I Think That My Need To Protect Me Is My Defending Myself.

I have a book called From Conflict to Caring and I do not have it anymore and so do not know the authors names. I was thinking about it today and realized that some work I could do on myself is to not get defensive to protect myself. I think that this was a root cause for arguements with my husband when he was alive. Much misunderstandings because we would both be protecting ourselves until we went to marriage counseling and had to relearn how to talk to each other without the need to... I Think That My Need To Protect Me Is My Defending Myself.
https://www.myptsd.com/c/threads/i-think-that-my-need-to-protect-me-is-my-defending-myself.64705/