How Defensiveness Destroys Relationships

He’s alone again. Three relationships ended in five years. Same pattern every time: she wanted too much, he needed space, they weren’t compatible.

He’s telling himself the truth and he really does believe it.

What he can’t see is that he left before she ever did. His defence isn’t a response to her – it’s a preemptive strike. He leaves before he ever lets anyone get close.

The moment defensiveness takes over

One night she brings up something small – he said he’d call and he didn’t.

He starts giving her reasons. Work was crazy. He was going to call but got home late. But she doesn’t want reasons. She wants acknowledgment that her feelings matter.

In that moment, his narrative changes. She’s reading too much into things. Acknowledging that he was wrong is not an option for him, because if he’s wrong about this, maybe he’s wrong about everything. Maybe his judgment isn’t sound. Maybe he can’t trust himself.

His mind takes her hurt and rewrites it as danger. Her need for acknowledgment becomes neediness. Her vulnerability becomes weakness. And once his brain shifts into this pattern of thinking, everything she says confirms that she’s too much, she’s unreasonable, she’s trying to control him.

Reality bends to fit the story he’s already told himself.

She’s done this before, made him feel guilty for things outside his control. Why is she always attacking him?

By now, the original problem has disappeared, but there are two problems on the table, and none of them are hers.

The conversation ends with both of them exhausted. She’s learning that bringing things up doesn’t work. He’s learning that she’s the problem, not him.

The cycle keeps repeating. Small hurts accumulate. She stops mentioning them. The relationship becomes quiet. Safe.

Until it isn’t anymore.

When defensiveness becomes armour

At first, the distance confuses him. She’s pulling away. She’s not as affectionate. She seems distant.

He doesn’t connect this to the shutdowns. He reads it as rejection.

So he either pursues her, trying to get her back, needing reassurance that everything’s okay, or he withdraws further, protecting himself from the abandonment he feels coming.

Either way, she feels his desperation or his coldness. Both push her further away.

By the time it ends, he’s built his case. She checked out. She stopped trying. She wasn’t the one for him.

He doesn’t know that her distance was a response to his distance. That her withdrawal was self-protection after months of not being heard. That she didn’t leave him – she gave up on reaching him.

His pattern didn’t originate in his adult relationships. It was written long before he ever learned to love.

The fear that won’t let go

He wasn’t always like this.

Somewhere in his childhood, he learned that needing people was dangerous. Maybe a parent withdrew when he tried to be close. Maybe he became responsible for someone else’s emotions before he was ready. Maybe there was loss or betrayal that taught him: depending on people is how you get hurt.

He may have also inherited cultural messages– that self-reliance is strength, that vulnerability is weakness, that asking for help is failure. That a real man figures things out alone.

But this pattern isn’t unique to men. Women inherit similar armour, though it often shows up differently – culture as people-pleasing, self-sacrifice, hyper-responsibility. The mechanism is the same. The fear is the same. Only the mask changes.

These lessons made sense once. They probably saved him.

But they taught him to scan for threats even in intimacy. To see closeness as suffocation. To interpret his partner’s needs as evidence that he made a wrong choice.

His nervous system never got the message that he’s safe now. That some people stay. That being known doesn’t mean being destroyed.

So he keeps leaving relationships looking for the one where he won’t have to defend himself. But he carries the defence mechanism with him everywhere. It’s not about the woman. It’s about his wiring.

He’s not choosing this. He’s not trying to hurt anyone. He’s trying to survive a threat that ended decades ago.

The shield becomes the sword

The tragedy isn’t what happens to him. It’s what happens to the women who love him.

They spend months or years trying to reach someone who’s already left. Trying to prove they’re safe. Trying to love someone who’s convinced that love is a trap.

They get smaller. They stop asking for things. They become people who manage his moods instead of partners who share a life.

And when they finally leave because the loneliness of living next to someone who won’t let you in becomes unbearable, he uses it as proof. See? People do leave. People can’t be trusted.

He never realises that he was the one who pushed them out.

Still looking for the chink in the armour?

You cannot love someone into wholeness if they don’t believe wholeness is possible.

You cannot communicate clearly enough to overcome someone’s need to defend. You cannot reach far enough to close a gap that person is actively maintaining.

If you’re the one reaching, the one trying, the one believing things could be different, you need to know that it’s not your fault. Your honesty isn’t the problem. Your need to be heard isn’t unreasonable. Your willingness to work on things isn’t weakness.

His defence mechanisms are not your responsibility to dismantle.

At some point, you have to decide if you’re willing to spend your energy on someone who isn’t willing to do the work to receive you.

That’s not giving up. That’s the only thing that might actually wake him up.

And sometimes, that’s the only thing that might save you.

Defence mechanisms can shift, but only if someone stops defending and looks inward. The only relationship you can fully change is the one with yourself.