What is a defense mechanism?

Simply put, it's a way for something to defend itself from outside threats. Your email has a defense mechanism called a password, which keeps outsiders from just opening up your account and rummaging around. Having locks on your car door's and home's entrances are defense mechanisms against theft or intruders.

We as humans have built-in defense mechanisms as well. If you slip and start to fall, your hands immediately go out to grab the pavement. This is a defense against your more vulnerable and vital areas of the face and head being hit. When we're in a frightening situation, we get that "fight or flight" response where our body starts to pump the heart harder in order to send more blood and oxygen to the important muscles of the legs, in case we need to choose "flight." These types of defense mechanisms are typically automatic and things we rarely even think about.

Oftentimes we have defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from emotional harm or damage as well. If we're vulnerable emotionally, someone might take advantage of our vulnerable state and make fun of us, reject us, or in some way use that to our damage and their advantage.

Thinking of how we ourselves are imperfect and have contributed to the problems in a marriage can be very frightening, as our first response is to get those defense mechanisms up and save our dignity, our pride, and so on. But this is counterproductive to solving the problems in a marriage, and if you are doing something to create or contribute to those problems, wouldn't you want to know what those things you're doing are so you can correct them as well? Having this knowledge gives you the power to fix things.

Here are some common defense mechanisms that many people use in order to keep themselves from making necessary changes in their marriage:

THEY NEED TO CHANGE FIRST

Your spouse may need to make some major changes as well, but thinking that you're not going to change unless they do or until they do is just defensive.

Ask yourself what would happen if they never made any adjustments themselves. How would this excuse your own selfish behavior? Do they need to be perfect before you start making needed adjustments to your own behavior and attitudes?

What type of person do you want to be? Someone that is kind and nice and generous and loving and respectful, or someone that is selfish? Why would your answer be different depending on who is around you? You'll be a nice person if your spouse is nice to you, but as long as they're mean and rude, then it's okay for you to be the same?

Sometimes in a marriage it helps when one person starts to make changes and soon enough the other one follows suit. But if you're thinking that you both need to give up some things at the same time, you might be in for a rude awakening. Be determined to make the changes that you see are necessary in yourself regardless of what he or she decides to do.

THEY'RE MUCH, MUCH WORSE THAN YOU

This may be a true statement. It might be that there is some huge flaw on the part of your spouse that is the main cause of your marriage problems.

This doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't make changes yourself. You might even find that if you make some changes to your own communication or other personality traits, you begin to feel better about yourself overall and therefore better about your marriage and your partnership.

YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY

Changing your behavior can be difficult, especially if you've been raised in a home that encourages this negative behavior or if you and your spouse have been relating to each other a certain way for many years.

It may be a cliché that you're never too old to change, but it is true. We don't need to be slaves to our own habits and behaviors, if we decide not to be.

Like someone that has smoked for years, you can change if you make a conscious effort to change. It may be difficult, but again, what type of person do you want to be? If it's at all different than the person you are, then don't worry about how long you've been this way or how you were raised or anything else.

YOU'RE NOT THAT BAD

Do you know what it means to only hear what you want to hear? You convince yourself of what is the truth even though this may not really be the case.

Sometimes we do this with other people. We want to think that this person is interested in us, so we convince ourselves that every little glance or word spoken in our direction is proof of just that. We tell ourselves that our kids could never do drugs or have unprotected sex, because we don't want to look at all the signs that the opposite may be true.

And unfortunately we do this with ourselves as well. We want to believe that our spouse finds our behavior cute when it's really annoying, so we ignore his or her signals that they're irritated, or we argue with them when they try to tell us how they really feel.

Another way that this attitude of "I'm not that bad" manifests itself is when we just brush off what our spouse is trying to say to us. They may talk about a certain problem they're having or send out signals to us, and we then blindly and blissfully ignore their efforts at communication and continue to do what we want, when we want, how we want. They're not really upset, they're not really bothered, they really just think we're cute or amusing or charming when we brings the guys over to watch football and leave a huge mess or when we eat off their plate, or whatever it is.