Have you ever tried to tell someone they were doing something you don’t like, or that they were just outright wrong, but they turned it around on you and put you on the defense?
i.e. “Why are you asking me if I called my ex last night? Why do you always overreact when I make a phone call? Do you pay attention to every single thing I do? Maybe you’re the one talking to your ex and you don’t want me to find out!”
The original question never gets answered and you are immediately put on the defense so that the other person can avoid the subject altogether.
This type of verbal manipulation is often found in emotionally abusive situations and causes the victim to never get closure for anything they bring up.
Here’s a more detailed version of the above example:
Bill: “That was a coworker on the phone. Why do you always overreact?”
Mary: “You’ve lied to me before so how am I supposed to believe you this time? When I’m on the phone with a coworker, I don’t leave the room and whisper into the phone. If I lied to you in the past, I would care enough about your feelings and be completely transparent about all my phone calls.”
Bill: “If you cared about my feelings, you would start trusting me again. You’ve hidden things from me before. You’re not so transparent when you listen in on my personal phone calls. It makes me wonder what other sneaky things you do.”
Mary: “What? I care about your feelings! I don’t hide things from you. I’m not sneaky! When am I sneaky?”
After that, Bill would get into all the things Mary’s ever done that he can use as ammunition against her. He wants Mary to spend all her time and energy defending herself instead of focusing on Bill’s behavior.
It’s a clever strategy and it works very well in arguments. But it’s not a very nice thing to do.
In this example, the strategy works because Mary doesn’t want to be seen in a bad light. She feels the need to make sure Bill knows she is honest and that she is not the problem so she spends her time and energy trying to convince him. Though he already knows she is honest, he just uses this tactic to cause her to put her guard up and keep her focus off his misbehavior.
Mary’s original point got completely washed away when Bill activated his strategy. She was suspicious of Bill’s phone call, and for good reason:
Bill has betrayed her before.
But she will never get a resolution in that conversation because Bill knows how to trigger Mary into a defensive stance. This puts Bill in control and leaves Mary wondering how the heck she can regain her footing in the conversation.
Instead of Bill wanting Mary to feel good about his interactions with other people, and show her that he is willing to be as transparent as she needs, he instead triggers her, causing her to be more vulnerable making her focus on her own emotions and state of mind.
When you’re in conversation with someone who knows how to shift you into a defensive place like that, you will lose almost every time.
Tune into the Love and Abuse podcast to help you learn how to navigate difficult relationships
But there is a way to thwart this.
You need to withhold your emotional triggers.
When someone knows your triggers, they’ll aim for those triggers every time they want have power over you. They’ll know exactly what to say to make you upset, putting you on the defense so that they don’t have to worry about explaining their behavior.
You’ll be so preoccupied trying to protect yourself and trying to convince them that they are wrong about you, that the main topic of conversation will be shoved aside maybe never to be revisited.
I had a client once who was married to a master manipulator. Anytime she made a good point that made it clear that he was responsible for the problem he created, he twisted her points and made her feel completely powerless and at fault.
How often does that happen in life?
A lot actually.
Most of us, if not all of us, have been around someone that has the ability to turn blame and accusation around so that we have to defend ourselves instead of making the other person answer for their behavior.
The trick to making sure this doesn’t happen to you is to stay focused on your original point.
Do not go anywhere outside that point until you get a resolution from them. In other words, even if the other person triggers you and you want to snap back or defend yourself, or you want to make them aware of their “misunderstanding” of you, don’t.
Once you get your original point stated, and hopefully responded to and resolved, then you can have your trigger moment.
Save your defensive comments until after your original point is resolved.
That’s it – that’s the formula.
And yes, this is often very hard to do even though the solution sounds simple.
Using Bill and Mary’s example, if Mary stayed focused and chose to withhold her triggers until later, the conversation may have gone something like this:
Bill: “That was a coworker on the phone. Why do you always overreact?”
Mary: “You’ve lied to me before. I want to know that you care enough about our relationship to be completely transparent about everyone you talk to.”
Bill: “If you cared about my feelings, you would start trusting me again. You’ve hidden things from me before. You’re not so transparent when you listen in on my personal phone calls. It makes me wonder what other sneaky things you do.”
Mary: “Just answer my question, who was that on the phone?”
This conversation may still not go Mary’s way because Bill is a seasoned pro at manipulation, but if Mary stays focused on her original intention (to find out who was on the phone), she may finally get an answer.
It may not be the answer she likes, and it may not even be an honest answer, but at least she will have stayed out of the rabbit hole of defensiveness.
When you spend your energy defending yourself, you’re not going to have any energy left over for your original argument. The conversation will end, you will be spent, and you will walk away with that ‘unfinished business feeling‘, never achieving closure.
Don’t go down the rabbit hole of defensiveness.
The rabbit hole appears when the person you’re talking to wants to shift your focus onto something you did or the way you “always behave” so that you waste precious energy defending yourself.
Don’t take the bait!
The rabbit hole is death to your emotional state and it is very, very difficult to climb out of. You may not always “win” the argument, but at least you won’t lose yourself in the process.
This is not an exact science, and there will always be tactics that some people use that will fool the best of us. But when you learn to keep your focus, and don’t lose sight of your original intention, you keep your power – even if you get nowhere in the conversation.
For more about being in a consistently defensive state, tune into this episode of Love and Abuse.
