Partner gets defensive when I bring things up - what to do?

Hi everyone,

My partner (40M) and I (40F) have been together about 1.5 years. The first year was long-distance, so we’ve only been living together for a few months since he moved to be with me.

I’ll start by saying he’s a wonderful partner in so many ways: we share values and a vision for the future, I love his intellect and our conversations, we have lots of fun together, he’s thoughtful and caring, and he really supports me when I’m going through things.

That said, he tends to get defensive when I bring up things that bother me. He often immediately feels criticized, even when I try to phrase things gently.

For context, he recognizes this is an issue. He’s in individual therapy, and we’ve just started couples counselling (one intro session so far). I also see my own counsellor. He genuinely wants to work on this and has been trying, but progress feels slow. After we’ve both calmed down, we can usually have productive conversations where he takes ownership of his defensiveness and we come up with strategies together.

Some concrete things we’re working on: • He’s using more “I” statements. • He asks for short breaks when he feels triggered, and I honour them. • He responds better when I share appreciation first before raising an issue.

My question: has anyone here had a similar experience with a partner? Did you actually see defensiveness become much less of an issue over time with consistent effort? I’m not expecting perfection—I just want consistent curiosity and openness when I bring things up, without him feeling attacked.

TL;DR: partner gets defensive when I bring up things that are bothering me. He’s aware of this and working on it, but can it actually get better?