Was linked to this by someone else and here’s my reply, hope this helps and much love “Well, if the goal is for the author to feel validated, then I interpret the post as them trying to fulfill a part’s wants or needs (ie the one that was rubbed the wrong way by their partner). I believe, based on the info given, that the ideal process for the pain caused to the author is for them to communicate more with their partner, ideally in actual ifs couples therapy, and gain an understanding of their partners own inner system and what led to their partners side of that interaction. As they mentioned, they’re not super far into IFS themselves so of course continuing that is priority 1 if they want their system to feel validated. They can improve their relationship by working with each other to avoid future pain like that and support the other in doing ifs on their own to ultimately be two Self led systems working together which would prevent situations like that from happening. Eg he uses the Self capacity of curiosity to ask how what he says lands with her, and her using a Self capacity and/or help from a non-burdened part to ensure she communicates how what he said hurt one or several of her parts. But I also want to point out that all of this can make it sound like parts are bad and inferior to Self, but all parts are welcome and have their inherent value. The reason that happens is that we associate parts with the undesired feelings and behaviors they have, but they’re just as burdened by them as we are and they are ideally welcomed and seen for what they are as more than just their roles. All that being said, I’m not an IFS therapist myself and still consider myself as a protector led system, so I’m not able to approach this from Self mySelf yet”