Working on our issues but would like advice

[togo1004]

My fiance and I are working on our issues. I’ve posted here previously and he’s been helping more around the house which is really helping.

i have a worry that I’m making him sick. He’s been losing weight, and he won’t eat a lot anymore and says he full after a few bites. He doesn’t seem as positive as he used to be lately.

we seem to get along for a day or two and he acts insensitive to my needs and we have a fight. For example, today he asked me to do him a favor. He said the water filter person is coming tomorrow at 1pm and he has to go help his grandmother file some taxes so he won’t be around until 3pm. He asked me to open the door for the water filter man and if he has any questions, he can call him. I didn’t answer him right away and just froze. I have some social anxiety and sometimes it’s hard to even meet the delivery man to receive package at the front door. I told him why can’t you reschedule? He said babe just open the door for the man to do his job and call me if he has any questions. So I told him my anxiety is bad and I’m afraid he will start a conversation with me. He said why would the water filter man start a convo with you, you will be working on your computer and I’m sure the man just wants to do his job and leave. I started crying because he was being insensitive to my feelings and didn’t feel validated.

then he pointed out a fact that I went out to meet a stranger for coffee and dinner last week, and spent the entire evening with a new friend (his friends and he knows I have no friends and I often complain that I have no friends so his friend met someone outside who wants to learn Russian, I happen to be Russian and I wanted to learn Korean, she happens to be Korean so he got her number so we can chat and become friends). He said if you can do that you can open the door for the man and let him do his job.

he told me he doesn’t understand me. He said how can you be an introvert, but love going out with my friends to bars and clubs meeting new people to make friends but cannot open the door for the filter man?

he says he’s introverted and if he hangs out with his friends he needs alone time to recharge. He thinks that I’m not introverted, but extroverted but just has some social anxiety.

I eventually apologized to him because I realized I was giving him a hard time. This man does a lot for me, so I felt I needed to apologize.

he said he’s super tired of fighting over small things.

how do I stop fighting with him every few days? I’m having a hard time dealing with his insensitivity and feel that I can’t bring anything up with him.

Instragram therapists are full of shit. They post generalisations and if you sat with a therapist in person and explained your thinking they would not 'validate' your perspective at all.

This isn't ok from him at all. It's even more evidence that the relationship is damaged beyond repair and you should not be together, you shouldn't be with anyone until you've had a lot of therapy.

I wanted feedback because I'm very strong on validating emotions. Because if not it's basically saying that my emotions are not real.

Yes — validating emotions is absolutely important in a healthy relationship. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything your partner feels, but it does mean acknowledging that their emotions are real and understandable from their perspective.

Wanting this does not mean that I'm abusive.

Nobody validates your feelings. You shouldn't need your feelings to be validated. Healthy people don't rely on external validation for self worth and emotional safety. You really need therapy to get to the bottom of this.

so if your SO comes to you and says hey i feel really down today, do you just shrug it off? or do you comfort him/her by saying things like "i notice you are not feeling well, what's going on?"

Instead of saying:
"You're overreacting."
Try:
"I can see this really upset you. That makes sense, given what happened."

This is validation! and its very important.

Op - you are poorly. You pretty obviously have very severe mental health issues. You need medical help for these. He is not poorly. He sounds surprisingly robust mental health wise.

You need individual help for your mental health issues.

I am also poorly. I am a type 1 diabetic. I need medical help for this. I inject insulin daily. My husband has a fully working pancreas. I don’t expect him to inject insulin because we are a couple. (It could kill him.)

Get help for your illnesses. There is no point in having couples counselling until you are well. It is impossible to see what is real and what is you being poorly until you are well.

I'm sorry to everyone if I've been a major pain, I don't mean to be. I just want to be heard.

I think wanting validation from your partner on how you're feeling isn't abusive. I think wanting him to drop what he's doing and wanting comfort when I'm having a panic attack isn't abusive at all.

Emotional safety should be number 1 in relationship, If I can't feel safe to express myself to my partner than what is a relationship?

