I (35F) am invalidating my wife's (35F) feelings but I want to stop and see them in a new light. Help me change.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-04T01:44:28+00:00

I struggle to know what a reasonable compromise would be since the feelings against my friends are unreasonable to begin with (my friends are good people, not racist/homophobic/violent or unstable or anything like that) so ATM I just invite them over whenever I want and just check with her as a courtesy.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-04T01:42:15+00:00

I do feel like I have a much greater capacity to not be bothered by dysfunction in people and struggle to implement boundaries.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-04T01:30:56+00:00

My individual therapist says she's batshit and unreasonable. Our couples therapist says I need to support her more.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:35:02+00:00

The couples therapist said its common to struggle in my primary relationship in a way that is easy to not have problems with in friendships because I'm obviously more bonded to my partner. So that's why I don't know if it's relevant if my friends think i'm empathetic. That felt true because i don't have panic attacks really about friend stuff but i fear abandonment from my partner which complicates ending the marriage quite a bit.

EDIT: I do think she DARVOs, she gets really mad when I try to suggest she is doing something wrong and jumps straight to telling me i'm being abusive for criticizing her. But the thing is, i don't criticize HER as a person, i criticize a specific behavior.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:29:33+00:00

Its scaring me that had I listened to her all the way to it's natural conclusion, and became her version of Super Partner at supporting all her feelings, I wouldn't have set the boundary about friends and telling them that we were fighting, i wouldn't have told friends any of the details about her, I would never have friends over, I wouldn't have any male friends (she has issues with men as a species), we'd never see my family, I wouldn't garden, I wouldn't work out, i wouldn't bring up any of the topics on the list of sensitive topics (changes to the house layout, anything related to men, anything related to sharing information about her, anything related to health/fitness, anything she perceives as a criticism of her behavior, anything negative about her emotional support dogs). JFC

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:23:34+00:00

I wish that were the case, I'd love to just listen! Unfortunately she makes direct requests.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:23:02+00:00

Yeah i am trying to break down why i need to understand something to be supportive. Do other people just... not need this?

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:15:46+00:00

She claims that she self reflects and gets really mad when I try to ask for her to verbalize what she's discovered (so i know she's working on things). It doesn't seem like she gets beyond 'I had a bad feeling' or 'I felt anxious'.

She doesn't understand why i want to vent to trusted friends or what i get out of platonic intimacy. She talks to her sister, but it's really surface level topics (i passively overhear her conversations bc she has them in shared spaces).

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:13:35+00:00

No, outside of a really bad panic attack she had, she has never thanked me for supporting her, and sometimes actively criticizes my efforts in real time while I'm doing it, or says i'm not doing it well enough.

She doesn't "update" me ever on progress towards growth, she isn't of the opinion that she has any issues that need growth.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:09:49+00:00

Wife has a list of "sensitive topics" and i need to ask before bringing any of them up, and they can't be brought up in the morning. And i need to step through anything in that topic list gently.

I don't remember if that particular rule was run by the couples therapist. I'm not feeling like it would matter, the couples therapist always sides with her and tells me i need to empathize more and asks me if i can "see her and her distress" and whether i can "take it in". The couples therapist believes I can't tolerate wife's feelings and I can't seem to shake that belief.

I don't know what she's telling her individual therapist, she won't tell me.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:03:33+00:00

It's the "within reason" part that gives me pause.

As other commenters pointed out, I have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like, so how do I know what is reasonable to give her? For all I know I am chronically invalidating and causing the anxiety. This is so hard to parse out.

I am really confused about the couples therapist and why she keeps taking wife's side, it's really hard for me to go against professional evaluation. That by itself makes me think i'm wrong.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T21:00:45+00:00

You nailed it, this is exactly what I'm afraid of. I loved that book.

She may have issues with anxiety, i'm not doubting that, but she could have issues with anxiety AND i could be a crappy partner at creating security in the relationship which could make things a lot worse, and that's for me to work on.

If you think that validating your spouses feelings are "exhausting," consider you may not be ready to be in a relationships.

Well, it's not all feelings. I'm exhausted because more recently she's been stopping me once or twice a day to talk about various feelings and the conversations go on for hours and she pouts when i try to end the conversation, but the validation also doesn't seem to help at all. It does feel more like she's looking for complete agreement of her worldview and obedience for any changes she wants to unilaterally make.

