Nonverbal invalidation comes in many forms.
The worst are obnoxious eye rolls, finger-drumming, or yawning.
By
Updated 7 years ago,April 16, 2018
Invalidate is an important word.
But I havent always thought so.
Feelings arent facts, right?
Its always about what Matt wants, shed say.
Id get angry (and all of the sudden feelings mattered!)
Im not a mind-reader, freak-o!
Little, insignificant things wed blow out of proportion.
sept commercial
A dozen years of being unable to see the forest for the trees.
EVERY one of those fights mattered.
Most of us arent masochists who hate ourselves.
Emotional Cyborgs and Fake Stoicism are the Life of the Invalidation Party
Really?
You want to talk about validating someones feelings?
God, youre such a pussy, some internet tough guy might be thinking.
(Thats an example of validating someones thoughts and feelings even if you disagree with them.)
I thought if people knew the truththat my feelings were hurtthat theyd view me as some wimpy bitch.
Not a Real Man.
Having my Man Card was important to me.
Its important to most guys, near as I can tell.
To be sure, there ARE people who demonstrate a high level of stoicism and emotional consistency.
People who seem consistently steady, regardless of whats happening around them.
But in the interest of pragmatism, its pretty important to deal in reality.
In real life, almost nothing influences human behavior as much as our emotions do.
Just ask every successful marketing pro in world history.
One of the thousands of paper cuts that would eventually cause our marriage to bleed to death.
(More validation!)
We accidentally destroy our relationships.
(For real, this time.)
I thought I was being fair.
I thought I was calling it like I saw it.
Being real and stuff.
But what I was doing was confusing Validation with Agreement.
I get it, babe.
Im sorry you have to deal with that at work on top of everything else.
I know it gets hard sometimes, would have worked fine.
Instead of It seems to me youre overreacting.
Sometimes people feel sad or angry.
We dont want them to.
Maybe for unselfish reasons, but probably for selfish ones too.
Everything is going to be fine.
Dont worry about it.
The first cousin of trying to fix feelings is…
Dishes by the sink, yo.
Didnt matter to me, so they SHOULDNT matter to my wife, right?
For the life of me, I cant figure out why were so shitty about this.
If someone is acting like somethings important, that we dont think is important, we minimize it.
Make it out like its not a big deal and they shouldnt worry about it.
You should only do that if you love getting divorced.
Saying Its not such a big deal when it is important to you is hoovering.
Not acknowledging how difficult something might be for you to do is hoovering.
Saying No problem, of course I can do that, when you are overwhelmed, is hoovering.
We wear masks for all kinds of reasons in our relationships and in our interactions with others.
Were afraid of rejection.
We want to be liked.
Were not off doing something on our own away from home.
Were right there, watching TV, playing a video game, fiddling with our phone, or whatever.
I thought it was fine.
I always thought it was good that both of us were doing what we wanted to do.
Feeling present with each other, and the emotional connections that thrive from shared experiences was something she wanted.
Turns out, this is also something NEEDED for relationships, including marriage, to thrive and function well.
And now were not married.
Judging isnt so different than minimizing.
We invalidate other people by saying they dont feel what they are saying they feel.
They report what theyre experiencing in real-time, and instead of accepting thatwe just tell them theyre mistaken.
That they dont know what theyre saying and feeling, as if we think theyre hallucinating or mentally insane.
Its hilarious in the saddest way possible how common this is.
Nonverbal invalidation comes in many forms.
The shittiest are obnoxious eyerolls, finger-drumming, or yawning.
I assume non-married relationships end at an infinitely higher rate, but I dont have data to support that.
It ended my marriage and has surely ruined a number of my other relationships, romantic or otherwise.
What has it done to yours?
