Why You Get Defensive With Your Spouse (And What to Say Instead)

0:00 So what do we do in a situation like this? What do we do when we bring our feeling to our spouse and perhaps our spouse is either trying to fix it or maybe our spouse is defending themselves? A lot of times, especially as a husband, I try to fix it. I wanna get, I just wanna fix it because I don't like the feeling of what Christy's experiencing and I'm like, I just wanna fix this thing. And I think there's a lot of men who can relate to this. But what we do when that happens is we make our spouse out to feel like a problem to be fixed. Or not even necessarily that our spouse feels like a problem to be fixed perhaps, but maybe a burden. It's like, let's just get through this. The world is competing for your time, attention, and identity. But

0:55 what if your greatest legacy is that you were famous at home? Hey guys, we had a great conversation related to marriage last weekend. I got a lot of comments and just great comments and helpful ones that you guys all put into the website. You guys kind of come back and just gave lots of feedback, which super, super helpful for us as we look at what topics matter to you all. And just please continue to do that.

1:29 Let us know. We love interacting with you guys. If you've not subscribed to our email, I love we send these episodes out via email. You can simply hit reply and come directly to me. And so even rather than going to the website, just sign up for the email. I'll put the link in the show notes there today for you to be able to sign up on the email.

1:47 Sign up on the email and you'll get the latest updates that we're having through Famous at Home, the latest things that we're learning online. And you get these and you can just simply hit reply and put out your feedback. Let us know your topics that you want us to cover and let us know how you're thinking through some of these topics that we're having conversations on. It's really, really awesome to be able to engage with you. You are our family and we just love being able to interact with you. So make sure you do that. Secondly, the other thing I want to talk about real quick here before we jump into today's topic is the 25 days of the Christmas story. It is coming up, guys. Christmas, the holiday season is here. If you have not gotten

2:26 a copy of this for your family, we would highly encourage you to do that. We put it in the show notes there today, but this really walks you through. It's an Advent family experience. You can start the first day of December, and you don't have to really start. It's 25 days, okay? It goes 25 days, and there's a character in each one. There's a prayer in there.

2:44 There's a life lesson. There's a character trait. There's family time questions, and there's a family activity for every day. And you can follow it to the T every day, or you can apply the ones that you want to throughout December as your family has time. It's really kind of put in the ingredients and stir and just kind of make it work for your family. But there's a lot of cool family activities here. And what it does is it teaches your kids the true story of Christmas and really gets into the biblical understanding of what each person means. all the way back to Isaiah, who prophesied God with us, Emmanuel coming. And so, yeah, we'd love for you to take a look at that book, and you can get a copy of that in the show

3:31 notes today. So, we had some good conversation related to marriage last week, and I want to jump in and continue that conversation just a little bit, because we are fighting for each other, not with each other. Now, you might find yourself fighting with each other more than for each other, But what I want to do is help you find ways to be able to fight for each other rather than with each other. By the way, one of the things that I did over the last little bit is, you know, we do marriage intensives and you can check that out in the show notes as well.

4:02 That's something that Christy and I do together. I also created and opened up some space for online marriage coaching as well. So if that's something you'd be interested in, you can check that out. That is a link in the show notes there today as well. We really want to serve you, serve your family, and figure out how to help you guys learn how to start fighting for each other rather than with each other because it's hard.

4:24 It is really hard, and today's topic is part of that because what ends up happening most of the time, and it really dovetails out of last week's conversation, related to How we start to, the first thing we do is we start to assume the worst about our spouse. And rather than assuming the worst about our spouse, what does it look like to start remembering the good of our spouse? Like remembering that the fact that our spouse is actually working hard, doing hard things, and pulling his or her own weight in the home. But what's hard about that is that we tend to assume the worst.

5:00 We tend to feel the overwhelm in our own lives. And then we ascribe meaning to that towards our spouse. And when we do that, this is what gets us in our pain cycles. And one of the things that we do in marriage intensives and coaching couples is identify a pain cycle in your own marriage. Now, the reason that this is important is because what I tend to find is is that, and what I want to talk about today, is what it looks like when we bring something to our spouse. What does it look like when we bring a criticism? Maybe we bring our own pain.

