Love... Part 1

I am a Myers-Briggs type INTP... I am an eneagram type 4w5... this isnt exactly a normal combo... relevant stats I have seen put this at about 1.5% of INTPs.

I'm weird... even among a minority personality type.

I am introverted and a thinker... but also a people pleaser.  I am almost OCD when it comes to taking care of other people... the way someone likes their coffee... their favorite drink... even the way some people like to have their clothes folded. 

You would think... that this would mean I have had a lot of successful relationships.  Yet, I have been married twice (divorced twice now)... and really only had three other long term relationships.  Why?  I know... in a lot of ways... I am directly responsible... either I ended things... or I did something that I knew would end the relationship.

I am going to review the basics... because I am looking for a pattern... or at least something that makes some sort of sense to me.

(pre sex)

Des - I had a crush on Desiree for many years.  She was my step-sister's best friend... cute, but not hot.  She was a bitch... but on more than one occasion she gave me some sort of special attention that really made me think there was something mutual there.  Who knows.  Nothing ever happened.  She really jumped from one bad relationship to another... sometimes trading off with Kristi (who we will get to later)... dating the same boy... or one dumping him only to let the other one pick him up.  Bitchy, controlling girl behavior actually.  But at the time... I had delusions that I would be somehow different.

Did I love her?  No.  It was a kid's crush.

(first time)

Tanya - Part-time lesbian friend of a friend (Ex-girlfriend of Des actually). She surprised me one night, she stayed over at my house, friends with my Step-sister.  I woke up to her naked... lying next to me... asking if I had ever done this before.  It was never a real relationship... but there was a lot of sex... which is great when you are 17.  On the plus side... You can learn an awful lot about how to please a woman from a lesbian.  Downsides... pathological liar.  Really.  Weird shit too... you could know exactly what happened... try to correct her... but she would act like you were crazy for not remembering it how she did.

Did I love her?  No... it was an education... not even any real affection.

Mona - Friend of Tanya (ok... I do see a pattern here).  No intercourse... lots of kissing, fondling, teasing talk.  She was a virgin... and I did not feel confident enough to take things further.  Very outspoken... mentioned threesomes with myself and Ian, yet neither of us ever decided it was worth it.  She lost her virginity to Jimmy (my 2nd ex-wife's current boyfriend... *sigh*).  Strangely enough... once, after a night of frustratingly not having sex with the red head in my bed... I fucked Tanya by the pool... because I was too horny to sleep.

Did I love her?  No... part of why I could not have sex... did not seem "right"

Kim - Friend of Kristi (yes... same Kristi).  Weird mix of crap... she was fun... and crazy... she told me she was a virgin... she even bled after we had sex the first time.  But, as the story is told  by Kristi, she had lost her virginity the summer before to a friend of theirs.  Not sure who to believe.  It was neither fun... or as interesting as it should have been... that old saying "Crazy in the head, crazy in bed," did NOT apply.  She did later try to stab me with a knife... and also dated one of Kristi's best friends... as well as got into a fist fight with Kristi over the musical Oklahoma.  Mixed bag of crazy... she was on meds... who really knows what... she was a foster kid... with a weird past... way too into dressing up and role playing games.  Probably had Dis-associative Identity Disorder, based on how often she would change 'faces.'

Did I love her?  No... in a lot of ways... I feel like I never knew who she really was.

Angela J - Friend of a friend. Started dating... not even sure how.  Had sex once... everything got weird really fast.  I ended things because she was just too... intense.  Definitely a virgin... but I did not know that at the time. I liked her because she was a free-spirit.  She would bury her shoes just to walk barefoot... she ran around in the woods, just because.  She was fun... and later there would be a weird mix of flirting, fondling, and even violence on a boat.  In a strange way... I saw a kindred soul... but there was always a spark of something missing... Later on... she would marry Ian, but they never lived together and eventually annulled the marriage.

Did I love her? No... the connection was never there.  Things moved too fast.

