Why is my husband always so defensive? It's so easy to p**s him off-have to word things so carefully?

Question

when I'm trying to tell him he did something wrong, or something that will disappoint him in anyway.... he just gets so defensive so quickly and I hate it. I'm not used to that at all. I am very patient....(usually because I'm scared that if I am not patient, he'll be 'mad' at me....). he's quiet a lot especially if he's 'mad' (e.g., I said something slightly 'wrong' etc.). I've always thought he's passive-aggressive...

Answer 1

My father is exactly the same (with my mother, and everyone else in the family). It's a personality trait, as living with him almost all my life, there seems to be no "reason" behind it. But I believe lack of communication, stress and an accumulation of emotions can -worsen- this trait. The key is to communicate MORE. The more you shy away, the more you are encouraging him to act this way. I've seen it first hand with my parents, so I'm just telling you what I know. Things are better with them once they took marriage counselling, but you can take it early on.

Answer 2

I suspect part of why he gets resistant to your suggestions/criticisms etc. may be that in your mind you have diagnosed him with a severe personality disorder ("passive-aggressive"...may we assume you have certification in psycho-diagnostics?). You do not say you are his therapist, but you sound like you want to be.

I suspect you have used the actual words with him, calling him resistant, defensive, maybe even passive-aggressive. I would get pissed or deathly quiet too, if someone treated me like that or talked to me that way. You say you are "very patient." Reading between the lines, I suspect that is not true at all, and you communicate clearly to him that you are not only NOT patient with his ways (which you want to change and improve) but are quite dissatisfied with him and disappointed that he does not live up to your expectations.

All of what I have said could be said to every married couple I have ever know. And that is that husbands and wives carry in their minds an "ideal image" of the "perfect" partner. They make the mistake of applhying that image to their actual, real-life partner, and of course they find that the partner doesn't live up to that image! So of course they are disappointed...as you are, of him.

What do people do whose partners don't live up to their expectations of them? Why, they try to correct and change andimprove them, of course! Which is what you say you are doing. And so he clams up, and in his mind carries on a conversation with himself. It's probably something about how he can't do anything right, that you only want to change him into somebody he isn't and can't be, that he's always wrong, that he never satisfies you...and so on.

You need to be very careful with all this. Your job is not to be a better Mom than his mother was, or to correct his faults, or to be his therapist and "fix" him somehow. Stop treating him like an errant or naughty child, or worse, like a man who fails in everything he does.

Watch it, or you'll soon find yourself without him. He may just wake up one day and say, "I've had enough of this; time to move on and get back some good feelings about myself to replace the bad ones I get in my marriage."

You and your husband need to enter marriage counseling soon. You are describing what 99% of the couples I've counseled in the past 50 years had as their basic problem: Being disappointed in their partner.

--  Dr. Bob, Adlerian psychologist & marital therapist

Answer 3

Don't take this the wrong way but there might be more to it. He might be looking for reasons to be mad at you because he is not happy with himself. I don't know either one of you so I can't really say. how long have you been married? Have you been having problems lately? I could be a combination of things. You have to clear the air though so that you are not walking on egg shells all the time. That is no way to live. Marriage is about communication so try and talk to each other and figure out what's going on with him so you can both work on it together. Good luck!

Answer 4

u guys need a vacation. lots of work and stress does that to ur mind. u start getting annoyed by little things. talk to him only when he wants to. Dont ask him questions all the time (It pisses me off too). too many people ask me stupid questions like they were born yesterday.  

Answer 5

That is not how a husband treats his wife. He should have the ability to tell you things upset him in an even tempered manner. This problem my be deeper then you think. He may have an anger problem that might need to be treated, especially if it's affecting your marriage.

If he gets defensive about you talking about his defensiveness, then I think it is time to start regular therapy sessions to combat this problem.  

Answer 6

My answer is;

He might have been highly criticized as a child. That would make him defensive. I know it did me. You need a moderator, uninterested third party, aka counselor so to help the both of you through this communication problem.

Good Luck!

hope my answer helps

Answer 7

I really think you are dealing with a cultural problem, you seem to be more influenced by American culture, the behavior you describe would indicate that. Women are considered equals, and their criticism is excepted.

As I understand this is not true, in the cultures that are Muslim. It certainly is not here in Indonesia. The man is the "Boss", and that is to be excepted.  There is no room for the womans input. If this is the case then, a conversation with you paster may be called for. You did not say if you husband was a Christian also. Marriage counselor would be money well spent.