Okay, everyone, this is really important, so listen up.
If any of you have been following along, and have even the slightest personal experience and understanding of what I have been talking about, I hope you absorb this, if nothing else.
And that is the concept of validation. It is THE corner stone of male/female attraction.
Just for a moment… think of the most charming person you know. Why are they so charming? Why does it feel so darn good to be in their company?
Because they validate everyone, including themselves.
We all want to be validated. Some may call validation nothing more than a compliment. You understand a compliment. WHY are compliments so… lovely? Because they validate us. But validation is much more than a compliment. It is the highway on which a compliment travels.
There are two forms of validation. 1. Validation with true sincerity and empathy, and 2. validation with an agenda. If you are a good actor or con-artist, you can pull off that second one pretty easy. Validation with an agenda is another way of saying ‘manipulation.’ It is THE WORST form of invalidation. Invalidation is lethal to ALL of us, for it completely dismisses our value as humans, the value we feel at our core level. If we do not value ourselves very much, invalidation hurts even more.
How does invalidation hurt? For HD’s, think of crap sex. That’s a form of validation with an agenda (if I have sex with you, will you get off my back?) For LD’s, think of the partner who says… ‘I did x,y, or z for you, so you should want to have sex with me.’
There are far more examples than these, and I’m sure you can all think of them on your own.
If you think about this, maybe you can now see why emotional affairs occur, and why they can be so much more lethal to an M than a physical affair. I believe that most affairs happen because there is validation missing for BOTH partners in an M.
There is an entire chapter in the EG for Everyone online book that discusses validation and invalidation. If you read nothing else… read that one.
Now think about this, HD men. You want to have MEANINGFUL sex with your wives. Why? Because it validates you. Crap sex does not. So… if you spend all week invalidating your wife (as a result, maybe, of her turning you down) -- and invalidating consists of loosely veiled anger, poutiness, emotional withdrawal, or some other form of negative emotion emitting from you – if you are continuously invalidating your partner… WHY would you ever consider it reasonable that that person would want to have sex with you?
Validate. Validate. Validate. And learn how to do it with sincerity. Leave sex off your agenda right now. Take a moratorium for a bit. See what happens. Creating this emotionally safe environment is important for you both… cause if you can’t CONTRIBUTE to the safe environment, you aren’t going to get meaningful sex. So, it is in your own best interest to do this.
For those LD people out there… the same as above goes for you… except for the fact that your spouse may not be aware of how much and how often they are invalidating you, because they are feeling so hurt.
So. If you can LEARN not to take their invalidation personally (maybe it isn’t about me… maybe they are feeling hurt about something), and start doing some validation with sincerity of your own… you may help steer your partner to give you what you need… validation of your feelings.
Understand that just because someone validates your feelings (I don’t want to have sex, icky), and they validate this notion of yours, it does NOT mean you are off the hook. It means the two of you are creating a SAFE environment for yourselves to learn how to express your emotions freely, without any expectation that the other person has to DO something about them. In some countries and third world provinces, this is called TRUST.
(LM, this could very well be the reason why you felt so good the other day, when you just told your wife how you were feeling, and not expecting her to do anything other than listen, so it is important for everyone, not just low desire people. It’s just especially important to them).
There could be quite a bit bottled up in you, but your spouse can’t help you or support you if they don’t know what’s going on WITH you. A lot of LD people have NO CLUE what they are feeling inside… because they are afraid of their emotions. Or, they have just never had the courage to express them, or they don’t feel safe expressing them… you get the point.
But if you can’t be honest with your spouse… how are they supposed to VALIDATE you? That goes for EVERYONE.
GGB, I think this is the underlying success to the ME Weekends. But, now you know WHY.
Everybody with me?
So… the exercise here, for the Higher Drive folks, is to learn active listening and how to validate with sincerity, your partner. We can discuss this further, for clarification. Fire away.
For the lower drive people, the exercise is to learn active listening, and to start validating YOUR OWN feelings, and honestly expressing them. When/if your partner invalidates you practice not taking that personally, and bringing the invalidation to their attention without accusation and judgment.
LDs usually know how they feel, and if given a safe environment and the floor, it might feel like a filibuster to your spouse.
So, you get to talk to your partner, but you have to put a time limit on it. Talking someone’s ear off is the equal to an HD begging for sex. It comes off as needy, clingy and overwhelming. If your HD partner wants to talk to YOU, that is fine. If they approach YOU to talk about THEIR feelings, you must practice active listening and validation with sincerity yourself. You don’t get to take over the conversation and make it about YOU. AND they get to talk about whatever they want, even if it includes sex. Quite honestly, this may help you start identifying what, about sex, is triggering what emotions… think about them. Write them down.
To do these exercises, you will have to learn about validation/invalidation, and HOW to do active listening. It’s in the online book, and we can also discuss it here to further clarify.
I think this will open up a very interesting and useful discussion. I completely agree with what you say about validation, and this is the same thing discussing for the past few weeks. You do realize that on the SURFACE this flies in the face of differentiation ideas? If we are truly able to differentiate and hold onto ourselves, validation should not be necessary at all. But as you say, validation is the cornerstone of all relationships. Without it you merely have two people living parallel lives.
I do believe that differentiation is crucial for a healthy relationship, but for a different reason that what I think most people here understand. The ONLY purpose for differentiation that I can see is to block out and protect yourself from negative and damaging feelings. But this is NOT enough to create a feeling of closeness and bonding with a spouse. IT is NECESSARY to get to the point of EC, but it is NOT sufficient. Once negative emotions are control, then validation take create the EC we all want. The two MUST be used together. Neither one by itself is sufficient.
