Ask Dr. Betty Polston, the Midlife Relationships Expert

Action Steps for Recovery: Try the following to help get you and your relationship on to a healthier plane.

1. Identify which of these defenses you're using now. Are you avoiding getting more involved with your man by turning off your more loving emotions? Are you denying how scared you feel by being too compliant--pleasing him, placating, or generally doing what he wants? It seems like you are acting out by engaging in self-blame.

2. Try to identify what emotional pain you are defending against. What did you see or experience as a child that caused you not to trust?

3. In Couple Skills (New Harbinger Publications, 1994), Matthew McKay, Ph.D., recommends the following steps for recovery from hurtful defenses:

• Acknowledge the defense to your partner: "I've been obsessing about your leaving me."
  
  
• Point out times you have used it: "I do this when I see you look at another woman."
  
  
• Identify and acknowledge the pain that underlies your defense: "My dad had a lot of affairs and finally left just like my husband did. I suffered so much just like my mother."
  
  
• Repeat to your partner the ways in which your defense has cost you, him, and your relationship.
  
  
• This may be the most important. Ask for your partner's help and support in developing an alternative to your defensive actions: "I need your help to stop this; I really want to stop. When I start obsessing, I need you to be patient and to reassure me that you love me and to point out what I'm doing. I will identify my pain from the past. Then I will replace it with some reassuring self-statements like, 'You are not my father, my husband, or fiance. You will show me, through time, that I can trust myself and you.'"

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