5:38 It might be a criticism. It might be our own pain. It might be my own feeling that I'm bringing to my spouse. And I just need to feel heard. I need to feel seen. The trouble is, is that when we do this, it tends to bring something up within our spouse, or if our spouse is bringing us the criticism, complaint, or their own feeling, then it brings up something within us that makes us get defensive, right? And so that's what spirals us into our pain cycle. And so What I want to identify is how do we cut through that and respond rather than react in those moments? How do we respond rather than react? Because what's happening is, is our nervous systems are in overload in that moment.

6:27 And in many cases, it's triggering something within us, the little boy or the little girl that has ascribed meaning to that feeling in the past. And we're reacting out of that past experience rather than perhaps what's happening in the moment. This is why we end up reacting the way that we do and perhaps even prescribing a meaning towards our spouse that is not necessarily true about them.

6:58 and then they feel it, and then that hurts them, and then it just, and around and around we go. So what is one of the ways to be able to do this? I remember a number of years ago, it's funny enough, this happened when we wrote the book Famous at Home. And by the way, this is our playbook for coaching families. You can check that out in the show notes today as well. What's fascinating about this is we were writing that book, and we were scheduled to go to a recording studio that had been scheduled for a while to record the audio version of the book.

7:32 And this was in like January. So it was in the middle of winter. Um, and this was a few years ago. So our little guy was super small. He was, he was, um, really only, I think, uh, I wouldn't even two years old yet. And then the other two were, were, were young and we homeschool. And so we, we, everyone's at home and, um, It's on a Monday, and I remember Christy standing there outside our home office, and she's standing there in her robe, and she looks at me and she said, I think I might be sick. And I was like, okay, here we go. And that whole week that she was sick, I had to cancel the audio book recording and I had to, she was sick for a whole week. And looking back, I believe she had COVID, you know? So she's like, you know, down

8:31 and out, like literally down and out for the week, which left me homeschooling. It left me managing work. It left me canceling all of these appointments that we had and rescheduling all these things. It left me, you know, caring for the kids. And I was alone in all of it. And of course I'm like, you know, like frustrated at the illness. But what ended up happening was, is that we get to the end of the week.

9:00 It's like Friday and I'm taking care of Christy. At least I feel like I am. And we get to like Friday and she's starting to, she's starting to feel on the men. She's starting to get better. And she comes to me and she says, you know, she said, I, I don't understand why whenever the kids are sick, you love and dote all over them. But when I'm sick, it's like you don't even care. Now, I want you to see something, okay? She brings me a criticism. She brings me her feelings, and her feelings are in the criticism.

9:34 And I immediately, what do I do? I'm like, are you joking me? After this entire week of everything that I did, managing all of this, work, homeschool, life, like all of it, I am getting accused, and I was taking care of her. It's not like I wasn't, but she didn't feel like I was. She didn't feel like I was loving on her. I probably took her... you know, some things here and there. Could have I done a much better job? Absolutely. I could have. Could I made her feel loved? Absolutely. I could have. But here's the mistake that I made. The mistake that I made is, is I just assumed that because she's an adult, that she was going to take care of herself, that she could take care of herself, that she was capable of

10:18 And so I was doing everything that I could to keep my head above water. And she was the one that I was like, she'll be good. She'll be good. I just got to get everything else in order. And to be honest, like there was fear in there, you know, because I'm like not working. You know, I'm hardly working.

10:35 I'm trying to manage all of that. And so... It really led into a pain cycle moment for us because I want to feel seen in the moment. I'm like, are you kidding me? This is what you're bringing? No appreciation for what I did the entire week? You're bringing me this? And she's like, well, wait a minute. You didn't even see me. You're not listening to me. And this is what ends up happening. And boom, and around and around and around we go. I think it was the next morning. we got to a place where, and by the way, I want to identify this. Throughout that week, you could feel the distance growing in our marriage. Like you could feel the relational connection starting to slowly dissipate.