This is why I was saying a few weeks ago that the circle can come back around. The supposed enmeshment that validation can create can actually evolve to a higher level that I was calling interdependence. I still think this is closer to the “ideal” that we should all strive for, not the differentiate state that Schnarch describes.
This idea of validation also brings in one of your pet topics, and that is respect. Validation is also a way of showing respect to one another, another key component for a long lasting relationship.
You do realize that on the SURFACE this flies in the face of differentiation ideas?
No, because you are doing TWO things at once. You are upping the validation (to help your partner get to a place of self-validation), and at the same time, you are STOPPING the invalidation you are throwing at your partner, thereby helping yourself to self-validate, or 'hang onto yourself, or... differentiate.
Quote:
The ONLY purpose for differentiation that I can see is to block out and protect yourself from negative and damaging feelings.
Again, Cobra, the goal of differentiation is NOT to block out anything. As a matter of fact, you will feel more than you ever have in your life, probably. Differentiation is about acknowledging and accepting your own negative feelings, and not attempting to make them your partners problem.
You efficiently DEAL with your own emotions. THEN you can express them to your partner, for informational purposes... so they don't inadvertently invalidate you all over the place as you work on processing YOUR emotions.
Enmeshment occurs when you don't understand the the cycle of the circle you are talking about. Enmeshment is unawareness.
I think you would really benefit from reading that online book Cobra... I'm pretty sure it will put the 'icing on the cake' of your understanding.
All those things you get, but you can't quite name or express... to really get that final... click...? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd be interested in your thoughts, though, if you do decide to read it.
My wife just recently (February) went back to work. She has been a SAHM for the past 5 years. This timing kind of goes hand in hand with how our problems have escalated and I'm finally starting to get a grip on some of the basis for a portion of our issues.
I've always been one to leave work at work. When I leave work, now it's MY time. Play time. Time to spend with my girls, my wife, myself, just doing things that we/I enjoy. I don't want to talk about work, nor do I need to. I'm fine with that. I've never mentioned this to my wife so until recently she never knew. I would just answer her questions like "How was work today?" I would usually give a short answer and move on to something else. It wasn't her that I didn't want to talk too, it was the subject. She took it the wrong way and now I can see why. I never told her before now, so how would she know!
Now that she has gone back to work, she is just the opposite. She needs and wants to talk about her work and whatever the situation of the day might be. I've always listened, but I have to admit I was not totally into it. I was not really validating her feelings by not listening to her as well as I should have. In fact, I was probably invalidating them.
A few weeks ago I started making it a point to REALLY listen to what she has been saying and I've been amazed at how things have changed. We're communicating more open and freely. It seems the more I validate her feelings, she in turns validates mine. What did Corri say? Validate, Validate, Validate !
I'm hoping this is something that we can sustain and help us get back to the relationship that I feel we can have together.
Gary _____________________________________________________
"If you can't lick em, lick em" - Ted Nugent "D'ooh !!!!" - Homer Simpson
Okay... if you choose to accept it... your immediate goal could be to rebuild the Trust-Safety Nest. What does that mean.
A man needs to be able to trust his wife.
A woman needs to feel safe with her man.
Trust/Safety are the Ying and Yang of a marriage. Sex has NOTHING to do with this, but it is one of the first things that will suffer if you BOTH start ripping apart your Trust-Safety Nest... because you can't have MEANINGFUL sex without it!!!
You can fkc. You can have crap sex. But you CANNOT have meaningful sex without it.
Once you get THAT rebuilt... it isn't a guarantee that you will have all the meaningful sex you could ever want, but I'm confident when I say, it is the very best odds you can set for yourself to reach that goal...
All the stuff you just said about your wife? Yes, yes, yes....!!!!! You are getting it.
Haven't read the on line book yet so you're going to bear with the following.
Validation is a tricky one I think. Of course ones operational definition of validation is going to influence how you see the subtle shades of the concept. For myself the validation of others or the seeking of it is toxic.
I've always in the past needed the validation of sex to boost me up. In a past relationship when the source of validation no longer worked I would cheat. Not for biological reasons but for the chemical high of a new lover but mostly for the validation of my sexual prowess.
Other based validation works until it doesn't work then you have an imbalance unless you have at your center an ability to self validate.
This is a huge point and one can go seeking validation and approval from others raking the leaves, washing the car, dressing well, driving the right car or having the right job all in the hopes of gaining the blessings of another.
To me validation is about a sense of worth about valuing yourself and others in an honest and true way. If someone just blows sunshine up your butt its meaningless but if the honestly compliment something that you value its golden.
I'm in no way saying that one shouldn't be gracious and appreciative in fact I think that we should all practice gratitude a bit more as long as its honest.
Bottom line for me is that self-validation has to be there and without it seeking other based validation will result in codependency, fusion, crap relationships and unhappiness .
I can really relate to what you wrote about you and your wife regarding how much each of you likes to talk about work/your day. Sounds a lot like cac and me, especially when I WOH. I liked to talk about my day too. Your wife's love language is probably quality time, especially if you are seeing improvements in your R because you are actively listening to her. As a QT person, I can tell you that it is highly validating having your spouse *really* listen to you. You are definitely on the right track. Keep it up!
