self-abandonment. In many relationships, each partner is very aware of the other person’s end of the system, but completely unaware of their own end. They tend to trigger the other person’s wounded self with their own wounded self, but they often don’t recognize their own wounded self. Here is an example of this:

Allison asks:

“How do you suggest telling someone they’re doing something that hurts your feelings and to ask them to stop? My husband recently accused me of finding a way to blame my depressed feelings on him. He believes that I wake up in the morning feeling depressed and then try to find something to pin it on. My experience is that if he says something that bothers me and I don’t say something right when it happens or if he tells me I’m being defensive and I shut down, that I often wake up feeling resentful the next day, but when I tell him that I’m upset he gets defensive and tells me I have a problem.” Continue reading “How Can I Get Him To Stop Hurting Me?”

Do You Have The Courage to Learn About Yourself?

By Margaret, on July 2nd, 2012

Are you afraid to go deeper into personal growth and learning? Discover why this might be so and what you can do about it.

I’d had three phone sessions with Anika when I decided it was time to approach her about her intent. In my experience, she believed she was open to learning, but was completely closed to learning about herself. We were getting stuck because when I would reflect something to her about herself, she would get defensive, obviously feeling attacked by me. Continue reading Do You Have The Courage to Learn About Yourself?

The Myth of Explaining and Defending

By Margaret, on May 6th, 2011

“What’s the matter with you?”
“How could you do that?”
“Explain yourself, young lady/young man.”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Why are you late again?”
“What did you do to your hair!”

How often did you hear some variation of this when you were growing up? I heard it all the time. And what I learned to do was to desperately defend and explain in fruitless attempts to get my mom or dad to stop judging me and SEE me. Or I would apologize and become the “good girl,” so they would approve of me. Continue reading The Myth of Explaining and Defending