Ways that you may be invalidating your partner

In relationships, we often need to validate our partners and their needs. However, situations sometimes may not be in our favour – we may have our own problems going on and, in the process, we may end up making our partners feel bad, or not address their needs and expectations like they want us to. “Intentions are important and so are your actual actions and words. Choose them with care. If you don’t have the capacity to validate your partner in the way they need or want, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You’re human and you won’t always be able to do this,” wrote Therapist Sadaf Siddiqi as she addressed this.

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Sadaf further noted down five ways by which we may be invalidating our partner and their needs:

Remaining neutral: Being silent or ignoring a person when they are undergoing pain and need soothing is a sign of invalidating their emotions. Sometimes we may be sitting in comfortable silence with our partners, and that is different. However, when we fail to acknowledge their pain and need, it is unhealthy.

Minimising their pain: While we try our best to soothe their pain, we should not end up saying things to put a positive spin on their hurtful experiences. Everyone’s process of dealing with pain is different and we need to be mindful on how to deal with them.

Judgmental comments: We should not end up making comments on our partners that are hurtful and evoke trauma in them. Everyone brings their own trauma from their years of growing up, and the way we speak to them may evoke trauma that we didn’t know about. We should be careful.

Dismissive body language: When we use body languages or tones that are dismissive in nature, it makes our partners feel unwanted or that their pain is not important enough for our attention.

Rush the healing: Everyone takes their own time to heal, and we should be mindful about not pushing them to heal in our own time.