Invalidating Your Partner's Feelings: Effects On Emotions And Mental Health
When you’re in a romantic relationship,it’s possible to hurt your partner’s feelings through dismissive statements about their emotions, even when you do not intend to do any harm at all. This can lead one’s partner to ask themselves “Is something wrong with me?” or blame themselves for what happened. It can even make them doubt their own feelings, causing them to lose self-awareness and emotional self-efficacy.
This can be a sign of emotional invalidation of someone else's feelings. Whether it's intentional or not, it can cause a rift in both trust and communication within relationships.
Below, we’ll explore emotional invalidation, its effects on individuals and couples, and ways to overcome it.
Invalidating your partner's feelings and its mental health effects
While we may mean well, behaviors like silent treatment, emotional gaslighting or invalidation of one's own feelings and emotions can have negative effects on our loved ones and on our partners. In more extreme and pervasive forms, emotional invalidation can even be a type of psychological abuse. Experiencing emotional invalidation is often upsetting, and it’s perfectly natural to have these emotions.
Emotional invalidation generally includes dismissing, belittling, or otherwise casting doubt or judgment on a person's feelings and emotions, which can disconnect them from their own feelings. When we emotionally dismiss our partners (even unknowingly), we express our feelings that their perception of their own feelings and experiences might not be accurate. This form of emotional invalidation can cause significant emotional turmoil and damage your relationship. It can even lead to one’s lack of self-worth.
When you emotionally invalidate the way that your partner feels about something, you’re telling them (possibly unknowingly) that they’re wrong for having those emotions. Emotional invalidation, even when subtle, can lead to a decrease in self-esteem and cause long-term mental health effects.
Emotional invalidation of this kind can make them feel unwanted as if their feelings and emotions don’t matter. A relationship with emotional invalidation can result in a reduction of emotional safety. Emotional safety often involves two people trusting each other with their emotional well-being. Regardless of your intention, emotional invalidation is often the message on the receiving end. Many relationships experience challenges with healthy communication of emotions and emotional validation is often a primary cause of this.
How dismissing someone’s feelings can manifest
Emotional invalidation can hurt someone’s mental health. Once emotionally invalidated by someone else, many of us start to question whether we’re “too sensitive” and may begin to suppress our emotions, effectively emotionally invalidating ourselves. However, it’s not about being sensitive.
Some invalidations can manifest through body language. Subtle cues like crossed arms, avoiding eye contact, or dismissive gestures can convey disagreement. Hence, you should be careful with your body language.
There are a variety of ways to dismiss others, but some common statements and behaviors that signal emotional invalidation can include things like:
- Denying their reality, e.g., “You’re young, everyone feels like this.”
- Telling someone they should just move on from what they’re feeling, e.g., “Cheer up!” or “Get over it.”
- Ignoring them or making them feel unimportant when they are expressing their emotions to you, whether by giving them the silent treatment or shrugging off their concerns.
A more productive goal, instead, may be to be a supportive partner who hears — and shows that they want to hear — their significant other. Doing so can be one way to strengthen your relationship, provide emotional support, and create a happier life together.
Practicing validation: Avoid dictating their emotional experience
Emotional invalidation can be prevented. One way to prevent emotional invalidation in relationships is to avoid behaviors and statements that might attempt to dictate how our partners should feel. As an outsider, we may have our own perspectives on the situation that differ from our partners' perspectives, but ultimately it isn’t up to us to decide whether their emotions are accurate or if they deserve to feel a certain way.
However, when individuals knowingly dismiss someone else’s emotions whether through words or dismissive body language, it can become a part of abusive relationship dynamics. Emotionally abusive individuals often use emotional invalidation to control someone’s emotions. This can be done to belittle a partner or to make them question their perception, reality, and knowledge.
Try not to ignore their emotions
Dismissing someone’s feelings is just one form of emotional invalidation; you don’t have to tell someone outright that they’re wrong to cause emotional invalidation. Emotional invalidation can include being inattentive when they’re telling you about their emotions.
Well-intentioned invalidators often defend some dismissive behaviors as simply putting situations into perspective, but this can be unhelpful when it’s not specifically requested.
Instead, you might say something like, “I want to understand better.” This may be best for situations when a partner is hurt over something you said or did. Your relationship may improve significantly by improving your communication in this manner. You might both start to feel that you can express yourselves freely without fear of invalidation in your relationship.
