Do ALL Her Feelings Deserve Validation?!

How can we know which feelings deserve validation and which ones are irrational or illogical?
#feelings #relationshipproblems #validation

[Frankie]

Feelings just are. you can't bury them so you better talk about them, or understand them. as John Kabat-Zinn says, "how you are feeling is how you are feeling".

[M_IAWIA]

Validation is not agreeing, it is seeing.

[vivekamar]

Feelings are valid, but the stories we tell behind those feelings may not.

[excel]

There's a difference between validating someone's feelings and taking responsibility for them. If the person expressing their feelings expects the listener to take responsibility, or the person listening starts to feel pressure to take responsibility for the expressed feelings that's a different matter. That's likely where the true work starts.

[MillerRelationshipGuide]

I think it's also important to remeber that validating someone's feeling isn't going to invalidate your own feelings.

[Julia.echternach]

Thank you. I wish more people grasped this. Validating feelings doesn’t mean justifying someone’s actions, it doesn’t mean agreeing with their opinion, it just means seeing them and listening to them. It is getting to the “deep why” of their actions and opinions, so that you can negotiate a solution.

[jsthorses]

I find, and have for decades, that many people want to put their feelings on others, we can validate without giving in, or allowing someone else to take over your life, because of their feelings. I have found with children, teens, and veterans we work with the Heart Talk method helps people learn to listen, not just "my way, , or the highway" others. I think having a great talk with YOURSELF about your feelings and their effects on others is a great place to start. A child once hit another kindergartner full in the face, his Mom was still leaving the room, she turned and kneeled down, asked that did you hit my son. The kid said "I ain't got no Mom to kiss me good bye" ... Her Mom was a drug addict, in prison for many years due to her antics to get money for her drugs. This one understanding Mom said... if I were to give you a kiss each day, will you stop hitting the other kids, and you know what? Many of the other kids do not have a Mom to kiss them every day either. It changed that child's life. I found, if each of us kneels down and asks our child about our feelings, it is easier to find out if we are asking for the right thing or not. Sometimes we need to say NO to pushing our feelings on others. 100% Responsibility for our own responses means, ourselves, not forcing others to do what we want.

[anointedhealthcoach]

Yeah...someone can be jealous and you can validate the fears by recognizing It Is scary and painful to have doubts about your loved one loyalty, but that doesn't mean you are indeed cheating or doing something wrong that deserves to be ignored or hurt back.

[parapoiitis]

Feelings aren’t facts, but it is a fact that they are feeling X

[RadishTheFool]

If someone is sharing their feelings with us, the right questions to ask are "where are these feelings coming from" and "what can we do?" Not "are they right?" or "what are the facts?"

Someone is emphatically and explicitly talking about their FEELINGS. Those feelings aren't an obstacle on our way to the facts. They ARE the current topic.

[husbandslockerroom]

It is so important to validate each others feelings. Husbands you have feelings too it is not considered weak to display. It is normal and a loving wife will love you more if you showed feelings especially if you honor her feelings.

[jadegreen]

Yes ALL feelings deserve to be validated. Validated means not ignoring it. Validation could mean just talking about it.

Invalidation means ignoring and shutting down how she feels, not listening and behaving as if it is not your problem that she has feelings.

Note: after a long period of invalidation, women start to behave resentfully when expressing their feelings still with the small hope that it will be acknowledged.

[circlecalpacas]

I feel this. Since listening to you I've changed the way I approach starting a conversation. I repeat that "these are my feelings" and how hurt I am and that we really need to learn to communicate... what I get in response is "I don't know how to fix it"
It's a trigger for me and when I respond by saying again We need to talk and plan and brainstorm, I still get I dunno how.
I stop. In my head I'm screaming, You DO know how n you just choose to not try!
Then the cycle of guilt starts over with me thinking that maybe I'M the problem, maybe I AM overly concerned that we never spend any time together. 🤷‍♀️

[MrQuantumInc]

A lot of men are taught that feelings in general are to be ignored, i.e. you are supposed to pretend they don't exist. When men refuse to take women seriously, they often say it is because of they have too many feelings. These guys have either experienced, or seen someone close to them, lose the respect of their peers because they dared to acknowledge their emotions. So when acknowledging your own feelings feels like a threat, how can you expect them to validate somebody else?

