How could I validate this?

[waitingwife]

We're just getting over the dysregulated hump that happened last week. This am uBPDh mentioned about his colleague talking about his teenage daughter giving them trouble and how his colleague told him that I really gave my daughter a piece of my mind. Then he said they let their younger daughter get away with stuff and bring out all the anger on the teenage daughter... .I hope they don't tell her that "she is good at nothing" like my colleague tells me about her.

At this point,I said I'm sure teenage must be hard for her and your colleague's family... .We have all been through it... .It ended there!

The previous me would agree with him and let him keep b___ing about how his colleague is a lousy father. And I guess that validated the wrong thing but he felt validated.

Today after reading some of the lessons, I said the above and it ended there. I also know that my uBPDh had a very rough childhood where his parents constantly told him that he could never succeed in life and he was worth nothing. He is not very successful in his life and often says that even though I have everything and a perfect fect life, I feel empty inside. So was the colleague thing coming from that place of pain?

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[an0ught]

Hi waitingwife,

I don't think it was coming from a place of pain. It sounded to me more like your husband is observing a difference in how to approach teen education, is feeling some pride that the colleague is admiring your hard work in that respect and was sharing that.

There is value in comparing ourselves with others. There is not so much value in judging others all the time and even less value in b___ing.

Marsha Linehan, Ph.D.,Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, has identified six helpful tips for validating:

   

• Be Present and Open


   
• Accurate Reflection


   
• Reading Between the Lines / Mindreading


   
• Understanding the Person's Behavior in Terms of their History and Biology


   
• Normalizing or recognizing emotional reactions that anyone would have


   
• Radical Genuineness

While the primary focus in our discussions here is on validation of immediate out of control emotions and giving emotional direct feedback there is real value in thoughtful validation of higher level concerns. Validation is all about understanding and relating it to meaningful context.

And I guess that validated the wrong thing but he felt validated.

PwBPD have a very good sense of validation. They may be experts in invalidating others, they may fail at validating themselves but they tend to know when they are validated!

[TheRealJongoBong]

He's looking for "why" he gets that angry, for the first time ever, I think.

This seems to me like really good progress. From your descriptions your husband seems to get mad at almost anything, but to my mind that doesn't make a great deal of sense - it seems as if his anger is almost always there so that almost anything can make it show itself. So his starting to ask why is a really large step in introspection.

And yes, you need a safety plan. You've been on the receiving end of his anger before, you know what can happen. Having a safety plan under these kind of circumstances just makes good sense.

[waitingwife]

I'm sorry for some typos in my own message. I meant to say my husband is very successful in his life with his career & family unlike what his parents dictated would happen to him in his adulthood.

I understand how it is good to compare our parenting/behaviours to others and take pride in what we do right. But all his pride comes like that... .When he shows/talks about someone in a smaller way, he gets that boost in himself. And all I was trying to convey was that I have been going along and agreeing with him to keep the peace. At times if I say otherwise, he'd trigger. But this time I think I found a good way of acknowledging him and at the same time bot fully agreeing with him. This colleague in question is genuinely a nice person and friendly. My H sometimes complains about how he is a moneys man and won't spend for his kids & family. I look at those things as traits in a human being and to me a person does not become any lesser or a good human if he doesn't spend money like we feel is correct.

This is just one of the examples but I deal with such conflict of opinions and am

Learning how to handle it better by keeping the focus on me and not him. Another classic way of my husband is comparing himself to my brother's family and saying how we take so many vacations and do fun stuff while my brother's family doesn't do that. I don't negate his feelings but I simply don't agree with it coz my brother's family has their own way of fun and who are we to judge them.

[an0ught]

Hi waitingwife,

I understand how it is good to compare our parenting/behaviours to others and take pride in what we do right. But all his pride comes like that... .

yeah, this is certainly not healthy but you can't fight it.

BPD can't be cured. But a pwBPD can grow out of it. A lot of the tactics of living and improving the situation with a pwBPD is based on making do with what works provided it is not in some significant other way destructive. A person cutting is introduced to rubber bands. Is snapping a rubber band a behavior we would teach kids by default? Don't think so but it is better than cutting and allows one to build the basis for the next step. PwBPD need external validation to function.

Validation is first and foremost about understanding and connecting. Your husband is seeking validation in a roundabout and not ideal way but, BUT you can validate him effectively so you can help him calming down and are connected to him. Don't underestimate the value of this. You worry about validating the wrong thing and yes you should not. You were not - what he said made sense and even more important validation is about understanding HIS view and not judging. Validation is the wrong place to judge or bring our own view to bearing.

A lot of people new to the board worry about facts. Facts are secondary in most communication and emotions carry the meaning. Learning validation is also about re-balancing the weighting of facts and emotions in our mind.