Acknowledge past invalidation
When we’re young, we often learn how to engage with difficult emotional situations in ways that are emotionally invalidating, whether it be from our parents, siblings, friends, or simply our experiences with the world at large. This can lead, sometimes, to using emotional invalidation on other people the way that we were invalidated. This doesn’t mean that it’s something to excuse, but it is something you can unlearn and change. You might give yourself compassion and let yourself restructure the way you engage in conversations about emotions.
One of the first things that you can do is apologize to your partner for any emotional invalidation you may have caused. You can then work on learning how to discuss feelings in healthier ways, without emotional invalidation. This does not come naturally to everyone, but you can choose to seek out professional support to change this pattern.
At some point, emotional invalidation may have left a deep wound in someone's emotional well-being. If the experience of emotional invalidation has affected you profoundly, seeking help from a licensed family therapist can provide a safe space to process these feelings. Therapy offers tools to heal from the pain caused by emotional invalidation and rebuild your sense of self-worth and resilience.
Cultivating emotional validation with online therapy
If you have questions or concerns about emotional invalidation, you don’t have to face them alone. Facing emotional invalidation alone can feel overwhelming and depleting. If talking about these topics in a therapist’s office seems uncomfortable, you might try online therapy, which research has shown to be just as effective as in-office therapy. You can connect with a licensed online therapist via audio or video chat from home or anywhere with an internet connection.
With Regain, you can sign up for couples counseling or individual counseling to discuss any relationship concerns you’re experiencing, including emotional invalidation and tips to build a supportive relationship. When you sign up for Regain, you’re usually matched with a therapist in 24-48 hours. In addition to online sessions, you can contact your therapist at any time via in-app messaging, and they’ll respond as soon as they can.
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Takeaway
If you are concerned that you may have unknowingly engaged in emotional invalidation, or if you feel you have experienced it yourself, you’re not alone. With Regain, you can be matched with a therapist with experience helping people navigate emotional invalidation and other relationship concerns. Take the first step toward a heathier relationship and reach out to Regain today.
How can invalidating your partner's feelings affect their mental health?
Emotional invalidation is a form of emotional abuse where a person doesn’t feel heard at all. The effects of emotional abuse and emotional invalidation can be detrimental to a person’s feelings. When you are emotionally invalidated, you may have more self-doubt and believe that your self-awareness is off, which can even disconnect you from your own feelings. This is a form of emotional invalidation known as gaslighting, which occurs when someone intentionally engages in emotional invalidation. The person doesn’t listen to your ordeal and doesn’t even communicate clearly. It can affect emotional intimacy in your relationship and make it harder to trust your own feelings.
Emotional intimacy is deeply connected to mental health since it fosters a sense of safety and understanding in relationships. When emotional intimacy is nurtured, partners can feel emotional support for each other. Emotional validation plays a crucial role in building emotional intimacy, as it allows each person to feel heard and respected. Without emotional validation, emotional intimacy can be compromised, leading to feelings of isolation or unimportance.
Conversely, when emotional validation is present, emotional intimacy thrives and partners feel heard, creating a space where both individuals can openly share their feelings and experiences. Ultimately, emotional intimacy and emotional validation are essential for a healthy mental state, promoting stronger, more supportive connections.
People who lack emotional validation may start to hold on to their own emotions, doubt their own emotions, and feel invalidated in general. This could lead to a cycle of emotional invalidation. When emotional invalidation persists over time, it can severely damage relationships. The victim may also lose trust in their own feelings and struggle with self-awareness.
It is important to provide emotional support to each other. Be sensitive to your partner. Listen actively, give importance to emotions, communicate effectively, and practice having a better perspective in your relationship. Value your partner’s feelings for a healthy relationship and thriving mental health. A mutually supportive relationship promotes emotional safety and emotional well-being.
If you want to establish a supportive relationship, don’t hesitate to talk to a couples therapist or join couples counseling. Therapists have tools that help couples regain their trust and build a supportive relationship.
What does emotional invalidation look like?