[ShadowYaz]

You can’t really be wrong about how something makes you feel but you can be wrong in the way you handle them.
If I’m annoyed and hit my partner, that’s wrong. It’s ok for me to be annoyed but it’s never ok to harm a partner. If I’m annoyed and inform my partner, that’s better. Now we can plan for or around it.

[RLaraMoore]

I'm thinking a very important response to your loved ones feelings is to ask (or seek to understand) 'why?'. Why are they feeling that way?

1st: *Care.*
Be a safe available place for your loved ones to come to to share, reveal and vent their feelings (thoughts, perspectives, ideas).

Not only for your spouse (but especially for your spouse), but also for your children, and close relatives and close friends.

2nd: *Listen without self defense.*
Listen to learn what their point of view is. Do not automatically listen in that split minded manner where you are primarily hearing their points so you can 'defend' yourself against any potential accusations.

Listening to a loved one's perspective is not about _yOU, _ it is about understanding what _they_ are experiencing.

3rd: *Be a safe place for your loved one to have you ask 'why' they are feeling whatever they are feeling.*
Seek to discover 'why' they are feeling as they are.
Offer your support as their partner in life to, together, address all things and seek clarity, healthy growth and improvement ongoing.

Love one another as God describes Love in 1 Corinthians 13:4–8

[DaveE]

One of my issues is I know the girl I’m seeing constantly personalizes things. So when she brings up issues with other people I am extra curious about what that person actually is doing and what meaning you gave to it, how it made you feel and what you’re doing about it? And me getting specific like this can actually trigger her to feel abandoned etc, like I’ll try to even give her the emotions wheel and needs wheel to ask her what she is on those atm. I can sit with all that, it’s the situation that clearly seems to be a problem they aren’t dealing with whatsoever ever so sometimes it feels like the shifting through the cognitions around it lands on me to kinda figure out. But ugh 😣 like they get triggered and then I even try to point out I need you to work on triggers so we can better have this conversation and at least be concious about how the effect it and it’s frustrating, because the only true intimacy to me is how a dyad fights and they can fight right or wrong, they can attack a problem together or not. If we can’t work through that and Engadge in that vassopressin bonding that occurs as a result of that engadged conflict, like how the heck to you expect to create long term oxytocin binding if you can’t do the stress based vassopressin bonding upfront. Like trust is baked into how a dyad handles conflicts and triggers. And triggers becomes more than just avoiding them, as that’s toxic, which exception of some possible random trauma trigger (like the smell of peppermint etc or what not) but the triggers infront can either prevent connection or enhance it and give oneself more control once worked on. Thus has just been frustrating

[wilsonpun]

Hey there,

Firstly, I really appreciate your insight on validating feelings in relationships. It's clear you’re an expert in this area, and I respect where you're coming from. However, I find myself viewing things a bit differently based on my own experiences.

Sometimes, I feel like there's an expectation for men to always be in a position to offer empathy, even when we’re not in the right headspace. At least in my case, It's not that I don't want to be supportive; it's just that there are times when I'm not equipped to deal with her emotional issues, especially if they stem from deep-seated causes unrelated to our relationship.

I agree that it's important to acknowledge your partner's feelings, but I also believe it's essential to maintain a balance. Constantly being asked to solve or deeply empathize with every emotional issue can be draining, especially when the expectation is that my reaction should align with a specific response, even if it doesn't come naturally to me at that moment. Sometimes, I don’t feel like saying anything.

I'm all for being empathetic and supportive, but I also think it's important for both partners to understand and respect each other's emotional states and limitations. Sometimes, I might not react in the expected way, not because I don't care, but because I’m built differently, and my emotional bandwidth might be stretched thin at that time.

Thanks for sparking this conversation. It's a complex issue, and hearing different perspectives is always enlightening.

Thanks,

[amandakristal_]

This hits deeply. It's already hard to express feelings into words but even harder when you don't feel seen. It removes a sense of safety.

[psycthom]

Validation to me is really just hearing what the person is communicating and treating them as if the emotion was true not necessarily as valid = justified, but rather that you will treat your partner as if their emotions are genuinely happening.