It is essential to pay attention to how someone reacts when you confront them about an issue or concern. If they become defensive, angry, or hostile, it's a red flag. It's important to trust your intuition; if something seems off or feels wrong, it likely is.
Causes of Defensiveness
Feeling like others don't care enough about you. Being afraid of rejection. Having low self-esteem. Lacking confidence.
Research from 2020 suggested that people use defensiveness to give themselves a break when they do something wrong. A person may become defensive because they're: misrepresenting or forgetting what occurred. deflecting blame onto others.
You are blocking chances for growth and evolution. Relationships don't grow and mature because we do everything right. But because we make mistakes, recognise our mistakes, then together find way to troubleshoot and move forward. If you are always defensive, then this process never gets off the ground.
For example, a red flag might be when a partner forbids you from going to events without them. A yellow flag could be them becoming grumpy or angry when you do. Yellow flags are not necessarily a reason to end a relationship.
Irritability, suspiciousness, or defensiveness. Control issues, unwillingness to share duties. Unusually close association with vendor/customer. In 63% of cases, the fraudster exhibited red flag behavior associated with his or her personal life. 19%
Jealousy and possessiveness are red flags in men because they can indicate an underlying issue controlling behavior. First, jealousy can lead to negative feelings, while possessiveness is a way of controlling someone.
Defensiveness is a harmful and unhealthy emotional coping strategy that leads to personal and relationship dissatisfaction over time by avoiding bad feelings in the short term and not actually solving the problem.
There are two main types of narcissism: “grandiose” and “vulnerable”. Vulnerable narcissists are likely to be more defensive and view the behaviour of others as hostile, whereas grandiose narcissists usually have an over inflated sense of importance and a preoccupation with status and power.
In almost all cases, defensiveness is the result of emotional insecurity and fear. And when we feel insecure and don't know how to manage our fears—especially in the relationships where there's a lot at stake—we tend to fall back on primitive coping strategies like defensiveness to feel better.
A defensive person can be someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It can also be someone that is a regular victim of emotional abuse that is constantly criticized. A defensive person can also be someone that has low self-esteem or that has a difficult time listening to criticisms about themself.
Sometimes, defensiveness is part of a larger mental health problem such as a personality disorder, eating disorder, etc. A learned behavior. Defensiveness can also be something that you learn from a parent or spouse, as a way of relating to others.
An example of defensive behavior stemming from trauma is when someone has been through abuse in the past and has a hard time trusting other people because of it. So when their partner questions them about something, they lash out with defensive actions to keep others away so that nothing bad happens again.
Defensiveness is a coping skill — a response to a perceived attack or criticism. In general, there are two ways to respond: You can deny it, act out, attack, blame someone else, or. You can intellectually rationalize the perceived attack or criticism.
If you become defensive, even if it's just to protect yourself from getting hurt, you are not allowing your partner to understand how you feel, but came across as attacking or critical towards them. If you put up a wall to avoid feeling hurt, this prevents your partner from understanding your feelings.
They are sensitive but, often, their reactions to your comments are a defence mechanism. The two may feel the same to the person experiencing these feelings but, in reality, they are worlds apart.
Instead of communicating needs or stating a position using clear, concise, and non-combative language, a defensive person will rely on passive-aggressive statements that throw the argument back on their partner. Instead of explaining a point of view, all you're doing is giving your partner all new reasons to be angry.
Feeling defensive "is a natural self-protection mechanism that we have inside us", says Dr Kate Renshall, a clinical psychologist based in Sydney.
Defensive individuals don't like to “work through” emotional issues in the collaborative way adults are expected to. They can be highly impulsive and quick in their emotional reactions, without pausing to think things through in a balanced way. Finally, they tend to avoid too much emotional closeness with others.
Defensiveness is a behavior wherein one of the spouses is anxious about facing criticism or they tend to be overly protective of themselves. Most husbands or wives who are defensive do so in response to a threat (whether there is an actual one or it's something based on their perception alone).
They become defensive to prove the other person wrong or to let them know that they are the one being hurt or harmed. They do this because they fear being perceived in a negative way. However, becoming defensive will only create the feared result of being misunderstood or unfairly judged.
The biggest green flag on someone's dating profile is variety: plenty of pictures with friends, family – maybe even pets – so you can get a handle on who they are and how you could fit into their life (and also whether they have any good-looking friends who might suit you better).
Red Flag 1: You're doubting your own truth. Red Flag 2: You're questioning yourself excessively. Red Flag 3: You're feeling confused. Red Flag 4: You're frequently thinking you must be perceiving things incorrectly.
What are major red flags? Some red flags can be sorted out with conversation and therapy. However, some should never be tolerated. Major red flags are infidelity, gaslighting, controlling behavior, angry outbursts, and physical, sexual, or emotional abuse.