Emotional invalidation can take many forms, including emotional abuse. It can be as extreme as emotional abuse or seemingly innocuous. There’s a lack of validation and awareness of each partner’s emotions and emotional well-being, including emotional safety. One may not acknowledge the other partner’s feelings and doesn’t even bother to strive for a healthy relationship. There’s a failure to provide a mutually supportive relationship, leading to mental health neglect. It’s hard when one partner doesn’t feel heard at all.
Your partner only cares about his own mental health and his own emotions, but not yours. Sometimes, you find your relationship lacking in emotional intimacy. It’s not the kind of healthy relationship you have always dreamt of and it’s affecting your emotional well-being.
It can also be childish, like showing subtle but dismissive body language or doing silent treatment. One way of considering what emotional invalidation can look like is that it is the opposite of emotional validation as if only your partner’s feelings matter. Emotional validation involves acceptance and giving importance to the other’s feelings and mental health awareness, allowing them to feel safe and listened to, engaging in the conversation with active listening, being sensitive, having a better perspective, and generally respecting their feelings.
Emotional invalidation is a hindrance to a strong and healthy relationship - a type of emotional abuse that degrades your emotional self-efficacy. If you want to foster a mutually supportive relationship, you should value each other’s emotional safety and emotional well-being. Don’t just prioritize your own mental health and emotional safety. Be sensitive, listen actively, give importance to your partner’s emotions, talk openly, and embrace a healthier perspective in your relationship.
If you know someone who needs help, try to encourage them to join couples counseling online. A platform like Regain can help you.
How do you respond when your partner invalidates your emotions?
Emotional invalidation can be challenging to handle. You may be full of self-doubt, feel unappreciated as if only your partner’s feelings matter, struggle to believe your own emotions or feel angry and hurt. Emotional invalidation can be challenging to handle since it’s emotional abuse. You may be full of self-doubt, feel unappreciated, struggle to believe your own emotions or feel angry and hurt. You often find yourself wondering about your partner’s feelings toward you, and whether you can still achieve a healthy relationship. When there's a lack of emotional validation and a mutually supportive relationship, you also struggle to achieve emotional safety. Oftentimes, it affects your own mental health, making you feel depressed.
You feel that everything you say is wrong, even if you only want to have a healthy relationship. Moreover, the lack of emotional support and emotional validation is unhealthy for your emotional well-being. It belies your own emotions while giving more importance to your partner’s emotions. Sometimes, you forget that you also have your own mental health to take care of.
Suppose your partner invalidates your emotions but you want to work on a healthy relationship. In that case, it’s important to talk to the other partner about the emotional invalidation and reassure each other through emotional support. Value your own mental health, and talk with them about what you feel when you are feeling invalidated. Your feelings and emotions matter as much as your partner’s feelings. There are many well-intentioned invalidators out there, but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation. They are causing you to feel bad and unsure if you should even discuss your own emotions —not even your own mental health and emotional well-being.
Next, use "I” statements to communicate your feelings effectively without sounding accusatory. For instance, starting sentences with "I feel" rather than “you always” helps express your perspective without sounding accusatory. This approach also reflects your good intentions since it focuses on constructive dialogue. Using "I” statements demonstrates that you’re taking ownership of your emotions, reducing the risk of sounding accusatory.
You can also join couples counseling. In couples counseling, you and your partner can sit together and talk about issues in your relationship with the guidance of a counselor.
Overcoming emotional invalidation and achieving a healthy relationship can be challenging, but it’s possible and can be beneficial for your mental health. You can learn how to process hurt healthily and apply effective coping mechanisms to overcome emotional invalidation. Your feelings are valid, no matter what your partner says.
Is emotional invalidation a form of gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a specific type of emotional invalidation. It is a (usually intentional) form of invalidating that drives a person to think that they are crazy and that their feelings must be wrong. It’s a form of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse that severely affects one’s sense of emotional safety and overall well-being. It undermines a partner’s feelings and mental health. This manipulation can make it difficult to distinguish between one’s own emotions and their partner's emotions, creating an imbalance in the relationship. Moreover, it’s the number one hindrance to maintaining a mutually supportive relationship.
With gaslighting, a person dismisses their partner’s feelings. This type of emotional abuse can fill them with self-doubt and make them feel unimportant. It could even lead them to think that their own emotional safety and mental health is insignificant.