Of course we are not encouraging living in LaLa Land. Far from it - our job is grounding the relationship. SET or how I prefer it more sET is about facts. Support, Empathy and Truth. The key here is that first ensure the emotions are in check and then present facts in a way that is truthful and avoids exciting unnecessarily. (more on SET in the workshop section).

So when you look at what you did is you listened and towards the end you brought some facts that are your view and not necessarily his. The facts were presented in a non aggressive form. And I tend to believe some of it got through.

Nothing you can say will change your husband but don't let that frustrate you. I have to tell you this as it frees your energy into more productive directions. Only he can change himself when he has some insight and new facts and truths can help here. New experiences can be even more powerful which is to some degree under your control as you shape your behavior and thus the space in which he can move. If you established sufficient other validating routines in your live then e.g. you could start working with boundaries to wean him off his current immature validation seeking behavior.

However right now I would suggest to work with what you got - not ideal but side effects relatively minor.

[waitingwife]

I have been reading a lot on the lessons section and it is a great deal of information . So BPDh has been trying to connect since the last 3 days. He even got me flowers and all but I have to accept that I have been spaced out a bit... .It's my way of processing my feelings & emotions. My personality has always been like do a kind act instead of words/validation and I'd do anything for a loved one but expression has not been my strong pursuit & I'm not proud of that. So again h started to go out into his shell. For me it's all about how do I switch gears, accept all his warmth after the cold & cruel remarks(about how controlling I am with our daughter) without having a good talk about what we can do. The day he got flowers, in a fit of rage, I said to him that I feel like running away & not looking back but that was my sadness/hurt feelings... .Thats the day I joined here and found this group. So tonight, he said I have been really busy at work. So I responded saying, I'm so sorry that there is so much tension and lack of peace in our house when you are working so hard for our family to have a good life. I really meant it from the bottom of my heart. I then said I am spaced out a bit not coz I'm mad/angry but I am only trying to process my feelings and all I want is for our family to be happy. We hugged and that was it. It took a LOT on my part to say those things you n the midst of all the negativity going on in my life... .It's so hard to validate when the opposite person wrongs you and you love them so much. Please suggest more ways to make this easier... .How is validation different from appreciation?

[Jessica84]

waitingwife, sounds like you are making great progress!

Validation is more than appreciation in the sense that all people, with or without BPD, want to feel heard, understood. I feel better when someone understands me. I feel worse when my feelings are dismissed or twisted into something else. The other person doesn't have to feel the same as I do, but acknowledging that my feelings are valid goes a long way. For a pwBPD, this need for validation is amplified. 

Appreciation can be validating as long as it lines up with what they are feeling - like if he feels deserving of it. It can also be invalidating if he feels like a failure. I've shown appreciation to my BPDbf at the wrong time and he thought I was being sarcastic! That's because he wasn't feeling worthy. Can't always tell though. We're not mind readers. Asking questions can help. "Help me understand... ." at least shows interest. And sometimes that can be validating in itself, just knowing that you care.

None of this is easy. I'm still working on this myself - trying to let go of the hurts and validate someone who keeps doing it. But I can tell you that consistent validation has slowed down the periods between dysregulations, and their intensity. This has given me some "catch my breath" time to process my own feelings. It gets easier when we feel better inside. So remember to take care of you

[formflier]

How is validation different from appreciation?

validation is a connection with the other persons feelings.  It is not about agreement.  Two people can validate each others opposite feelings about the same event without agreeing.

Think about that for a minute.

You see the difficulty in validating someone that is "against" you. 

I would suggest you take the broad subject of validation and break it into three parts.

1.  Critical that you understand and avoid Invalidation like the plague.  Rough rule of thumb 1 invalidation will wipe out 10 validations.  The numbers are not a hard formula but an indication of how critical it is to avoid invalidation.  Many times keeping your mouth shut is the ticket to avoiding invalidation. 

2.  Understand validation and practice it. 

3.  I think the trickier one and the "most advanced" one is to gain wisdom about validation so that you don't validate the "invalid".  My understanding is that you also don't want to "invalidate" the invalid (see rule one) but there are some concepts, feelings and ideas that while you don't want to argue them out of those (that would be invalidating) you don't want to lend any weight or "validation" to a horrible train of thought or feelings.

Hope this helps. 

Last thought:  I don't really think validation applies to third party conversations unless the party you are talking to expresses and emotion about the conversation or idea.  My advice for 3rd party conversations is to be present and open and listen, leave it at that.