Colby - Best friend for two years.  She lived with my family for a while.  I visited her in Oregon for a month.  All that time... nothing ever happened.  Then... one day... we drank whiskey and had sex.  It was not what I expected... she was strangely non-responsive and cold.  It was never really dating... we kept it quiet.  Tried again a few more times... but it never seemed right.  She lived with Kristi for a while... they were inseparable. Colby was in love... Kristi wasn't.  I don't know if either of them ever considered it a proper relationship.

Did I love her?  Yes.  I knew everything about her.  She was my best friend for years.  After the sex... it was never the same.

Sara - Gothy friend... dated my friend Josh.  I managed to be more interesting... and broke them up.  Still not sure of I did that on purpose or not.  She was feisty.  Had sex at an age that most would consider to be child abuse... but strangely... with her... it just seemed normal.  Not me mind you...  by the time we hooked up she had been active for five years... me... just one year.  I liked her... this was the first relationship I considered to be something real.  My first long term relationship... full of ups and downs.  Cheated on her with Colby once... early on. We moved past that fairly well.  We stayed together for months... we traveled to So.Cal to visit her family one Christmas.  I broke up with her the week after we came home.  Why?  I was turning 18... and interested in exploring my sexuality (whatever that means)... despite the fishnets, short dresses, and early sexual exploits... she was too vanilla... and I wanted something different.  I'm not proud of myself for that... I was just young and selfish.

Did I love her?  Yes.  First real relationship.  First purely romantic love... it is still kind of sweet in my memory.

Robyn - Here is where things get messy and hard to explain.  I met Robyn, my first ex-wife, on AOL.  Yay for chat rooms... first vampires... then private sex chats.  She was vivacious... and exciting... really played to my need for attention.  Plus... she looked a lot like Kristi.  Oh... is that surprising?  I guess I should have mentioned that.  I will explain that in detail later.

She was an adult orphan.  Exactly six months older than me.  We had a weird chemistry... opposites in so many ways.  She came to visit... and just kind of moved in.  The sex was amazing... finally... "crazy in the head = crazy in bed!"  There was chaos... and drama... a pregnancy... a major fight... she moved to New Hampshire.  There was weirdness... there was Sara in a bikini... stripping in front of me.  There was Robyn and Kristi becoming good friends.

That summer was a mess... I got my first job... Robyn and I went on the Ricki Lake Show.  We had sex in New York City... I took a bus across the country to bring her back.  All this... in a very mixed up timeline... culminating in my first son being born in So.Cal... and me bringing the two of them back to live with me in Redding.  Later... there would be a costumed Halloween wedding.

The chaos never stopped.  I worked my ass off... first working stupid long hours at a gas station... later adding on delivering papers and working at the gas station.... 15 hour days.  Then... working at Target.  We fought... constantly... about stupid, kid stuff.  Strangely... we had our second son... because we thought it would help us find some peace... it didn't.  I finally realized how bad it was... scratches, bruises, one coffee table thrown at me, then the last straw... a glass plate and a broken framed picture shattering glass around my feet... my two kids playing on the floor... she did not even stop to acknowledge the glass around her babies.  I left that night... took the kids to my parent's house.  It was over for me that night... but it took a while to get a divorce.  She moved on faster than I did... a new guy was in the house three months later... they are still married.  Go figure.

Did I love her?  Yes.  Can I explain it?  Nope.  She was not a bad person... she had her issues... we were NOT good together.  But, there was passion... it was intense... and we made two smart kids. 

Been A While

Chaos... That is how I would describe the last year+ of my life.

A year ago... my marriage was already over... I just refused to recognize it.  I was living with a stranger... who wore my dead wife's face and spoke with the voice of a ghost.  I believed her when she would make promises or pretend things would get better.  All the while... she had a boyfriend... and continued to meet others.

Looking back... I knew something was wrong.  I should have trusted my gut.  I should have made her leave.  I had a decent job... I was already watching the kids from the time I finished work to the time they went to bed.  I was even helping her with homework.  I did her online History class for her... and when she crashed and refused to complete her Sociology of Television class... I finished her last two projects for her.  What was I thinking?  Why did I cling to a love that was obviously gone?