To protect your own life and emotional well-being from emotional abuse, it’s essential to recognize gaslighting behaviors and seek support. Building emotional safety through emotional validation is a critical step toward regaining control of your own mental health and establishing boundaries that prioritize both your own life and the health of your relationships.
Moreover, if you want to have a mutually supportive relationship, you must strive to protect each other’s mental health. Seek professional help or join couples counseling if necessary to cope with the effects of gaslighting. With a family therapist’s help, you can explore your partner’s emotions and work on a plan to build a healthy relationship.
What is stonewalling in a relationship?
Stonewalling involves shutting down and refusing to communicate —a type of body language that can have several implications in a relationship. There’s no intimate and emotional connection between partners. It leaves you feeling invalidated, which can become a recurring experience, making you feel hurt deeply. It is also referred to as the “silent treatment, “ a form of emotional abuse where the other partner stops talking. It often occurs when one partner feels overwhelmed. From their perspective, they need to shut down the conversation in order to feel safe. They may feel like they can’t talk because their emotions are running high and they can’t cope with their own life.
Here, the person resorts to silent treatment to convey negative feelings or to avoid issues. Others also engage in silent treatment as an act of revenge. These individuals must have been hurt after being subjected to silent treatment before, so now they want to throw it back to others.
There are many other reasons for stonewalling or silent treatment though including the lack of emotional safety in their own life. It’s also possible that you’ve hurt your partner’s feelings causing the cold response. People may also learn stonewalling or silent treatment from a young age, particularly if they have aggressive or abusive caregivers. Unfortunately, stonewalling or silent treatment can sometimes hurt a partner’s emotions. For instance, not receiving emotional validation after your partner ignores you can leave you feeling unseen and unheard like there’s no emotional connection at all. It undermines emotional safety and disrupts the balance in your own life.
For everyone to feel safe and heard, it’s often necessary to have an emotional connection, and emotional invalidation (such as the kind promoted by stonewalling) usually has the opposite effect. To experience invalidation via stonewalling can be frustrating and affect a person’s emotional experience. Learn to stop this emotional abuse and stop feeling invalidated by confronting your partner or talking to a couples therapist.
If your partner has been doing silent treatment, try to approach them calmly. Explore the reasons for the silent treatment or better yet, seek help from professionals. They have tools and techniques to decode silent treatment, practice communication skills, and help you build a better emotional connection with each other.
Moreover, you can also practice using “I” statements. Developing this habit can significantly improve your communication skills and stop feeling invalidated. For example, saying, “I feel hurt when this happens,” is more constructive than saying, “You don’t care.” Expressing yourself without sounding accusatory demonstrates your communication skills while showing your good intentions in fostering understanding.
How does a narcissist invalidate you?
A narcissist may invalidate you and make you feel hurt in a number of ways, whether it’s simply by saying, “It’s not that big of a deal,” or by engaging in manipulative tactics, such as gaslighting. They may even make you feel as though your own life doesn’t matter. Their partner may feel invalidated in this situation. They may feel like what they feel is wrong. Denying a person’s emotional experience like this can be hurtful.
A narcissist may invalidate you and make you feel hurt in a number of ways. They may even make you feel as though your own life doesn’t matter, leaving you feeling invalidated and causing you to feel hurt repeatedly. Their partner may feel invalidated in this situation. They may feel like what they feel is wrong, further deepening the sense of feeling invalidated and making them feel hurt even more intensely. This can create a neutral space where confusion and self-doubt begin to grow, causing the individual to feel hurt when clarity is absent. Denying a person’s emotional experience like this can be hurtful and leave them feeling invalidated in multiple ways, compounding the sense of being made to feel hurt over time.
Over time, constantly feeling invalidated can severely impact their emotional well-being, especially when they feel hurt by the lack of acknowledgment of their pain. The lack of a neutral space for expressing feelings can amplify emotional distress and make people feel hurt and misunderstood. The presence of a neutral space can help counteract some of these negative effects, but a narcissist often manipulates or eliminates this neutral space, leaving those around them to feel hurt in its absence.
Repeatedly losing access to a neutral space can make recovery from feeling invalidated more challenging and cause individuals to feel hurt persistently.
If you’re feeling invalidated, try to practice “I” statements to express yourself. “I” statements help you express yourself and allow the other person to empathize with your feelings. For example, you can say “I feel hurt by what you just said.” Regularly practicing “I” statements is an excellent way to refine your communication skills and strengthen your relationships.
