How to Navigate Conflict When Your Partner Feels Attacked

If you're feeling alone and frustrated in navigating conflict with your partner because they tend to get defensive, this episode is for you. 

Tune in to learn:

• Why your partner might be feeling attacked,
• What to consider when you communicate about issue that are important to you to help the message land better, and
• What you can do when better communication tips aren't helping.

Want to take the next step in healing your relationship patterns?

• Book a Relationship Coaching Consultation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Life can sometimes feel like a lot, but you don't have to do it alone. I strongly believe that we're stronger together. Here we're gonna slow down, have real talks, make sense of things together, and explore ways to intentionally grow the life you want. We're going to talk about mental and physical health, relationships, money, work, and community. Welcome to Rooted in Intention with me, Garina Gomez. Hi, welcome back. I'm so delighted to have you listening. I'm taking it that if this episode called to you, you're having a really hard time connecting with your partner and feeling like they are hearing you out when you bring something to them. It's like you end up talking about almost everything except the issue that you actually wanted to talk about. So you end up talking about how you always bring up some type of issue, how you can't leave them alone, how you're always criticizing them. And that ends up leaving you feeling alone in the conversation and a little bit sad that things don't change because no matter what you're doing, it's like they can't hear you out, and you just want them to hear you out. So although you might be frustrated by your partner's reactions, you also still have hope that they can do something different, that you can do something different. And I imagine that that's why you clicked on this episode. And if that's the case, you're in the right place. Because in this episode, I'm gonna be diving into offering you some insight about what might be going on for them. Although you might already have a little bit of an idea. I'm also going to be sharing some communication do's and don'ts. And please stay with me here because the way that you're presenting issues might be contributing to your partner feeling attacked. But then we're also going to be diving into some tips for how to communicate so that you can increase the likelihood that they are receptive and ultimately that you get heard when you share something. And then lastly, I'm also going to be sharing what are some things that you can do if you have tried not just these communication tips, but other communication tips, and your partner is still getting defensive when you bring things to them because I know how frustrating it can be for you to be trying a lot of things on your end and feeling like you can't move the needle. Okay, so the first point that I want to make is especially important because I'm not in the room with you. I don't know about the specifics of your relationship. I don't know what's been going on for how long it's been going on, what you've tried. So I just really want to remind you that the other person's reactions are largely about them. It's about their wounds, their inner worlds, and the meaning that they're attributing to things. And you probably know this. You witness it when you say something and your partner takes it completely out of context. And I've been there. I once had a partner where I asked if they could put the cap on the toothpaste, and they responded with, oh, I must be so disgusting. And they got really upset, and that situation ended up escalating a lot more than it needed to. And I was just left very confused and I was like, What? That's not what I said. I didn't even come close to calling you disgusting. And that's a perfect example of how someone's wounds show up. So if you haven't thought about it like this, I want to back up a little bit because we each have a set of core beliefs and core wounds that live within our subconscious mind. And many of these beliefs we acquired during childhood and they were strengthened with experiences as we move through life. And so what's happening is that these beliefs or these wounds are acting as this filter through which we see the world, which is influencing the perspective that we take on things. So, in the example that I gave, for instance, if my ex-partner would have dug into his own internal experience, he could have begun unraveling that painful meaning that he was giving to my request. And the same goes for you. You also have your own set of core beliefs and core wounds that are adding meaning and stories to the things happening in your life, to what your partner does or doesn't do. But with that said, I don't want you to get fixated on trying to decode your partner's inner world. That's not your responsibility, but you're in a relationship. So naturally, I would imagine that you'd want to extend some compassion and empathy to your partner. And that's the point of understanding this. It's so that you can practice more compassion and empathy for your partner. Now, of course, don't do this at the cost of your own well-being, but I'm gonna get to that point later. For now, I'm gonna move us on to the next part that I wanted to cover, which was communication do's and don'ts. And I'm really gonna start off with some of the don'ts because the way that you're sharing information might realistically be contributing to your partner feeling attacked. And I know, hear me out. If your brain is going to, nope, it's all of them, and there's some level of thinking that you're doing everything right, that's an opportunity to notice that those are your own defenses playing out. And think about it like this is your brain trying to protect you from thinking that you're doing something wrong? Or another question to consider is what are you making it mean that you might be contributing to the problem? Again, I'll get to some suggestions if you have tried all of the things on your end, but I'm not there yet. For right now, I want you to just remain open to the possibility that the way that you're communicating is contributing to the defensive cycle. To help paint a picture around this, going back to my toothpaste example, for instance, realistically looking back, I was likely making a lot of one-off requests, like, hey, can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? Where instead I could have sat with myself and recognized that my requests were a part of a larger pattern of what I needed from my partnership. What I was really needing was to have a conversation about how I was feeling around the division of chores and the responsibilities around the house. I was needing to feel supported and see more intentionality on their end for caring for our shared space because my peace of mind was heavily influenced by the environment. From my upbringing, like a lot of women, especially Latinas, I was trained to see the mess. I was punished for not taking care of the mess. So I learned to take care of the mess because only like that did my brain and my body feel at ease. Do you see how, even in that, how my own subconscious beliefs and wounds were playing out? With with all that said, I can now see how my accumulated one-off request contributed to my partner's frustration and defensiveness. Now, that doesn't excuse them from having had to sit with themselves to recognize how the way that I was asking things of them was impacting them and sharing that they needed for me to communicate things differently. But more than anything, this perspective allows me to see how I was a part of the cycle as well. And hopefully this helps you see as well how you might be contributing to the defensiveness cycle. So whether you find yourself in a similar situation, in a similar experience where you could see now that you're not clearly communicating what you're needing and you're relying on these one-off requests that might be leading to your partner getting frustrated and more