Then came the move... her Aunt kicked us out of the house we rented from her... did I mention that psychosis runs in the matrilineal line?  This was right at Christmas.  We were broke.  We somehow managed to get the kids presents... despite all of the student loan money she took out disappearing.  Jeans, makeup, etc.  That makes me angry too... but I can let that go.  She got so angry with me... because I did not have anything to fill her stocking with.  What?  Really?  After a month of scrounging cash so we could afford a deposit and put presents under the tree for the kids?  How could someone be so selfish as to be angry at not having a stocking.  I did not expect anything.  It didn't matter.  What mattered was being together... and making the kids smile.

Then came this summer.  I came home... she was gone.  I read through her emails... and her text messages.  She saved them all in SMS.  Invasion of privacy?  Yes. Warranted... after the year I had... and coming home to an empty house... and no kids... yes.

What I discovered shocked me.  My suspicions of her behavior were all true.  Even from November to December, when we were "trying to work on our marriage."  She was meeting people online.  She was sending out photos.  She was arranging threesomes in our new house... right BEFORE Christmas.  She can claim that I ruined the marriage.  There is probably a lot of truth there.  It was full of lies and failures from the start.  I am not proud of my behavior... and I regret not doing more to take care of my family.  But, I was never unfaithful.  I never lied about meeting people to have sex... or get mad at her for ruining her Christmas while she planned to have sex with people in a house we had not even moved into yet.

She hates me.  I understand that.  I do not understand the why.  Thing is... I no longer care.  I see the pattern in her behavior... with her first husband... with me... with her next boyfriend... and the current boyfriend.  She is afraid of being alone.  She is afraid of growing old.  She is intelligent... but doubts her own abilities.  Her parents did that to her.  They created someone with so much potential, then broke her.  I hate them for that.  She may say she forgives them... but she doesn't know how to forgive.  She tolerates them... because they are family. 

I loved someone special.  She did not come with an instruction manual... and some of the functions were damaged in shipping.  I made things worse.  We spoke different languages... had different priorities.  I will never hate her.  But right now... I do not like her.  We no longer talk... that is good.  It was painful to hear her voice.  We no longer text... that is good.  She never has anything nice to say.  We communicate through email... and even that... I am always the villain.

Right now... I should be finalizing some of the paperwork for the divorce.  I just don't care.  It will get done.  I am just not willing to work on her timetable.  Petty... maybe... really I am just not interested.  We signed an agreement for custody and visitation.  Already I feel that she will just make things inconvenient for me until I just go away.

For once... I am happy.  Her negativity... her lies... all of that is removed from my life.  I am still exposed to it... and if I want a place in my children's lives I have to re immerse myself in it from time to time.  But I have discovered real friends... people who care about me.  People I care about in turn.  I have found a new relationship... something that seems a bit too happy to be true... but I have never felt the need to be anything but myself with this person. 

Visual Graph of Love

The worst kind of love... when one person loses their Passion, compromises Intimacy, and wonders why the other is in constant pain...

You Cannot Fix Others

I am stuck.  I am obviously depressed: trouble sleeping, lack of interest in hobbies, exercise, eating right, work, even watching TV.

I know why. I was delivered divorce papers this week.  I  am not against the divorce... I am just not happy with how horrible the last year has been.

Even now, I do not want her back.  She has repeatedly created situations that should force me to hate her.  What troubles me is who is the real K?  Is it the kind, sweet mother of three kids?  Is it the fiercely protective wife who fought so hard to help clean up some previous messes in my life?  Or is it the fuck-it-all, I give up, bitch who started seeing someone else?

I wasn't perfect.  Far from it.  She has legitimate grievances.  BPD prevents people from accepting the past and moving on.  She says she forgives people, but I know this is untrue.  She holds on to every hurt and pain she has suffered in life.  How do you fix that?  It is not possible. 

So now, we have days like yesterday.  I do not give her what she wants; in this case, the total amount of my paycheck; and all hell breaks loose.  I counted about 80 text messages, and about 15 phone calls.  I made the mistake of responding... and it went on all day.  I only respond because i think somehow, i might get through to her, "this time."  But, it never changes.  We fight, she threatens, she cries, she threatens more.  It is an emotional rollercoaster.  In calm moments, if I mention something that was said in anger, she denies it ever happened. 