11:22 And if we don't call that out into the light, Christy and I are so much faster to call that out in a light now. We call that out in a light every day. Like now we're like, we're constantly checking in. We're constantly doing 15 minutes. By the way, If you didn't listen to the 15 minutes episode from maybe a month or so ago, go back and listen to that exercise. That exercise is massive for this type of thing. We now do that and we don't let things linger this long as much. But we're sitting there on a Saturday morning. We're sitting in our sitting room.

11:51 And I remember Christy, I mean, this thing was lingering. This whole pain cycle was lingering. And I remember her sitting down and she said, Josh, she said, what were you feeling when I brought this to you? And at the time, we were going through Chip Dodd's book called The Voice of the Heart. Highly recommend it. Put it in the show notes today. He identifies eight core feelings that we have. And the idea that, and if you listen to the Famous and On podcast, for any length of time, you've heard me say this, that we do not...

12:20 believe that feelings are positive or negative. Feelings are neutral. They're there. What we do with them is positive or negative. So we experience emotion, we experience feeling, and we can either turn it into a gift or an impairment. And this is what Chip Dodd talks about. And he goes through the eight core emotions. And she had it sitting there and she pulled it in front of me and she said, what were you feeling this week? This is after, you know, we're trying to get to the bottom of it, right?

12:48 Like this is after now we've just exhausted the, well, you did this and you said this and that, right? So around and around in our pain cycle we go and we get to the core feeling. She said, what were you feeling this week? And as I'm pointing my finger down one of those, I realized that the feeling that I had throughout that week was lonely. It was lonely.

13:13 I was feeling lonely. lonely. And do you know what the impairment of loneliness is? Let me tell you the gift of loneliness. When we take loneliness and we use it for good, it leads to intimacy. When we identify it, when we name it, when we declare, hey, I just feel lonely this week. I feel left. I feel like, yes, it had nothing to do with you. It's not your fault at all. But in your sickness, I felt left behind.

13:45 I felt left to do all of this. And I felt lonely this week. The impairment of loneliness is apathy. What did she accuse me of? It's like you don't even care. Do you see what happened? We got to the bottom of it and we were like, oh, wow. And my immediate reaction was, I am so sorry, and thank you for hearing me. Thank you for seeing me.

14:14 Thank you for seeing my loneliness. It's not that I don't care when you're sick. It's that I felt lonely and I didn't fully know what to do with it. I didn't fully know to bring it to you. And you're like, wait a minute, you're the doctor here. You're the guy that talks about all this stuff. Listen, when we're in the moment Like this, it's for all of us, right?

14:34 We all need to pay attention to this because it happens to all of us. So what do we do in a situation like this? What do we do when we bring our feeling to our spouse and perhaps our spouse is either trying to fix it or maybe our spouse is defending themselves? A lot of times, especially as a husband, I try to fix it. I just want to fix it because I don't like the feeling of what Christy is experiencing. And I'm like, I just want to fix this thing. And I think there's a lot of men who can relate to this. But what we do when that happens is we make our spouse out to feel like a problem to be fixed. Or not even necessarily that our spouse feels like a problem to be fixed, perhaps, but maybe a burden. It's like, let's

15:25 just get through this. And the reality is, is that we need to name our opponents and our opponents to intimacy is what I'm referring to here, right? Like in that case, illness became an opponent to our level of connection and intimacy. Well, let's name the illness. Let's not make each other out to be the opponent. Let's name the illness and say, hey, the illness this week is an opponent to our intimacy and connection with each other.

15:52 Let's call that out. for what it is. And by the way, it's gonna put a lot on me. You're gonna feel, and all the things Christy's feeling. She's feeling bad because she's just laying in bed and she's not helping. She's seeing me work and do all the things. And of course she wants to be. It's not like she's lazy or she's not trying to help. She doesn't feel well.

16:12 And so this is what we end up doing though. And so what are some ways that we can enter in without getting into our pain cycles? What are some ways we can do that? Let me start with this one. Number one is this. When your spouse brings you a feeling, an overwhelming feeling, an accusation, a criticism, that sort of thing, respond with this one statement. Start with this one statement.

