"Deal with it"... I've heard that. "Well, you figure it out, I'm not going to tell you" is another, when I ask her how she'd like things to be, what goals we can make.
It's all variations on defensiveness, as you've pointed out. My W, the conflict avoider, always just wants the issue to go away, or to simply drop the uncomfortable topic. The result is often a dismissive, cutting, cynical, sarcastic, mean comment. It's her way of "winning". I used to accuse her of using offense as her primary defense. Of course, that was my "last word" in the dance of trying to win. One thing I've learned is that if you stop trying to win, the idea of a battle is diminished, and the defensiveness begins to moderate. Then, it becomes easier to express feeling and have them accepted.
I was finally able to tell her that her dismissive zingers hurt in councelling. I was able to tell her how frustrated and angry being dismissed made me feel. And, I was able to extract and agreement from her that it was OK for me to point out to her when I felt she was dismissing me. And she usually now moderates herself when I call her on it.