Yesterday, she even admitted that she doesn't know what she is saying.  She cannot remember it.  She either blocks it out... or something else takes over.  I believe this.  I have seen it.  She also told me she stopped taking her anti-psychotic.  I believe that too.  Her behavior becomes more erratic... more... unhinged.

She tells me that I am invalidating her feelings when I ignore her.  I am not.  I just cannot process her feelings.  How do you respond to someone who is so black and white, blazing hot and ice cold.  I know there is pain there and I can sympathize... but there is no longer empathy.  Trying to empathize with her tore me apart.  I am not equipped, emotionally, to separate what is normal from what is too intense and will pass.

I just wanted us to be a family.  I tried.  It was not enough.  I do not blame anyone for the end of the marriage.  Divorce is the best option on the table.  I tried to stay married, to meet my own personal sense of obligation, but she filed the papers.  So she made that decision easier.  I am sad.  I miss who she was... and who we both used to be.  But, I am not broken.  I feel damaged, but I also enjoy discovering who I actually am, not who I was forced to be. 

Here, Now, and When

I am alone.  New place... new job... no friends... no family.  It is a lot like the Army... but excruciatingly different. The Army told me where to go, when to eat, when to sleep.  Here I am free to do basically anything I want... outside of work. 

So... what am I doing?  Working, eating, and sleeping.  Punctuated with some working out... and some netflixed Dr. Who.  I sleep a lot.  I have housemates... I have coworkers.  I have friends on internet forums and in text messages.  Why do I still feel so bloody lonely?  It isnt a depressed kind of lonely... it's just an emptiness.

I have tons of free time for hobbies... yet nothing sounds appealing.  I could paint... if I had my tools.  I could probably scrounge up materials and build a raised bed garden with just things in the backyard.  I am working on handstands.  Yet nothing feels right.

Everything is quiet.  I turn off the TV... housemates turn it on even when they are not in the same room.  I have never understood the need for background noise.  I sleep with music on again... I haven't done that since K and I started living together.  Sleeping alone is weird... it's different than sleeping in another room... or sleeping on the floor.  This is a whole different type of alone.  No one makes demands on my time.  Even work is sort of at-my-own pace.  I do things fast just because I enjoy the efficiency of the process...

I have had many cases of deja vu since coming here.  And not just that weird prickly sensation, but full on "memories," of things I haven't seen yet.  That sort of prescience does bother me when it happens.  My understanding of space-time doesn't sit well when things happen out of order.  Things may not be truly linear... but I prefer it when they move that way.  My dreams are more vivid... that could be the cold and the omega-3s I take before bed.  Sleeping with the window open and the heating vents closed has been nice.

My mind is absorbing everything.  I am remembering incredible details... patterns in rocks and trees... strings of numbers... faces... names... cloud formations.  Interesting how much of that was lost in the chaos of the last few years.  I am remembering what it was like... I'm not sure now which I prefer.  I miss my routines.  I miss being needed.  I don't miss being ignored... or put aside.  I exist... that is enough I suppose.

This rambling is a distraction.  I can pretend for a moment that I have someone to share these things with.  I am not sure why that is important.  My thoughts exist for the moment, but then transition to something new... Oh Look... Shiny.  *sigh*  I cannot imagine how that could be appealing for someone else.  That is not meant to sound emo... more to the point... what purpose do such thoughts hold if I have no plans or goals.  I am distracted by life... I suppose that is living in the moment.  I am more zen than at any other time in my life, yet there is a lack of substance, that I feel I need.

Poser likes to talk about disassociation and detachment.  Why?  Where is the purpose in that?  If your goal is to detach from reality and individual thought, how does that serve the purpose of the universe?  If you buy into the idea of universal consciousness, the god-mind, or even condensed wavelengths of energy slowed to the point of becoming matter... then why not use these moments we have to explore, learn, grow your consciousness?  How can you accomplish that if all you ever do is try to detach from reality?  I do not want to detach myself.  I want to make connections... with people, things, nature.  I enjoy finding those ley lines and nodes that draw us together.