16:50 Tell me more. Tell me more about that. I want to understand it. There's a phrase, and it goes all the way back to St. Francis of Assisi, and then Stephen Covey picked it up a little bit later, but it's this. In order to be understood, we must first understand. In order to be understood, it's a golden rule with the word understand in it. In order to be understood, we must first understand. And by the way, this works really well with your kids too, right? It's like, I can't get my kids to to hear me and understand me if their brain is in emotional overwhelm, if they are in fight or flight, if their limbic system is turned on and they're in emotional overwhelm. Same thing with our spouse. I can't get Christy to understand where I'm

17:34 coming from if I first don't enter into her world, don't enter into her world and help her feel seen and heard and connected with. Which, by the way, means that the problem that needs to be fixed, so to speak, isn't the issue that you're arguing about. It is emotional disconnection. That's what we're really trying to solve here is how do we reconnect? How do we enter back into developing deeper intimacy and connection with each other? And so tell me more are your three best words that you can use.

18:15 And when you get to the end, when your spouse gets to the end of describing it all, another phrase you can use is, and what else? And what else? There comes a point at which perhaps you need to apologize for maybe how you came across. And by the way, one of the most powerful parts and components of this is giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt. Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt because the story your spouse is telling him or herself, whether it's real or perceived, is real to them. And so enter in. Now, what I'm not saying is you need to apologize for things that you did not necessarily do and over-apologize and, oh, I'm so sorry and give blank. Apologize and apologize for the specific offense. Be specific about what you're apologizing for

19:04 so that your spouse realizes, you know, I'm really sorry that I didn't make you feel loved this week when you were ill. And I could have done a better job of just sitting with you at times and rubbing your shoulders or I could have done a better job of maybe even sitting with you and watching a show together or just listening to how you're doing and listen to what you're struggling with. And I didn't do those things this week. And I'm really sorry that I didn't do that. As opposed to just saying, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't do that. Well, now I have to be able to see, like she needs to know what I was specifically sorry for and what it's connected to.

19:41 Because really being sorry is one thing, being remorseful is another. Okay. And so was I deeply remorseful? Yeah. And, but she needs to see that I was deeply remorseful and it's hard for me to understand what's going on in her heart. if I'm defending myself. And the reality is, is it took her. She's the one who originally came with the accusation and the criticism, and yet I'm the one spiraling out of control, which dismisses her feelings. She was the one that finally got to a point about 24 hours later where she entered into my heart first and said, what were you really feeling last week? In order to get to a place where I felt seen enough to enter into her world, right? And so it does take two,

20:25 but if I would have entered into her world first and said, Tell me what you were really feeling this week. Well, I felt unseen. I felt uncared for. Oh, tell me more about that. Well, you love the kids and you dote on the kids. It feels like more than dote on me when I'm sick. Okay, so tell me more about that. What didn't I do that you were hoping that I would do, right? Now all of a sudden, and what was the hardest part for you? A great question is what was the hardest part for you? What was the hardest part? You see, now all of a sudden what we're doing is we're entering in and we're getting a layer deeper. We're getting to a place where we understand the heart of our spouse because the Bible says,

21:08 guard your heart, it is the wellspring of life. We need to guard our one marital heart. We are one flesh in marriage, according to the word of God. We are one flesh. We need to guard that one marital heart. And in order to guard the marital heart, we have to be able to identify what's going on in our spouse's heart. But when we immediately jump to accusation and we immediately jump to a preconceived notion about our spouse's motives, what we end up doing is we stay on the surface and we don't get into the deeper understanding of, tell me what was really going on. And that's difficult to do right away. And it does usually take some time to kind of get there. But the more that you can practice this, hey, tell me more about that.