Is this for real? I'm not sure it is.

If it is. The obsession with having your feelings validated seems like an excuse to have him capitulate to all your insane demands.

Abuse doesn't always look like getting beaten up or telling someone they 'must' do this or that. More often it's being extremely emotionally manipulative until the other person gives up doing things because its not worth the backlash. e.g Getting visibly upset because he sees his freinds...eventually he'll stop going because its not worth it. Emotionally mature adults know that if they're feeling upset by something the other person has every right to do, they don't go round laying it on them. In fact your job in that situation is to make more freinds of your own rather than laying it on him that you have none.

Having your feelings validated in a relationship is deeply important — it's one of the foundational pieces of emotional connection, trust, and long-term relationship health.
Why it matters so much:

1. Creates emotional safety
2. When your partner acknowledges your feelings, even if they don’t agree with them, it tells you: “You matter. I hear you.” That builds closeness and safety.
3. Prevents resentment
4. When emotions are ignored or dismissed, people feel invisible or misunderstood. Over time, that breeds resentment and emotional distance.
5. Supports conflict resolution
6. Disagreements become manageable when both people feel heard. Validation de-escalates arguments and helps you move toward solutions together.
7. Encourages open communication
8. People are more likely to share openly if they know they won’t be judged or shut down.
9. Strengthens the bond
10. Feeling emotionally validated creates a deep sense of connection — like your partner is with you, not against you.

This is not what you are demanding though is it?

ChatGPT is not your therapist. Stay away, it will only reinforce your flawed belief systems.

It is exactly what I'm asking for. He is not consistent. He can do that for a few days and sometimes ill tell him a story and hell say things like "come on babe, dont you think you're overreacting here?"

And that sends me into a spiral because he invalidated how I feel

You have really misunderstood what it means to validate someone’s feelings.

@PinkBobby posted this very wise advice about what validating feelings means earlier on in the thread. It would be a really good idea to read it again.

I think it’s important to feel heard and understood by your partner. I think that is key to a happy and healthy relationship. I think validating feelings takes it a step beyond that - you have to not only listen and empathise with my feelings but also agree with them. The issue with this is that it can disregard your partner’s feelings if you are in disagreement. It also assumes all feelings are rational and ‘okay’’. Questioning or challenging someone’s feelings in a gentle way can help you understand where those anxieties come from or why they are impacting your behaviour. It’s also important to keep in mind that your feelings, whilst important, are not always helpful. This is especially true when it comes to anxiety. It’s important to question and explore the anxiety or feeling not just accept that that’s how you feel. Get curious rather than defensive. For example, when my son says he is afraid in the dark, I don’t tell him he’s right and the dark is scary. I ask him what he worries might happen in the dark or what might help him feel less worried. I wouldn’t ever tell him he’s being silly because I have to acknowledge his fear but I can be inquisitive as to why he has those feelings and what can be done to help

Do you really feel it's not important? Why have I been told that it's the foundation of all relationships.

Every Instagram, youtube videos I watch, they all talk about how important it is and I also want to be heard.

I don't want to be told my problems are small, because it's big to me and I want him to agree with me.

There are times I stress about "small things" and he will just say things like "babe come on, why are you letting things like that bother you" completely invalidating me in the process and I don't feel heard.

He's also quick to offer solutions when I want emotional support.

You’re not a major pain at all. You just need help.

It sounds as if you’ve reached a point (both of you) that you’re totally exhausted about arguing and having the same conversations over and over and over. You cannot expect every feeling to be validated. He’s probably fed up and exhausted by this, so cannot do this anymore. It’s damaging for you to have feelings and thinking validated when it’s not normal behaviour.

You are not going to solve your problem on Mumsnet. You need professional help. Until you seek help you are very unlikely to improve. Things will deteriorate. Do you want this? How will you feel when your partner leaves? It sounds as if you’re both at the end of what you can tolerate. It must be incredibly distressing for you to feel the way you do, but only you can help yourself.

It’s great that you are going for walks and getting out but that’s not enough. Seek help from a counsellor or psychiatrist, and from your GP.