Reflective Listening + Validation

Reflective Listening

The goals of reflective listening are several:

1. To facilitate the expression of someone else's feelings.
2. To enhance a speaker's problem-solving ability by helping them move through "stuck" feelings; and
3. To generate a feeling of warmth and understanding between listener and speaker.

The technique of reflective listening is deceptively simple to describe, and challenging to master. The listener must identify the primary feelings the speaker is having and then reflect back that understanding with an empathetic tone. For example:

Wife: If that neighbor parks in my space again I'm going to let all the air out of his tires!
Husband: Sounds like you're angry that he keeps taking your spot.
Wife: You bet I am. I've told him not to ten times! But I don't want to get him mad at us because I know what a jerk he can be.
Husband: You're afraid of what else he might do.

Reflective listening avoids the many pitfalls listeners tend to fall into: judging, minimizing or discounting feelings, giving advice, or not responding at all. One of the most common pitfalls is trying to help “solve the problem”. Speakers are often just looking for empathy, a chance to vent, and to clarify their own thinking.

They may consider it an insult to their intelligence for the listener to offer solutions. And if the solutions posed seem simple, the speaker may feel like her feelings are being judged as being irrational.

Reflective listening is not simply repeating or paraphrasing what a speaker has said. Most speakers don't question your comprehension of their words, but they need to know that you know how they feel.

Reflective Listening Is Not Always Enough

While reflective listening is arguably the single most important communication skill taught, sometimes the technique falls short of its goals. When the feelings expressed are quite strong, or the speaker carries some doubt or shame about their feelings, a neutral reflection by the listener can miss the mark, even if the feeling reflected is accurate and the tone is empathetic. For example:

Worker: I can't believe the secretary hasn't finished my report yet. What the hell is the matter with her?
Co-worker: You're angry that she's not done.
Worker: Angry? Oh no. I'm sure she's got her hands full like all of us. But damn it, I've got to present that report in half an hour!
Co-worker: You are afraid you won't have it in time.
Worker: No. It doesn't matter. I can present the bulk of it without having it in writing. ...Damn!

The worker in this example is embarrassed by his own feelings as they are reflected back to him, and he denies them. He is not convinced by the reflective listening that his anger and fear are understandable. An empathetic tone of voice is not always enough to communicate that someone's feelings are okay. The empathy in the tone, however, can be put into words. This is where the skill of validation comes in.

Validation Defined

Simply put, validation is the message, "Your feelings make sense. Not only do I hear you, but I understand why you feel the way you do. You are not bad or wrong or crazy for feeling the way you do."

This is a message people often need to hear, especially when they are rocked by strong feelings. No one is going to sound authentic, however, parroting these exact words. The art of validation is in tailoring the essence of this message to the specific feeling and situation the speaker is experiencing.

The Need For Validation

To understand why people need to be validated requires us to look at how often our feelings get shamed. As a society we have very few places where feelings are welcomed. We learn that strength means not crying, bravery means not feeling fear, and maturity means never being angry.

Showing strong emotion tends to make the people around you very uncomfortable. Usually, they will attempt to get you to stop as quickly as possible. They may try to convince you that your feelings are inappropriate. Or they may try to reassure you. Even if their intent is to help you feel better, often the message is that it's not okay to feel bad.

Consequently, we have all accumulated many messages that our feelings are wrong. We yearn, therefore, for acceptance of our feelings, especially when our feelings are strong. Whatever else someone may be saying when they vent their feelings, they are probably also implicitly asking, "Are my feelings okay?" Validation answers this indirectly asked question, and provides satisfaction for a profound, though often unconscious, need.

The "Natural" Validation

Validation comes naturally whenever a listener feels the same way as the speaker. If Tom describes his anger at the invasiveness of telephone marketing and Corrine hates telephone marketing too, then all she has to do is express her feelings and Tom will probably feel supported that his feelings are okay.

Often someone needing validation will tell their story over and over again to different people, unconsciously searching for someone who feels the same way they do. Natural validation works well and does not require any specific skills. It is limited, however, to situations where the speaker and the listener feel the same way.

