One of her complaints(180) has been that I don't listen enough. On the phone she got really angry and said I didn't listen. I replied to what she said so obviously I was. Don't get me wrong I have always been a bad listener, which I am working on, but this was more like negative enforcment from her side("see why I left you?!)
Listening does not mean just hearing her words and responding. I don't think that's what she means. What she probably means is she wants you to understand her feelings. She wants to feel validated. Problem is, most of us have no idea how to do this! DR touches on it and RetroV is almost exclusively about training couples to do it, but basically when she's telling you something ask her how she feels about it. Happy? Angry? Sad? Ambivalent? Then talk to her about how intense that feeling is- strong/ middle/ weak. The idea isn't to fix her problems, it's just to find out how she feels, and validate her emotions.
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She talked about quitting jobs and going on social security checks. (She used to hate healthy people doing that.) She changed it to quitting jobs to go to school again. I replied that it's far better than giving up and sitting back, and that she would get an opportunity to get proper education. IDK, I just feel I come off as patronizing.
Right, that's why the emotional validation is important. You're not agreeing/ disagreeing/ fixing/ explaining/ etc.
