The Role of Psychological Defenses in Marriage

On a conscious level, people believe they are looking for loving intimate relationships.  However, to really enjoy loving relationships, we must be willing to become vulnerable; to relax; to let our guards down.  But because we are afraid of feeling vulnerable, most of us retreat from being close and gradually, almost imperceptibly, give up the most valued aspects of our relationships.

In his book “Conquer Your Inner Critical Voice”, author Robert W. Firestone lists three types of defenses that people have against love.  He argues that people simply replay the “programs” (beliefs, attitudes, views of self and other) that they formed earlier in life, rather than simply being present in their current relationships.  He writes “When our feelings of affection, sexual attraction, and friendship contrast with the unhappiness and rejection we experienced in the past, we unconsciously try to erase the difference”.  He goes on to list three types of defenses: (1) Selection, (2) Distortion, and (3) Provocation.

For me, they are basically reflections of one phenomenon: people who are disconnected from their hearts and who are trapped in their minds.  Such people have hard time being present in the here and now and their perception of reality is usually very distorted.  They often try to manipulate people and circumstances to match their perceptions instead of simply dealing with what is in the now.

Below is a description of each of these defenses along with examples of actual cases that Dr. Firestone dealt with in his practice (*).  Enjoy.  Ahmad

Three Defenses
On a conscious level, we may believe we are looking for a loving relationship; however, on an unconscious level, all of us still tend to recreate the conditions our original family in our present-day relationships. We do this in three ways: through selection, distortion, and provocation.

Selection
We tend to select partners who are similar to a parent, an older sibling, or another family member because we feel comfortable with them.  We feel relaxed when our defenses are compatible with the defenses and style of relating of the mate we choose.

For example, Laura, a woman who much admired her father, a distant and unapproachable man, met Matt at a party and was immediately attracted to him. She said that he looked "lonely and a little sad, and that dreamy look in his eyes was just irresistible." She approached him as he stood alone on a balcony and struck up a conversation. They hit it off right away, and soon after began dating steadily. Initially, their attraction was intense. However, Laura began to feel rejected by Matt's preference for isolated activities and his preoccupation with work, and their sexual life suffered. Her complaints about Matt's ways of shutting her out only resulted in his further avoidance, and the couple eventually broke up. At the time they became involved, Laura was completely unaware of the similarity between Matt's distancing behaviors and her father's characteristic style of avoiding personal contact. In fact, the behavioral cues that would have warned Laura of Matt's preference for solitude were the very characteristics that had been so appealing to her when they first met.

What were Matt's early influences? The most important figure in Matt's early life was his mother. A highly intrusive woman, she demanded to know his every thought and feeling.  She routinely met him at the door when he came home from school and insisted he sit down with her and tell her everything about his day. By the time Matt was a teenager, he had found ways to avoid her questioning by "spacing out," studying endlessly in his room, and imitating many of his father's ways of avoiding contact and family interactions.

When Matt met Laura at the party, he was strongly attracted to her friendliness and obvious interest in him. He was not at all put off by her questions about his life, with her asking what he thought and how he felt about a wide range of subjects. To the contrary, this trait was especially appealing to him. However, Matt grew to resent her endless inquiries and began to avoid conversations with her. His aloofness only made Laura more desperate for his attention. The couple became more and more polarized. They had no awareness that they had subconsciously set up the same conditions that had existed in each of their respective childhoods and were, in effect, reliving the past.

If you objectively look at the partners you have chosen in the past, what personal quality or trait drew you to them? Did some of their qualities or traits resemble any traits in one of your parents? In your current relationship, is there a particular behavior or quality in your partner that was especially attractive to you but that now irritates you?

Distortion
When we have selected a partner who is different from a parent in a significant way, we find ourselves in new, unfamiliar territory. However, we can relieve the tension and anxiety this causes us by distorting our partner—that is, by misperceiving him or her as similar to someone from our past. For example, Ellen's father was extremely critical of her and made sarcastic, derisive remarks about her. Ellen was fortunate in her choice of a partner. Bruce, her fiance, happened to be easygoing, and playful, and had a great sense of humor. He was not at all cynical or judgmental. When Bruce asked Ellen to marry him, she was thrilled. However, she soon began to distort the things he said to her, seeing them as critical statements and expressions of disapproval. In her mind, she twisted many of the good-natured, humorous remarks Bruce made about their relationship—remarks which in reality very much acknowledged her real self— and heard them as being sarcastic, disapproving, and critical.

Not all of our distortions are negative. We tend to see both the positive and the negative characteristics of a parent or sibling in new, significant people in our lives. Often, we may exaggerate a positive trait in a new partner and idealize him or her in the same way we idealized our parents. In addition, we may see our partner as stronger than he or she actually is because we want to be taken care of. When we do this, we may resent any signs of human weaknesses he or she displays.

Provocation
The third way we recreate our early family environment is to behave in ways that actually force familiar responses from our partners.  By manipulating our mates, we can evoke the behaviors we are used to from our childhoods. Sometimes you can even provoke your partner to the point where he or she says aloud the same critical inner voices you have about yourself. These provocations often follow the most loving, tender moments between you and your partner, and thus create distance in your relationship.

For the most part, we are unaware of using these three maneuvers to defend ourselves from closeness and love. However, we may use these methods to trans¬form a new relationship into one that more closely corresponds to the environment in which our defenses were formed and retreat to a more familiar, less vulnerable style of relating.

For example, as a child, Carl was seen as being irresponsible and was defined as a slacker or "flake" by his family. As a teenager, he assumed leader¬ship roles in high school and was admired and respected by his peers, yet his family still saw him as a flake. As an adult, he went on to open a successful restaurant. Later, he met and married a woman who admired his integrity and strength. As the years went by, however, Carl became forgetful and irresponsible in managing his restaurant. On many occasions, his wife found herself being provoked by his lack of initiative and his passivity. At these times, their arguments would end with her calling him a "lazy, good-for-nothing flake." In effect, Carl had unconsciously recreated his past circumstances and reaffirmed the negative, yet familiar, identity formed in his family.

(*) From “Conquer Your Inner Critical Voice”, by Robert W. Firestone, Lisa Firestone, and Pat Love, with some editing.