The Skill of Validation

When you do not feel the same way as someone you are listening to does, you can still validate their feelings. Doing so requires that you identify in yourself "sub-feelings" or different parts of yourself. While you may have a primary or dominant feeling about something, you can often have sub-feelings that are quite different.

When a friend moves away, a person might say she feels sad. While sadness may be the largest single feeling she has, she may have sub-feelings as well. She might feel angry at the friend for leaving. She might feel relieved that the friend is finally going to do what he has been talking about for years. Or she might feel afraid that her friend may be making a mistake.

There is a common misconception that we only feel one thing at a time. This error can make it difficult for a person to articulate his feelings. As soon as a person identifies one feeling, he hears a nagging voice inside saying “Oh no you don’t, you feel just the opposite!” Trying to decide on a single feeling with which to represent oneself can result in a confusing inner conflict, causing a person to become tongue tied. By allowing for the existence of sub-feelings, even contradictory ones, we can identify and express a more thorough picture of how we feel.

Identifying sub-feelings can also help us validate someone whose predominant feeling is different than our own. Imagine someone describing to a friend how angry he is at the thief who just held up a store he was in:
"I was so angry I just wanted to follow the guy out and beat him up!"

Imagine that the listening friend, however, identifies how scared she would be in that situation. She can't imagine the desire to pursue the thief. The idea sounds quite stupid to her. She can still validate her friend's feeling, however, by identifying her own sub-feelings.

She might ask herself, "Have I ever felt angry enough to want to fight back against someone?". She may then remember wanting to slug a guy who harassed her with catcalls on the street the other day. Having contacted a similar anger within herself she can then validate her friend by saying something like:
"I can understand being angry enough to want to strike back".

This validation is likely to feel genuine to her friend because she was willing to feel a similar anger inside her-self before she said it. If she had just said, "You are angry about the hold-up," without identifying any sub-feelings of anger within herself, her response would likely seem mechanical and not very validating.

Some readers might fear that validating someone's anger will make them more likely to act it out. Quite the opposite is true. When someone's feelings are validated the urge to act them out actually lessens. The validation helps them let the feeling go and begin thinking more clearly about a wise course of action.
The art of validation, then, requires that you actually feel some aspect of the emotion the speaker is having.

Your feeling does not have to be the main response you would have to the situation they describe. It can be a sub-feeling, or it can be a feeling you would have in another situation that has some similar elements. What makes a validation authentic is your willingness to call up and experience a part of yourself that can connect with the emotion being described. When you speak from that willingness, your message that the emotion in question is understandable or okay will be truly validating.

Choosing Feelings?

Another roadblock to good validation is the fallacy that we "choose our feelings". Listeners can shame speakers with this misconception.

“So you are choosing to be upset with your husband. I guess that’s your right. How is it working for you?”


This approach may be well-meaning, but it is likely to be poorly received. The power of examining our choices is a valuable tool, but we must be clear about what we have choice over and what we do not.

Our feelings are bodily experiences that we perceive, rather than choose. The only direct choice we have over our feelings is whether to be aware of them or to repress them. Either choice may be appropriate, given the situation. Sometimes it is best to put your feelings aside and focus on a particular task. At other times, knowing how you feel is important so you can make good decisions, or so you can connect meaningfully with others.

There are choices we make, however, that affect our feelings indirectly. Our feelings spring from our needs, our experiences, and our interpretations of them. How we interpret events affects how we may feel about them. Our interpretations, and the beliefs upon which we base them, are subject to our choice. By changing the way we look at a situation we can change how we feel about it.

Unfortunately, many of the beliefs that underlie our interpretations of events are either not conscious, or resistant to change. The pessimist, for example, is unlikely to simply decide to suddenly believe that “things will all turn out okay”. Many past experiences have formed the basis for his pessimism. Perhaps, for instance, a pessimistic attitude was once an effective way to cope with a series of disappointments.

Changing one’s belief systems, therefore, can be a difficult process. First the underlying belief must be identified. Then, a more functional belief must be proposed, and finally, experiential evidence supporting the new belief must be accumulated. Only then do feelings begin to change.

Hence, it is unrealistic to expect someone to change their beliefs whenever challenged. Listeners who do this may appear callous and uncaring.

