What defense mechanisms does Sally use to protect herself? How do they help or hinder her relationship with Noah, in your opinion?

What defense mechanisms does Sally use to protect herself? How do they help or hinder her relationship with Noah, in your opinion?

She tries to predict what he is thinking or what he means by a certain comment and convinces herself that it is negative in order to protect herself. They hinder her relationship and she is lucky that he did not give up on her.

I didn’t even think about that defense mechanism, Elizabeth- and it seems so obvious now! Sally spent a lot of time in her own head! Noah was a little more prepared to be open and discuss-maybe because of his experiences with recovery.

I thought Sally relied on humor and sarcasm. I think unless you know a person very well, sarcasm is often interpreted as mean, rather than humorous, as many intend it to be. Her comment about the models sent Noah away-and he stayed away for a long time!

While this doesn’t have anything to do with Sally’s relationship with Noah, I think another way she protected herself before him was to avoid relationships with men who were emotionally available. Her “hook-ups” were solely physical, and she didn’t need to risk being vulnerable herself.

Definitely her sarcasm was a protective mechanism that almost completely ran Noah off. I think she was so afraid of getting hurt, that she couldn't let the barriers down and was very protective of her emotions and instinctively tried to give Noah reasons to stay at arms length from her.

Agree about the sarcasm! She doubt thought out what she thought she heard. I don’t think she felt inferior to Noah but she was definitely frightened about relaxing and just living in the moment. Ex-marriage influence?

Sally took an offensive approach to protecting herself -- strike before they can hurt you! And her weapons of choice were sarcasm and snark. She would have done well to employ this one of The Four Agreements: "Don't take anything personally. Don't let others' opinions or actions affect your self-worth or emotional state." It is, of course, the most difficult to master. She was so lacking in self-esteem and confidence that she projected her own insecurity onto others, assuming that they saw her as she saw herself. And that just complicated everything because her assumptions were erroneous, of course, most of the time. I agree with the observation about meaningless hook-ups, of course, but appreciated that she was self-aware and acknowledged them as such. She wasn't deluding herself into believing that the guy she met up with for sex was a candidate for a long-term, meaningful relationship.