Help with validation

[Hmcbart]

My wife has a tendency to use something that is happening or has happened to others as her reason for how she feels. A friend of our was recently admitted to the hospital for depression and scuicidal thought. 

My wife is using that as her current justification for the rage/ argument we are dealing with. 

How do you validate her feelings when they are most likely false or made up? I have tried to bring up her getting some help but she says I only want that so she will get admitted somewhere and I can leave with the kids. I'm at a complete loss on how to handle this one.

Any ideas would be appreciated. 

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[thefixermom]

I would have a hard time stating my agreement with something I believe to be false so I understand... .but I think the validation in these cases is not stated in a way which means you agree with the person but rather that you "hear" them.  You are not validating the depression/suicidal thoughts.  You would be validating her experience of having them.  For instance, if someone was to say to me, "I hate that you are lying to me!" and even though I'm not lying to them, I can still validate them and say, "It's horrible to think you are being told a lie."   This does not constitute a confession of lying on my part... .but it does validate the other person's experience.  The hope is that it will somewhat diffuse the rage or anger and calm the other person down once they feel they have been truly heard.   

[waverider]

Absorbing external emotions and triggers is common. It is one of the reasons my wife gets in trouble watching TV. Even through she worked in the field of sales and marketing she is an absolute mug for the emotional triggers designed into advertising.

I tend to ask her to describe how she is feeling inside when she sets aside the reason for it. Then once she has described the feeling I then ask what has happened in her life that she can link to these feelings. Its a way to link back o her world while making the feeling a central part of it. regardless of misplaced reasoning the emotion is still real.

You will hear therapist doing this when someone starts into a blow by blow about whats bothering them, they will bring it back to how do you feel right now, as opposed to why and who's at fault. Once thats established they move onto whats happening in THEIR life that can make them feel that way...

Often there may be a real reason, but the pwBPD isn't aware of it, they are just aware of teh emotion and then just adopt someone else's cause to explain it... like many things the reaction happens first and then an excuse is sought after the event. Misappropriating cause and effect is a common BPD trait.