21:54 And what else? And what was the hardest part? Man, I am so sorry for the way that I showed up. I am so sorry. And I'm sorry about this specific thing. How can I make it right? How can I do better next time? How can I see you? How can you feel heard, right? I want you to feel seen and heard. The emotional disconnection is what we're, that's what we're screaming for in many cases. Our nervous system is screaming for reconnection in these moments, right? If we can remember that, there's a pathway to quicker resolution. Before we wrap up, I want to thank our sponsor, Bernhardt Watches.

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23:04 For the first time, they are offering $ 100 off a timepiece if you use the code FAMOUS at checkout. Check them out right now at Bernhardt Watch. That's B-E-R-N-H-A-R-D-T watch.com slash famous and use the code famous at checkout for $ 100 off your timepiece. One of the most helpful ways that you can begin to do this is have a feelings chart in front of you. Put it on your refrigerator.

23:32 Print one off from online. We have one in the Famous at Home book. You can also download it at our Famous at Home website. By the way, if you go to the Famous at Home website. I'll put it in the show notes. Sign up for the Famous at Home starter bundle. You can get the feelings chart. You can get 100 commonly held values. You'll get our whole workbook related to the Famous at Home book. I'll put that in the show notes there. But put a feelings chart on your refrigerator. Put it somewhere where you and your spouse can identify, hey, let's get to the bottom of this for a second. It's one of the most helpful ways to to be able to see what's going on in your spouse's heart rather than ascribing a motive

24:12 immediately and then defending yourself and getting self-protective in the middle of that process. And so I encourage you to do that. Also, I just want to say this, Living Legacy cohort is coming up for January, starting in January for 2027 for next year. So husbands, if you're interested in that, We really prioritize these concepts on being emotionally safe husbands, relationally warm fathers, and the part that we start with is how to hear the voice of God in our lives. What is our identity? What is your specific identity? How does God see you? And how can we hear the voice of God in our lives so that we can start praying into what is it that our wives need? What is it that our kids need?

24:56 Because we can coach all kinds of relational skills, But at the end of the day, the Lord knows what your spouse and your kids need. And whenever you start to experience the love of the Father for you, it gives you the ability to enter into your spouse's heart and life and your kids' heart and lives in a new way to love them. And it's really the great commandment lived out. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and strength, and love your wife and kids, your neighbor, starting with your wife and kids, as yourself. And so We start with the loving yourself part with the way God the Father loves us and us loving God himself and how that relationship as sons plays out and then what it looks like to live

25:44 out of that overflow. And so we'd love to have you in the Loving Legacy cohort. You can check that out in the show notes today as well. By the way, the emotion that I used today in my own life was loneliness. It was loneliness. and loneliness leads to apathy. Next week, I am bringing on a guest. Her name is Ann Summers-Hogue, and she is a researcher who just launched a study on parental loneliness in America and how we can circumvent it. Over 66% of parents report loneliness, and the reason this is incredibly important for our context is because parents report are the only persons where loneliness can be passed on. Lonely parents pass on loneliness to their kids. Lonely spouses can pass on loneliness to their spouse.

26:46 It's an overflow effect in the home, which is why we're seeing loneliness at epidemic levels. And this research is powerful. Ann Summers is a mother herself. She's become a dear friend. And I can't wait for you to listen to the data, to the research, and not just the data and research, but what does loneliness mean for you as a parent?

27:14 What are the interpersonal and intrapersonal ways that we define loneliness? Because loneliness is a blanket term But in her research, she breaks it down to help you understand what is your specific definition of loneliness. How do you experience it? And what are you doing to combat it? What's actually working?

27:33 What are the ways that we try to combat loneliness? What are the ways we try to fix it, if you will? And what works and what doesn't? So I cannot wait to introduce you to Ann Summers next week. So make sure that you stay tuned for that. And keep in mind until next week that the greatest red carpet you will walk is through your front door. Thank you for listening to the Famous at Home podcast. If this episode was helpful for you, would you consider sharing with a friend, a coworker, a family member? And go wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review.

28:12 This is how people find out about it. And if you're interested in any of our coaching programs, check out famousathome.com or the show notes for more information. Keep in mind that the greatest red carpet you will ever walk is through your front door.