Just to be sure I am not misinterpreted, I do understand the importance of validating a woman’s feeling. This is one of the complaints my wife originally had against me when we first went to counseling. Now I feel I acknowledge everything she complains of, but she won’t acknowledge any of my complaints, but more of that later.
But for us men, we must always keep in mind that while we validate what she is saying, we must not take it to heart that this will be her position tomorrow. It is only her position today (regardless of what she says otherwise). For the most part, I would not say women have this dilemma when evaluating a man’s comments. This problem is unique for us men. And in that way I think Blackfoot and I are in agreement.
“Discounting a woman's feelings is not the way to her heart... surely you've figured that out by now.” This comment also highlights our dilemma and I am not sure how much women appreciate this.
1. We must validate her feelings now (she is PO’d) 2. We must keep in mind the door is still open and she expects us to come through it (even though she says it is nailed and welded shut) 3. We must ignore this negativity and anger and push for reconciliation 4. We must validate her feelings later (when she is not PO’d)
So for us men, when at point 1, we must acknowledge the feelings she expresses while at the same time quietly ignoring those feelings in order to get to point 3. When we are finally able to reconcile, we must honestly acknowledging her feelings at point 4, but we must never let on that we secretly had to discount her feelings at point 1. And while at point 4, we are secretly discounting her latest feelings since we don’t know how much longer before we end up at point 1 again!
