Splendour,

If you could paint a little more specifically, it may be easier to help. Defensiveness arises when we feel we’re being attacked. For instance there is a difference between saying “I feel confused” vs “I feel you are confusing me”. With sensitive people, it is often not enough to say “I feel”, but to present the difficulty as something inside us, rather inside them. If you’re feeling that you have to walk on eggshells, its possible the person is carrying a wound, and until it heals, the difficulty in listening and hearing others will remain.

However, it also comes across as you consider the person as the source of the difficulty already. “Why are they defensive?” is a much different question than “how to I communicate more effectively?” See?

With warmth,
Matt