likely defensive, or if you are communicating in ways that are more obviously harsh and critical, which if you're doing, you probably know that you're doing it. So that now brings me to what are some ways that you can communicate better to help increase the odds that your partner is going to be more receptive to what you share? And there are three things that I really want to highlight. The first one is to start off just getting curious with yourself, especially if there's a recurring thing that your partner is doing or not doing. What is that particular issue bringing up for you? What are you truly needing? Are you needing more uninterrupted quality time together? Are you needing more intentionality from them in leading the care of the home? Are you needing more regular date nights? Are you needing some time for yourself? What is it that you're needing? Because if you don't have that clear understanding for yourself, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to ask your partner for what you're needing and for them to actually meet your expectations if you're not communicating clearly around them. The second thing I want you to consider is to really just try to reground yourself so that you don't go into conversations with charged energy. And I know this isn't always going to be possible because things happen, but when you can try literally discharging any pent-up energy with some movement, going out for a walk, shaking it off, dancing, whatever feels good to you that literally moves that energy out of your body. Another thing that you can try is to actually go inwards to gain an understanding of what painful meaning your brain is giving to the situation. Because remember, we all have our own core beliefs, our own core wounds that are adding this filter to our reality, and you might be seeing things through a much more painful filter. So try to bring some awareness to what's going on in your own chakalaka because remember that you're co-creating the environment with another person. So if you do your part in coming in centered, that's gonna go a long way. Once you've done those two things and you have clarity for yourself and you have already regrounded and re-centered yourself, the third thing that I want you to consider is to lead the conversations with vulnerability and check in are you actually showing up vulnerably? Because vulnerability is gonna be the key for creating connection and it's gonna be that bridge and that glue for helping both you and your partner tackle the problems together rather than feeling like it's one against the other, because it's so much easier and it's less vulnerable to say something like, you obviously don't care, than to pause and actually open yourself up and say something like, Hey, I've been feeling alone and I'm tired and I'm feeling really disconnected from you and I'm needing your help thinking through something that feels really heavy for me. Can you feel how the ladder feels a lot more vulnerable and open? And so if you haven't been leading with vulnerability, that's one of the things that's really going to help you create that environment where the other person doesn't have to put up walls of self-protection because you're not attacking them. You're focused on how things are impacting you, your inner world, your experience, and what you're needing from them. And if you're wanting even more pointers on how to communicate, I have an earlier episode, so you can go check that out as well. But I'll leave you with these communication tips for now. And I'm now gonna go into what you can do once you have tried all of these things and your partner continues feeling attacked and getting defensive when you bring things up to them. So this is where boundaries come into play because I recognize that you can only do so much on your end, and sometimes the other person's wounds are going to run really deep. So they're going to continue putting up that self-protecting wall, and only they can lead their own healing if they really want to address the root of what's coming up for them. So for the boundaries piece, I want you to keep in mind that these are going to be very individual to you because only you know your relationship and only you know your own capacity. And this is one of those areas where I really wish that my therapist would have spent a lot more time on because this is how I actually came to find attachment-based relationship coaching, which I guess ended up working out anyways. But because in my therapy sessions there was so much more focus on communication, I ended up feeling like I was really depleting myself, trying to find the right way to say things, trying to find the right ways to maneuver around my partner's triggers. And I ended up feeling like I was just getting lost in the relationship, and I don't want that for you. So I want to share with you what I wish I had learned earlier. So if you've honestly tried to do as much as you can on your end from going into conversations more grounded, working on how you're communicating things, ideally, even with some type of professional, because I know sometimes we think we can be communicating effectively when sometimes that's not the case. But if you've been trying to do these things and you continue to see a defensive response from your partner, that's definitely a relationship pattern that's worthy of being discussed on its own. So I'd suggest that you communicate about this with your partner using the same tips that I mentioned earlier. So that can look like saying something like, hey, I've been noticing that our disagreements tend to escalate a lot more than they need to. And I don't want that. I want us to have more peaceful conversations, but that's been feeling really hard for me because I feel alone in our conversations when I try to bring things up to you. And it seems that no matter how I phrase things, I get a defensive response. And that's really starting to weigh on me. And once you've started that conversation, you can really go in a few different directions from there, depending on what it is that you're wanting and needing. So maybe you can start off by inviting them into solving this issue with you and asking them what they think if they see this as a pattern. You can also be very direct and forthcoming and let them know that you want them to look into some resources and into some support that can help guide them to do things differently. Some other things to keep in mind for yourself are really ask yourself, are you contemplating leaving the relationship if things don't get better? Because if that's the case, share this with your partner. Another question to ask yourself is Is this relationship actually pretty young and you've come to the realization that this isn't the right relationship for you? Because if that's the case, that's valid as well. Just make sure to communicate that with the other person because ghosting isn't fun for anyone, and honesty is the best policy. So to wrap everything up, and hopefully, if you have one takeaway from this episode, let it be that you have options, that you have options to show up differently, you have options for how to communicate differently, you have options for what to do if you have tried all of the things and your partner continues to chronically get defensive and it's impacting your well-being because you absolutely have the right to do what you have to do to take care of your own wellness as well. And if you andor your partner are doing the same thing over and over again and you're ready to do something different, but you're needing a little bit of help, let's connect to talk more about your specific situation and see what we might be able to do together so that hopefully you can create the loving relationship that you truly desire and want and deserve. And you can connect with me using the link in the show notes. Okay, that's it for this episode. Bye-bye. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Rooted in Intention. Until next time, and remember to keep showing up for the life, relationships, and community you want. Now go.