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I'm trying to do the right thing and validate my uBPD wife- but it's so incredibly difficult.  I repeat back what she is saying and either my tone of voice is "wrong", or I miss her point which only provokes her further.  The fact that I'm doing my best trying to listen and empathize with her gets completely missed. 

Does anyone have any advice on validation techniques that actually work?  Sometimes it seems that once her feelings get negative there is no amount of listening and validation that will get through to her... .

I can actually relate to this very well... .I've been working on SET and DEARMAN for some time now and it's been hit or miss. Sometimes, she's just dysregulated and doesn't want to hear anything I have to say... .Other times, it works great. One things I'm learning is that I have to catch it soon enough. If I don't recognize that she's on a dysregulation path and start with SET quick enough, then try it after she's too far down that path, she throws it back at me.

I'm also learning there's a balance with these tools, that I have to really work hard on the empathy part of SET. If she feels like I'm just repeating back what she's saying, without telling her how I feel about the topic, then it all falls apart and she goes into full blown dysregulation almost immediately.

It's getting better (I think) and she's trying to recognize when I'm trying to do my part in all of this, but we're really only a couple of months in with her diagnosis, so we both have a lot of practicing to do.

I think it's important to keep in mind that there is no magic bullet with this. Sometimes our loved ones are simply going to dysregulate no matter what we say. We have to have our boundaries ready when those times come. I've been working on that myself as well and it's not easy. But we have to have those in place to protect ourselves so I'm trying to work on that at the same time.

I was skeptical about the validation stuff initially. I read another post and someone mentioned that we need to crack the code. I was tempted to ask him how to do that   But every person, like an account, has their own code.

If you have a chance, observe counselors or therapists, and maybe people in healthcare like nurses and doctors. Some of them can be quite good at it, because they do it daily in their job and it comes naturally (in my opinion). I think our past experiences, upbringing, and occupation plays a part. I don't recall being validated many times in my life, and certainly not at work where I provide services in the technical field. So when I try it, it doesn't come naturally and my W is sensitive not just to the words spoken, but also the gestures, tone, and facial expression. Tough. But looking at it positively, it can be a useful skill set to have when dealing with other difficult people.

What I try to do is consciously tell myself not to make it worse, keep the objective in mind; to prevent the anger from escalating further, calming down so that a "normal" conversation can take place later hopefully.

If we focus on what they are saying, when they are in rage, it's basically verbal abuse and naturally we get angry, and end up being abusive too. The end result is unsurprisingly bad.

Be mindful of what triggers you, try not to lose your temper, and don't take it personally and be judgmental (this is hard for me because she hits below the belt).

After this, the validation will seem genuine. It makes sense because if you not in the right frame of mind, whatever is said that is of good intention will not appear to be.

All this has to be done within seconds and at the right time (I am still figuring this out).

Good luck  |iiii

Hi hopesky


the good news is that you are trying something new and you observe a reaction. It takes guts to try things out and without doing something different there won't be change for the better |iiii. The bad news is she seems sometimes to be escalating which may well be an indication that instead of validating her you are invalidating  . Getting the language right that gets through to her can be a matter of trial and error at first so hang in there!

You wrote that you repeat back at her. That may work sometimes for some but often it is better to use your own words and focus on the core of her emotional situation. It can also be useful to keep in mind that validation is less about a technique with words but a desire to achieve and communicate emotional understanding. Mind set makes a big difference as it affects our body language and tone of voice which convey more emotions than words.


How are you validating her negative emotions? Can you give examples?