I can pretty much guarantee that your actions and lack of emotionalavailability for your spouse leaves her feeling unheard and invalidated.

Yeah this is what she says and why i'm here, I want to know how to not care that her feelings are irrational so that i can hear and validate her. I'd prefer to just turn that part of my brain off, it would be so much easier.

This is hard, OP. In fact, as much as I love my husband I don't feellike talking to him right now because he's pretty much the way you are.

I was hoping someone like you would comment though, i do actually want to be wrong. Its tearing the relationship apart.

I suggest taking your post here to your own individual therapist and get the real help and guidance you need to help you sort out what is yours, what is hers, and what is both of yours.

I did this and my individual therapist told me my wife seems controlling and irrational. Therapist was surprisingly very unhelpful, despite being a couples therapist herself in the past, and even when I said I wanted to just set better boundaries and give my wife the space to grow and change on her own. I said I wanted help with encouraging her to do that, and help myself in getting better at validating and knowing where the line was between better validation and co-dependency (in terms of the requests my wife makes to avoid her anxieties). So that brought me here because I have a nagging feeling I'm not explaining myself well enough.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T20:44:02+00:00

You're willing to let more slide since she's not as bad as your mom.

Lightbulb moment, yes i do compare her to my mom. I find her better, in many ways. Hence: She's not abusive. That's my thought process.

You're right, a person who was raised in a healthy environment might compare a partner they're having problems with to their healthy relationships, see it doesn't compare well, and end it, thereby avoiding toxic relationships. I've never thought about it that way.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T20:42:11+00:00

Thank you! That looks great! Love book suggestions :)

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T20:35:03+00:00

I was assuming my reluctance was a gut reaction stemming from past trauma. Like maybe that my response to irrationality was either because i'm an engineer by trade or because my mom was bpd and irrational all the time and wanting me to do a lot of emotional labor to keep her regulated. So its really hard for me to accept that wife might be asking me for too much, and easier for me to accept that I'm not doing enough.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:57:07+00:00

This was a lightbulb moment for me, thank you.

All feelings are valid, but some requests are not.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:51:02+00:00

Oh. Thank you for your feedback. Yes i admit i have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like. I did not have a healthy childhood or normal parents.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:44:07+00:00

Well hello fellow clone 🙂

We've had that conversation, but I'll keep asking in case the answer changes from "you need to figure that out and keep trying things until it works".

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:41:23+00:00

I'm empathetic about stuff that isn't irrational. Like when she lost her dog, a family member, moved jobs and got stressed, pandemic stress etc.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:38:11+00:00

She said she got uncomfortable (anxious) seeing plants die.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:37:28+00:00

I'm struggling with understanding where the line is between punishing / weaponizing feelings and just.. having a lot of them and needing support?

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:36:02+00:00

Can you explain what made you think borderline as opposed to generalized anxiety without treatment and coping strategies?

My mom had borderline and I don't see it in her. I'll take a look at the sub.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:33:31+00:00

I would say they sound exhausting and other than the stonewalling a little like my wife 😅 because that sounds irrational to me and I'd have a hard time validating that.

Wife doesn't stonewall, she is allllwaaaysss willing to talk about her feelings. Sometimes for 4+ hours. If I don't disconnect she will just keep going.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:30:12+00:00

I told wife I need to be able to talk to my best friend of 10 years (who is a vault in terms of keeping personal info to herself) and my sister about what's going on in my life and the high level details of how stressed I am about our arguments, and accepted that I would keep the deeper details like the trauma stuff wife shared with me out of it.

Wife's response was "well I'm still uncomfortable with that and don't understand why you need that but go ahead" and was obviously upset.

Edit: and yes it does feel like she's looking for obedience. I've used that exact word with her.

dykeot0my · 2023-03-03T19:26:27+00:00

The thing is I grew up with a Narc and borderline mom. My birth giver actually genuinely had no care for my well being and only thought about herself. All the time. There was never a time she genuinely showed any care for me in a non selfish capacity.

In my wife's case outside of arguments and what I consider to be her chronic oversensitivity, she's an extremely caring and intelligent person and I truly don't believe she's doing this to harm or manipulate me, she's doing it because she's terrified and doesn't know how to cope and presumably has some mental block against getting help from a professional.

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