  We demonstrate that field theories involving explicit breaking of continous
symmetries, incorporate two generic classes of topological defects each of
which is stable for a particular range of parameters. The first class includes
defects of the usual type where the symmetry gets restored in the core and
vacuum energy gets trapped there. We show however that these defect solutions
become unstable for certain ranges of parameters and decay not to the vacuum
but to another type of stable defect where the symmetry in not restored in the
core. In the wall case, initially spherical, bubble-like configurations are
simulated numerically and shown to evolve generically towards a planar
collapse. In the string case, the decay of the symmetric core vortex resembles
the decay of a semilocal string to a skyrmion with the important difference
that while the skyrmion is unstable and decays to the vacuum, the resulting
non-symmetric vortex is topologically stable.