FF

[waitingwife]

Hi All,

Thanks so much for helping me stay grounded in the midst of all this. So after validating H last night, we had a great morning and I could feel his guard going down... Then when he texted me the list of things we needed for the house if I went to the store, one of the items was my make-up stuff so I texted back saying I have enough of it, thanks it was really very nice of you to think about me(which the earlier me would never do assuming we have established enough love & trust in so many years)So then we texted quite a bit after and I validated little things and truly did it from the bottom of my heart. So again he texted me in the way back home from work if we can have a glass of wine and unwind and I said okay coz I had refused day before coz I was not in the mood for it because my emotional state was still all crazy stuck in the "why" modeand my replywas a cold NO without any explainatiin. With all of your help, I could keep my focus on the goal, i.e. our relatiinship and our family and fought against my logical self and started the validation process. Atleast now we're a bit more open to communication and civil. I don't know if he's still going to talk about what happened between us last week! I'd really like for him to talk & communicate with me and I feel like having a plan together will give me some closure and more motivation to really close this & move on... .But I guess part of these lessons is I should not expect that? But that makes me unhappy to not be able to talk and move on... Please help me understand how can I take care of my emotions here? I have never handled this right and I really want to this time and from now on... .I have always been calm but never validating as much as required... .Taking baby steps and hoping I'll get there in time!

[formflier]

  Please help me understand how can I take care of my emotions here? I have never handled this right and I really want to this time and from now on, I have always been calm but never validating as much as required, Taking baby steps and hoping I'll get there in time!

When you come here to these boards, let your guard down.  Just say it.  Say it plainly.  That will help with your emotions.

Also, if you have T, counselor, pastor, someone local that can help guide you.  That would be helpful, I would say critical to helping you sort out your role in this relationship and dealing with emotions.  A goo and T that you have built a rapport with is someone that you can let your guard down and just say it.

Finally a friend or two that you can confide it.  Even more important, are a few friends that you don't confide it, but live life with.  You need an outlet to just go enjoy yourself, independent of the good or bad stuff at home.  You don't want all your conversations with friends to be about "the issue".


Good job on validating!   

Do you see how validating doesn't "fix" anything, but it seemed to put a soothing balm on things?

Hint:  When your hubby wants to talk about "the issue" or the fight, or whatever.  Please try to keep defenses down.  Focus on listening, focus on seeing the conflict from his point of view.

Remember, seeing and agreeing are two different things.  Do you think it would be possible to hold on to your point of view until the next nights glass of wine?  Unless he specifically asks?

Why is that important?   pwBPD traits need to be gotten in the "mood" to hear, to really listen to what we have to say.  Their emotions must be dealt with first. 

You are getting the hang of it.  You will learn your husbands emotions and they may be somewhat different than you read about here.  It's a spectrum disorder, lots of colors in the rainbow.

FF

[waitingwife]

FF- that was spot on... So we did end up having a nice time last evening and I could tell his guard was down and he felt wanted/loved which was great! I am willing to wait for my turn or oppurtunity to share my views/opinion in the most respectable way but will that time come is my question?

I like to see silver linings in difficult situations and I have also been raised in a family where we did not really pay too much attention to validation but the focus was on own behaviour and owning upto our drawbacks and making it right with correcting how we behaved so practicing validation is going to be some hard work on my part but I love to step out of my comfort zone and I will do that for the same of our relationship & beautiful family together. I can reslly keep my eyes on the prize which I have been doing but in the middle process of doing that all my bitterness that resulted from unmet/untalked expectations has taken the better off me. With the help of this board, I am going to try to be my old self again. I miss my old real self that got lost in all the enmeshing of our relationship together.

So yesterday was just about discussing about his office, our daughter and my friends... .Nothing about ourselves(which H is okay with and I love to talk about us). He was raised in a family which only talked about others and judged them negatively so it really takes a lot on his part to bring self into a conversation.

Please help me understand... .Should I wait for him to open up and talk about the fight or let him get away and act like it's behind us... .This much resolution for him is enough while I need more however I can be okay with letting it slide... .Would it be damaging to my emotions, maybe, I'm not sure.

[Cat Familiar]

I'm like you, WW. Talking can really fix things for me and improve intimacy. Unfortunately that often is not available with my husband. Rehashing old conversations and trying to fix things that were said usually comes across to him as criticism and no good comes of that. It leaves me holding the bag and feeling like my unresolved emotions don't have an outlet. So I'll post here or talk about it in therapy or speak with a friend.

I've gotten more strategic and less reactive with my husband. When I first came here I was really frustrated and angry with him. Now I see him as having major limitations but that overall he's a good kind person. He was really damaged by his narcissistic father and that damage extends throughout his family. He was more of a target than his sisters, but I can now see the damage within them as well.

It has left him with an emotional handicap, much like a learning disability. He is doing therapy and I'm seeing some positive benefits from that. As I've become less sensitive and reactive, it's given him less to bump up against. I'm starting to understand the concept of Radical Acceptance--both of myself and of him and others. By not having as many wounded places myself, I'm much less likely to take offense or get hurt by his behavior. That's not to say that I tolerate bad behavior either. When he does act out, I'm much quicker to leave the room or tell him I need a break and that we'll talk later. That's been really effective for both of us. We're far less likely to say things we regret (or that I regret--don't know if he does or remembers the negative things he can say when he's dysregulated).