Feelings and Needs

Feelings are also a factor of whether a person’s needs are being met or not. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Non-violent Communication, explains that good feelings are the response we experience when our needs are being met and uncomfortable feelings are the result of our needs going unmet.

Feelings that spring from unmet needs are often difficult to accept, particularly if one does not believe that the needs they have are legitimate. Whether they believe it or not, all people have needs for connection, autonomy, mastery, physical comfort, and meaning. An under-standing of these universal human needs can help people give themselves more permission to have their needs and the feelings generated when those needs go unmet. Such self-acceptance can help a person soothe themselves when they cannot find validation for their feelings from someone else.

Validating Feelings about You

One of the greatest challenges of good communication is validating the feelings someone has about you. When someone has a negative feeling toward us our first impulse is usually defensiveness. It makes sense that we would feel defensive because rarely do we do something with the intention of hurting someone else.

In order to respond to such feedback it is useful to make the distinction between the intention you had and the impact of your actions on someone else. Intent does not always equal impact. Only you know what your intention really was. Only others know what your impact on them really was.

Good communication can be defined as creating the impact that you intend. In order to communicate well, you have to be willing to listen to ways that your impact may have varied from your intent. Such feedback can help you make the proper correct-ions. Often, however, your first impulse may be to defend your-self.

Consider the following example:
Customer: Where's my car! I've got to go! It's supposed to be ready by now! It's been an hour!
Tire Salesperson: You have to give us some leeway on our estimated time for a job!

The customer here may feel that the salesperson is invalidating her feelings. If so, she may insist that her anger is justified and an argument may ensue.


Validating someone's feelings about you requires that you temporarily quell your impulse to explain yourself. Internally you may respect your intent and hold yourself blameless. Meanwhile, you focus your attention on what the other person felt and try to find something in your actions that could plausibly set off the feel-ings they describe. For example, our tire salesperson could say:

Tire Salesperson: Our estimate was off. I can see how that would be upsetting if you're in a hurry.

It is helpful to acknowledge what you did or said that sparked someone's feelings toward you. You do not, however, have to hold yourself accountable for the full intensity of their response. Your actions may have simply triggered strong feelings from their past. Pointing this out to someone, however, is likely to make them defensive unless you cop to your own involvement first. If you validate your contribution to their feelings they are often freed to look more closely at their own contribution.

After you have validated someone's feelings about you and allowed some time for those feelings to release, you can explain what your intention was without appearing defensive. Here are a few examples of the difference between defensiveness, reflective listening, and validation:

Example A:
Sister #1: Jackie! You pig! The pie is almost all gone!
Sister #2 (defensive): I didn't eat it all!
Sister #2 (reflective): You're angry about how much pie I ate.
Sister #2 (validating): Oh. I wasn't keeping track of how much I was eating. But if I had more than my share it makes sense that you'd be pissed.

Example B:
Child: This is a drag. You never take us anywhere fun.
Dad (defensive): What do you mean! What about last weekend!
Dad (reflective): You are bored with what we are doing.
Dad (validating): I can see how it might get pretty boring just hanging around here all day.

In both cases the validating response goes beyond the reflective response to include the message that the feelings expressed are understandable. The validating response thus addresses the unconscious question, "Are my feelings okay?" Because the need to be validated is so universal among people, those who gain proficiency at this skill can become very popular indeed.

18 Months vs. 15 Years...

I have written many posts describing a therapist who has treated several dozen BPD couples. He said that BPD relationships typically last 18 months or 15 years. They last 18 months, he explained, when the Non is healthy and has strong personal boundaries. In that case, the Non enjoys the 6 month passionate honeymoon and is willing to work for up to a year trying to reestablish the honeymoon. Then he bails.

The relationship last 15 years, he explains, when the Non has weak personal boundaries, being codependent. In that case, the Non never does leave. Instead, the BPD leaves him because each year she grows increasingly resentful that he did not fix her or make her happy. Moreover, as her body ages, she becomes increasingly fearful of abandonment.

--http://www.psychforums.com/borderline-personality/topic36357.html


word! This makes so much sense it hurts.