You have a very black and white outlook on life, there is no grey areas in your thinking. You need therapy for yourself and I’m glad you have an appointment today. You have OCD, an unhealthy relationship with food and social anxiety, your man has acknowledged that, he might not understand it, but then neither do you. It’s your responsibility to get help in managing your disorders, to find out the root cause of your fears, what triggers your disorders and how to self soothe.
Until you work on yourself, explore your fears and heal, find out why your attachment style is very codependent, couple counselling is useless.
Your OCD, eating disorder and social anxiety, is debilitating, the disorders started out to make you feel some control over whatever trauma you were experiencing at the time, but now they are in control of you, of your life and everything you do. You need a therapist to untangle everything, to shine light on your past traumas and to heal from the past.
Your man isn’t a therapist, he isn’t able to, nor qualified to be a therapist and that’s why he can’t help you heal.

Most men like to find solutions, whilst most women want emotional support, you will get that with a therapist.

@togo1004 I'm not saying the validation of feelings is wrong. Im saying based on what im reading about you, your obsession with the validation of feelings serves as an excuse so you don't have to do the uncomfortable work of recognising that...your partner has the right to go out and see freinds without guilt, your partner has the right to expect you to take care of your own mental health, your partner has the right to his own unique identity and not a puppet of your own

Thank you, I'm really trying not to be a pain. I would feel like I might die if he left me. He is my best friend, outside of our arguments we have a great relationship. We have our weekly dates, he takes me on trips every few months, I know he tries very hard for me, and I also try very hard for him.

I just feel unheard when he invalidates my feelings. My best friend decided not to be friends with me anymore about a year ago, she never gave me a reason and I was so hurt by the fact that she just said out of no where don't call me anymore.

And this is a person I've helped alot when she was younger. When I brought this up to my finance first thing he said was "what? F her, her loss" before even saying things like "oh man are you ok?" I complained to him that I was feeling so lost and his response "Don't waste a drop of emotions on a person who cannot value you like that" There was no hugs, no warm words about my feelings.

I know he means well, but he's just so cold like this many many times. He's gotten better, but I can tell he has difficulty exploring this area of his life, and one time we spoke about feelings he literally said " I don't personally weigh my emotions that heavily because no matter what I'm feeling, I have to perform and do what I have to do daily, it doesn't change anything for me"

He also has the right to not react 'perfectly' according to your expectations every time you feel like this, he has the right to be a flawed human. And expect some understanding from you in return

The thing is I know that he has the right to see his friends without me. But I cannot help the feeling at all. Deep down I know, so everytime he goes out he just brings me out to meet his friends too and I'm usually the only girl in the group, even when all of those guys have wives/girl friends.

He's told me last night that he misses just having guy time. He said he needs to do man things with his guy friends. He did tell me that its not that he doesn't want to hang out with me but he wants to be able to hang out without worrying about anyone. He wants to be able to go out to eat just simple mcdonalds with my friends instead of worrying about what I want to eat (I'm picky) and just relax without a worry.

Deep down I know this is a normal healthy thing to do, but my brain just won't let me be happy. It kills me to know that he's having fun without me because I have no friends.

Its why I'm talking about it in therapy today, which will start in 3 minutes!

You write again and again on here about your partner’s failings. You cannot fix him (and in any case he comes across as a healthy person). The only person you can fix is yourself. Look to yourself. Apply the same critical thinking to your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Is this for real?

After previous posts I'm now wondering if you're seeing a real therapist or some online quack?

I was already dubious at how quickly you managed to find one and get an appointment for today. It doesnt sound like you're posting from a waiting room now though.

I'm inclined to think its yet another one of her delusions to try and manipulate the thread. I would like to bet that she reappears in an hour saying this "therapist" has agreed with her about everything and we (plus her partner) are such bad demons for not encouraging abuse and disordered thinking to "validate her feelings" . Considering the first appointment would just be a get to know your history, she seems to have a big list of stuff already to discuss with this "counsellor."