How do I stop invalidating my partner?
Feeling invalidated is emotionally painful. It can even lead to several mental health problems. Fortunately, there are ways to stop your partner from feeling invalidated.
To stop invalidating your partner’s emotions, try to listen to how your partner feels. Give them emotional safety and reassurance. If they say something is a big deal, then it must feel like a big deal to them. When you’re in a relationship, your partner’s emotions should be one of your priorities. It can be disturbing to feel like your emotions are wrong or don’t matter.
There are many more ways to start emotionally validating each other and building a happier relationship. When you decide to start, the other partner may be able to follow. For instance, men can actively listen to the other partner without interrupting, showing genuine interest in their feelings and perspectives. Emotionally validating the other partner also means acknowledging their emotions without judgment, even if you don’t fully agree. Phrases like, “I can see why you feel that way” or “That must be hard for you” are essential tools for emotionally validating the other partner’s experiences.
Secondly, you can join couples or marriage counseling. Well-intentioned invalidators exist, but if you are asking this question, you may be in a good position for self-improvement, which is incredibly important to build a healthier relationship. Both couples counseling and individual counseling can be beneficial for improving communication skills.
Couples or marriage counseling is one of the many ways to practice emotional validation and improve communication skills for a happier relationship. When partners feel invalidated, it can lead to misunderstandings, resentment, and emotional distance, which marriage counseling seeks to address for a happier relationship. In a supportive environment, marriage counseling helps couples develop effective communication skills to express their feelings, paving the way for a happier relationship.
These communication skills are essential for rebuilding trust and addressing the root causes of feeling invalidated, contributing to a happier relationship. By fostering open dialogue and mutual respect, marriage counseling empowers couples to move past the cycle of feeling invalidated. It strengthens their bond through improved communication skills and ultimately creates a happier relationship.
Thirdly, try to improve your communication skills. Small gestures, such as maintaining eye contact or offering a supportive touch, can also be emotionally validating for the other partner. Try to improve your communication skills, practice active listening, and use “I” statements. Use open-ended questions to drive conversations. Consistently practicing emotionally validating behaviors with the other partner helps build a deeper, more trusting connection.
Next, practice active listening. Active listening involves focusing on the other person, and responding thoughtfully while considering your partner's perspective and the other's feelings. It involves staying attuned to the other's feelings. Through active listening, you can avoid misunderstandings, especially when you take the time to understand your partner's perspective and validate each other's feelings.
For example, you can practice active listening by paraphrasing what your partner says—“So you’re feeling stressed about work because of the deadlines?”—to reflect their emotions and acknowledge both your partner's perspective and each other's feelings. Asking clarifying questions like, “What can I do to support you?” demonstrates a genuine interest in your partner's perspective and each other's feelings. By incorporating active listening into your conversations and truly valuing both your partner's perspective and each other's feelings, you foster trust and create a happier relationship.
Moreover, try to set boundaries. Moreover, try to set boundaries to ensure healthy communication and mutual respect. Ask open-ended questions to encourage meaningful dialogue and better understand each other's perspectives.
Lastly, use “I” statements. This approach, using "I” statements, avoids sounding accusatory while highlighting your good intentions to resolve conflicts peacefully. Practicing "I” statements regularly ensures clearer communication without the tension of sounding accusatory, emphasizing your good intentions to maintain a positive relationship.
Why does my husband not acknowledge my feelings?
If your husband ignores your feelings, it can be hurtful. He may not acknowledge your feelings for a variety of reasons but the lack of emotional safety in a relationship can be quite degrading. He may have grown up in an environment in which emotions are not discussed. He may have felt hurt before so he also hurt the feelings of others. He may feel like he’s too busy, tired, or stressed to worry about his spouse’s feelings. However, your mental health and the health of your relationship depend on each person being able to feel like they can address their emotions.
A licensed marriage and family therapist may be able to help you and your husband in overcoming emotional invalidation and learn to respect each other’s emotional experience. By working with a couples therapist, partners can learn to identify these harmful patterns of invalidating behavior and invalidating responses, replacing them with validating communication. Recognizing and transforming invalidating responses is essential for fostering empathy and emotional support within the relationship. Talking to a couples therapist will also help you regain self-awareness and emotional self-efficacy.
