I responded with: "I am sorry you feel that way, but [W], you are a beautiful, intelligent, strong...a VERY desirable woman, and I can't be around much anymore to remind you of that as often as you deserve to hear it, so you need to stop beating yourself up with thoughts like that."
I almost wrote "silly thoughts" or "ridiculous thoughts", but didn't want to call her feelings either of those words (learned from this forum about validating feelings, though I don't know if the above is a very good job of that).
That is most definitely not a validating response, it's really kind of the opposite of validating as I described above. It's a tricky question she's asking though, in text it's hard to tell where the question is coming from. If it was a superficial "do these pants make my butt look big" question then your response was fine.
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What I wrote was honest and direct, but I don't think it's very good "validating."
Exactly.
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What about if spouse says "I miss you" or "I love you"? Reciprocating those feelings would be truthful, but I'm really in a mode where I have my feelings towards her shut down externally.
In the 10 months since BD I have heard neither of those phrases from W, so I don't really know what to tell you, LOL! I would have loved to hear those months ago and would have immediately responded in kind. Now? I don't know how I'd respond. I would be shocked to hear them, I know that much.
