Can You Hear Me Now?

Do you ever feel like there’s no point in talking with your spouse because it’s always a losing propostition?

Not just when it’s an argument you’re going to lose, but that your spouse just can’t understand you, so what’s the point?

It’s both of you talking, “listening”, saying stuff.  But somehow the important stuff doesn’t translate.

Joe and I have those conversations. We both do fairly well communicating what we were feeling. We both do a decent enough job listening to those thoughts.  But then we often miss a key part of making communication work well: Validating Feelings.

Example:

Joe: Tara that makes me feel really stressed out and overwhelmed.
Me: Don’t be stressed out. No reason to be overwhelmed, my dear.

I thought I was being supportive.  If stressed was a bad feeling, then you should stop feeling it.  (That’s not complicated, is it? )  But Joe didn’t like that “support” and a conversation like that usually went south. I was caught in this very nasty habit of “invalidating feelings”.   I couldn’t always hear his feelings correctly and if I did by chance hear them, I would dismiss them.   It was only recently that we realized that that habit was the cause of a lot of our miscommunications.

When your spouse validates your feelings, he’s telling you he hears them, and he believes you.  You feel the way you do just because you do.  There isn’t always a rational explanation.

Or when Joe is struggling with negative feelings from his past, invalidating his feelings looks like focusing on my feelings.  Not believing him.  How can I love and serve like Jesus does if I don’t even know where my husband is at?  If I don’t know how Joe is feeling, what is truly on his heart, then I can’t truly love him.  I could love him based on what I thought he was feeling, but that’s a bad shortcut.   It took time and patience on both our parts to be willing to listen and learn.

New & Improved:

Joe: Tara, that makes me feel really stressed out and overwhelmed.
Tara: I’m sorry you’re stressed out. I can understand how that overwhelms you. Is there anything I’m doing that’s adding to your stress?

For us the validating feeling thing was hard because we are so different. We can be in the same situation where Joe is feeling one thing and I’m feeling the complete opposite.    I laugh at myself now when I realize how many times I literally told Joe his feelings were wrong.  Yeah, that was me. Like his feelings were a pop quiz and he picked B instead of A.  Wrong!

I don’t think Joe was as blunt as I was, but he also passed on the acknowledging feelings part and skipped right to the fixing feelings part.  Most guys are really good at that 🙂

Tara: Oh, nothing’s going right, I am so discouraged. This is so frustrating that I can’t get this.
Joe: Well why don’t you just call so-and-so for help?

I don’t need you to change my feeling, or fix my feeling, I just need to you to acknowledge that I feel it.

New and Improved:

Tara: Oh, nothing’s going right, I am so discouraged. This is so frustrating that I can’t get this.
Joe: Tara, I’m so sorry you’re discouraged right now. I think you’re doing great. Is there anything I can do to help you?

Much better.

When I came from a self-centered place, then my feelings and my opinions were correct and if Joe’s were different (as they usually are) then his feelings were invalid.   It was measuring his feelings using ME as the standard.  Or worse, making him feel like his feelings were stupid.  Once we get that vibe, then any hope of communicating successfully goes down the drain really quickly.  Validating our spouse’s feelings is a way to show honor and esteem them above ourselves!