What are some gaslighting phrases?
An invalidated person may have experienced gaslighting, which is when one partner (or another person) makes them feel like their emotions are ridiculous and invalid. The lack of emotional validation in gaslighting also harms emotional safety, degrades self-awareness, and undermines your mental health.
If you feel that your own feelings don’t even matter to a person, then you must be gaslighted. Knowing whether your own feelings are invalidated is important because it helps you recognize unhealthy patterns in relationships. Gaslighting phrases an invalidated person may hear include the following:
- You’re acting crazy.
- It’s not a big deal.
- It’s all in your head.
- You’re being emotional.
- Nothing’s wrong.
- That’s life.
- All your friends think you’re crazy.
Gaslighting is mentally unhealthy. It can lead you to question your reality and feel unheard, isolated, and emotionally disconnected. So, try to set boundaries to protect your emotional well-being and ensure your concerns are acknowledged.
If you are experiencing gaslighting, you might consider getting help from your friends and family. Emotional validation is crucial for your mental health. You might also seek out a therapist to help you understand your emotional invalidation and how you can overcome this.
What is it called when someone dismisses your feelings?
When someone dismisses your feelings, it may be called emotional invalidation. It can hurt feelings of other people. The following terms refer to instances when someone dismisses or invalidates feelings.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a specific form of emotional invalidation used by people to manipulate others into feeling like they are crazy. This person doesn’t know the importance of other people's feelings. When dealing with this type of person, you must set boundaries. Talk to your therapist about the importance of recognizing these tactics, and know how to communicate issues effectively to regain control over your mental health.
Stonewalling
This is another type of dismissing emotions, where the person refuses to engage or acknowledge emotional concerns. The other person doesn’t communicate at all and will lead you to believe you’re at fault. Over time, it can lead to a sense of powerlessness. You can also try to communicate openly with that person and ask open-ended questions. If it goes on, set boundaries to protect your emotional well-being.
When setting boundaries, use open-ended questions to create space for both parties to express their feelings. Open-ended questions promote a deeper conversation, allowing both of you to navigate the relationship with a better perspective.
Refusing to engage or acknowledge emotional concerns
This behavior makes you feel unheard repeatedly, as your attempts to communicate are met with silence or avoidance. When you try to listen and share your feelings, the lack of acknowledgment deepens the sense of being unheard. It’s important to listen to your own needs and recognize when the dynamic causes harm.
Dismissive behavior
Rejecting or devaluing your feelings as unimportant can deeply hurt, leaving you to feel unheard and insignificant in the relationship. Without mutual respect, emotional support, and the ability to listen, communication breaks down entirely. Ultimately, invalidating responses in a relationship can lead to feeling unheard. A partner who doesn’t listen can also cause the relationship to fail.
Invalidating responses and devaluing your feelings as if they’re unimportant
This approach invalidates your emotions, making you feel unheard, invisible, and undeserving of empathy. When someone fails to listen to your feelings, it reinforces the idea that your voice doesn’t matter. A lack of willingness to listen, provide emotional support, and communicate can create emotional distance and deepen the pain of feeling dismissed. To rebuild trust, both parties must listen actively. You must communicate openly. The relationship may struggle to survive without the ability to listen and respond compassionately. Listen to your inner needs and prioritize connections that strengthen emotional support.
Minimization
In this type, the person is not giving importance to your emotions which reinforces the sense of being dismissed and makes you feel unheard. It becomes harder to communicate your feelings openly. When others fail to communicate respect for your emotions, it deepens the hurt. Healthy relationships require both people to communicate and provide emotional support. Failing to communicate empathy can lead to feelings of isolation. Always practice emotionally validating people. Try to set boundaries to prevent such behavior from escalating.
Downplaying your emotions or experiences as insignificant
In this type, the person downplays your emotional needs. The lack of emotional support sends a message that you're not important. It makes you feel unheard and emotionally sidelined.
Emotional invalidation can cause significant mental health challenges, even from a young age. One partner may feel like they have no safe space to discuss the way they are feeling at a given moment, no matter how much support they need.
Everyone needs emotional validation. People need reassurance for emotional safety and emotional self-efficacy whether in relationships or within their family. Everyone strives for a supportive relationship, where couples acknowledge each other’s feelings. This kind of need, when fulfilled, can lead to a better life.
