{"id":670,"date":"2017-11-03T01:38:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T01:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/?p=670"},"modified":"2018-06-04T21:53:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T21:53:11","slug":"how-invalidation-can-tear-apart-your-relationship-and-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/how-invalidation-can-tear-apart-your-relationship-and-what-to-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"How Invalidation Can Tear Apart Your Relationship\u2014And What to Do about It"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Bauer<\/em>
\nAuthor of The Secret Love Instinct<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What If You Knew What Men Secretly Wanted, but They Could Never Tell You… Don’t Forget To Check Out\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>T<\/em>he Secret Love Instinct<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

How Invalidation Can Tear Apart Your Relationship\u2014And What to Do about It<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Janelle was telling me about a recent argument with her boyfriend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t get the back door unlocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

She laughed at my blank expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I know it doesn\u2019t sound like a relationship issue, but it has become one. The lock jams several times each week. Nothing I can do will get it to open.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how does that relate to your relationship?\u201d I asked curiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t believe me!\u201d This time, her laughter had a hysterical edge. \u201cHe says I\u2019m not doing it right. It always works for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sniffed. To my surprise, I saw tears starting to form in her eyes. She rubbed them away with the back of her hand.<\/p>\n

Was this really about a door \u2026 or was it something else?<\/p>\n

To an outsider, this looks like a simple difference in opinion. He thinks she\u2019s not opening the door right; she thinks it\u2019s genuinely jammed.<\/p>\n

But some things aren\u2019t a matter of opinion.<\/p>\n

Your personal experience is one of them.<\/p>\n

Few things are more frustrating than trying to communicate something important to your partner \u2026 only to be told it\u2019s all in your head.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why validation should be a part of every healthy relationship.<\/p>\n

When you validate your partner, you recognize that his thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives are valid, regardless of whether you share his view or even understand it.<\/h3>\n

Janelle\u2019s boyfriend didn\u2019t understand why she felt the door was jamming. Because his experience wasn\u2019t the same as her experience, he jumped to the conclusion that her experience was invalid.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the exact opposite of what good partners do.<\/p>\n

He could have listened to her. He could have found out more. He could have investigated this issue. Instead, he dismissed something that was clearly upsetting her.<\/p>\n

No one has the right to tell you what your experience should have been. You are the only authority on what happens to you. If someone tells you they know what\u2019s going through your head better than you do\u2014and they\u2019re not joking\u2014run.<\/p>\n

After that incident with her boyfriend, Janelle stopped going to him when she needed help. She felt shamed for reaching out and stung by his presumption of superiority.<\/p>\n

If she were only more like him, she thought, she wouldn\u2019t be having this problem. She should be more like a man rather than a helpless woman, incapable of opening a door.<\/p>\n

Janelle and her boyfriend needed to learn how to validate each other\u2014fast.<\/p>\n

Or they\u2019d continue growing apart until they no longer had a relationship at all.<\/p>\n

So many arguments start when couples invalidate each other\u2019s thoughts and feelings.<\/p>\n

He tells you that he didn\u2019t intend to hurt you; you don\u2019t believe him. You\u2019ve noticed that things have gotten strained between you recently; he says they haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an easy way to dismiss something you don\u2019t want to hear. If you don\u2019t like it, deny it. Tell your partner he can\u2019t possibly be feeling what he says he\u2019s feeling.<\/p>\n

Before you can validate one another effectively, you need to acknowledge that you and your partner do experience things differently.<\/h3>\n

No matter how well you know him, all you really know is what he told you. You might assume he thinks a certain way because that\u2019s how you think. Or you might assume he experienced something the exact same way you did. But you don\u2019t have access to his mind.<\/p>\n

So stop assuming and start asking.<\/p>\n

Find out what he thinks, wants, and feels. Honor his confessions. Even if you don\u2019t agree with him. Try to understand his point of view. Use validating phrases like:<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see how that felt to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janelle now knows how to deal with invalidation. Being able to spot it made a world of difference to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never realized how much I was always defending myself,\u201d she told me. \u201cWe\u2019d get into these big arguments about who was right and who was wrong. Now I know that I\u2019m right about my experience, and he\u2019s right about his experience. From there, it\u2019s easier to negotiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now when her boyfriend starts to argue with her about the truth of her experience, she doesn\u2019t get sucked in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell him, \u2018That\u2019s how it is for me, and here\u2019s what I want you to do about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

By the way, have you heard how this one trait can trigger a powerful emotional attraction, in your man?<\/p>\n

I created this video for you that explains everything:<\/p>\n

Video: The #1 Trait Men Desire In A Woman<\/a> <\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

To your success in love and in life!<\/p>\n

Kind regards,<\/p>\n

James Bauer
\nRelationships Coach and Author<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Bauer Author of The Secret Love Instinct What If You Knew What Men Secretly Wanted, but They Could Never Tell You… Don’t Forget To Check Out\u00a0The Secret Love Instinct How Invalidation Can Tear…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18,19,16,21,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meetysweet.com\/women\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}