How do you get help with emotional invalidation?
Emotional invalidation is not unusual for many relationships. We’ve seen many people being invalidated for their very own feelings and emotions and neglecting the idea of having a supportive relationship, which can negatively impact mental health. It can hurt feelings and make people feel unheard and neglected. If your feelings are dismissed by your partner and it’s only your partner’s feelings that seem to count, you are likely experiencing emotional invalidation.
If this is the case with your relationship, you’re not alone. If you suffer from hurt feelings, there is help available from licensed therapists who have experience with emotional invalidation and making you feel heard. If you don’t feel comfortable going to a therapist’s office, you can try online therapy, which allows you to connect and talk to a licensed therapist via phone or videoconferencing. With Regain, you also get in-app messaging in between sessions. You can contact and talk to your therapist at any time if you have questions related to emotional invalidation or other concerns, and they’ll get back to you as soon as they can. It’s good to talk and feel heard, especially if you want to build a supportive relationship where both of you acknowledge each other’s feelings. A licensed family therapist can help you get the emotional validation and emotional support you need to cope with life, which can lead to a better perspective. They can also provide you with emotional safety if your relationship lacks emotional validation.
Moreover, you can reach out to a couples therapist or join couples counseling online. Couples therapists specialize in helping partners navigate and resolve emotional challenges, including patterns of invalidating behavior and invalidating responses. A couples therapist can teach techniques to acknowledge and respect each other's emotions, breaking cycles of invalidating behavior and addressing invalidating responses.
How do you fix emotional invalidation in relationships?
If your relationship is affected by emotional invalidation, you’re far from alone. Nearly everyone at some point in life experiences challenges relating to feelings and emotions. The need to talk and feel heard is universal, and when it’s unmet, it can create distance and misunderstanding. Some people have experienced their partner invalidating their own feelings, while some families foster a culture of emotional invalidation. If other people invalidate your emotions and feelings, it’s common to feel upset. It can hurt feelings, making you feel unheard and neglected, like there’s no emotional connection at all. Sometimes, it makes sense to leave that person but because you’re too afraid to be alone, you tend to bear with the silent treatment and emotional abuse.
Invalidating emotions is akin to emotional abuse, which can hurt other’s feelings. A person who is emotionally neglected often loses self-awareness and emotional self-efficacy. Unfortunately, a relationship without respect and emotional connection is no longer healthy.
Consistent suppression of emotions and feelings can lead to frustration. Sometimes, you won’t be able to recognize your own feelings anymore, resulting in a lack of self-awareness and emotional self-efficacy. To better communicate your emotions and to ensure that they are accepted as valid, it may help to see a relationship counselor. A counselor can help regain the emotional connection and respect in your relationship and make you feel heard through effective communication. Moreover, relationship counseling, whether in person or online, may benefit your primary relationship as well as your other relationships, as you may come away better equipped to express and talk about your emotions. For instance, if you want to feel heard, therapists can help you have meaningful conversations with your partner and find ways to strengthen emotional support.
You can also see a family therapist for a therapeutic conversation. A family therapist can help you recognize toxic behaviors, decipher dismissive body language, and lead you to recognize unhealthy patterns so that you can cope with them. When choosing a family therapist, make sure to select the one you’re comfortable with to help build a deeper emotional connection with your partner. They can make you feel heard if you don’t get it from the other partner, ultimately helping you lead a more balanced and open relationship.
It’s also important to listen to your inner voice and recognize the importance of your emotional health. Communicate your feelings clearly, as this can lead to a healthier perspective. Try to talk it out and set boundaries with a person who doesn’t know how to be sensitive to others. Being sensitive to your own needs will help you take steps toward a better future.
Furthermore, you may join marriage counseling or couples counseling online where you can talk openly and receive emotional support without judgment. Couples counseling focuses on improving communication and resolving relationship struggles. Unlike traditional therapy, which may address mental health concerns at an individual level, couples counseling is specifically designed to work on relationship dynamics and strengthen emotional support between couples. Online couples counseling provides the convenience of attending sessions from anywhere, making it accessible and flexible for busy couples. Engaging in couples counseling can help both partners develop deeper understanding and connection while addressing issues constructively.
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