Page 2 | What does 'validating' someone mean?

Pluvia · 2025-08-05T10:54:46+00:00

I'm in a situation where someone I know well (or thought I knew well) as a friend and equal is having a hard time. She spends an awful lot of time telling me how terrible she feels, and how awful her life is, and I listen and acknowledge that things are tough right now and she's clearly struggling (and with good reason). But I sometimes also remind her that she's had fabulous times, many years of earning loads of money and living well and being secure and having good relationships, and that she'll have them again. I've now received a letter from her (a handwritten letter) in which she says that I continually fail to *validate* her feelings because I interject with observations and reminders of the past that *invalidate* the way she feels now. In future interactions she wants me to be quiet, listen and *validate* her. I presume that means just nodding along and agreeing that her life is shit and everyone is awful to her and so on. Am I reading this correctly? I don't think I'm prepared to just listen and nod for another six months while she goes on in full 'my life is over' mode. I'm her friend, not a therapist.

VeryStressedMum · 05/08/2025 13:38

Keeping the friendship going in the current dynamic is something you have to decide on. But I would find that totally draining and would be put off seeing them. Especially after a letter telling me to shut up

ginasevern · 05/08/2025 13:41

"Validation" is modern therapy speak for sacrificing yourself at the altar of someone else's utter crap, bad behaviour or wallowing self pity.

GhoulNextDoor · 05/08/2025 13:42

@NewBeginnings77 that was my immediate thought too 😅

Beachtastic · 05/08/2025 13:55

Some people love a drama and you're not playing the game properly.

Original poster

Pluvia · 05/08/2025 14:03

ConcernedOfClapham · 05/08/2025 13:29

I’d respond in the same terse manner, telling her she’d invalidated the friendship and we can no longer move forward on these terms.

This sums up brilliantly how I feel right now. I have hung on in there for years with friends who were clinically depressed or grieving but, honestly, her relationship with her husband was effectively over long before he announced he was divorcing her. It's the fact that he ended it and she wasn't in control that seems to bother her most. I can't offer her the same energy or empathy as I would someone who's undergoing a major life trauma.

OP posts:

TwistedWonder · 05/08/2025 14:20

NewBeginnings77 · 05/08/2025 12:01

Is she Russian?

Living in Asia? Poor downtrodden fiancé?

TwistedWonder · 05/08/2025 14:21

Beachtastic · 05/08/2025 13:55

Some people love a drama and you're not playing the game properly.

Yep she’s basically saying ‘me me me me me it’s all about meeeeeeeeeeeee’

MageQueen · 05/08/2025 14:22

This is the kind of thing my brother says.

THe issue is not that i want to invalidate his feelings. It's that after I've heard the same complaint, over and over again, over a period of months or years, I want him to remember that a) this is something people deal with all the time and there are options out there and b) it's time to actually either accept it, or come up with a solution.

So, while I am sympathetic to your friend, I'm afraid I would find it quite hard to continue to validate her feelings fi she's not simultaneously DOING somethign to make things better.

Macaroni46 · 05/08/2025 14:24

NewBeginnings77 · 05/08/2025 12:01

Is she Russian?

🤣

supercali77 · 05/08/2025 14:30

I don't hold worh endless 'validation' when someone is venting misery. Years ago when I was in an awful relationship a freind of mine, who listened, gave advice (I never listened to) eventually said to me 'I love you, but I can't listen to this any more and watch you keep repeating the same actions. So we can talk about anything you like but not that.' That stopped me in my tracks and I sorted my shit out

Enough4me · 05/08/2025 14:40

She's making your relationship with her impossible as you've clearly listened and wish her well but how much can you hear the same moaning.
I've distanced myself from a 'friend' of over 40 years because she was jealous that my partner and I do regular things, (picnics in parks, holiday once a year, go to a gym), because she chooses not to work and to live off her partner's wages. They are high enough that she couldn't claim benefits and, anyway, she could work. She says they can't afford to go out and wants to constantly tell me how poor they are. I tried suggesting walks, cups of tea out but all she wants to do is to moan at me in her home.
I've realised she just sees me as someone to moan at and nothing else. So I now see my other friends and we talk about the good things as well as moan!

EcoChica1980 · 05/08/2025 14:46

If you're unhappy or angry or in any other way feeling negative it is really annoying to be told that, acutally, you shoudn't feel that way.

You do feel that way. 'Should' or 'shouldn't' doesn't come into it.

Screamingabdabz · 05/08/2025 14:50

ConcernedOfClapham · 05/08/2025 13:29

I’d respond in the same terse manner, telling her she’d invalidated the friendship and we can no longer move forward on these terms.

Yes this. I couldn’t be friends with someone who wrote me a letter telling me to just shut the fuck up and agree with them. That’s not friendship. That’s a hostage situation. Tell her to get a grip and jog on.

TreesAtSea · 05/08/2025 15:03

FloraBotticelli · 05/08/2025 12:29

Sometimes you’ve just got to be with people ‘in the mud’, as someone once said (Simon Sinek I think), right where they are, so they can really feel and hear where they are. They will naturally pull themselves out of it when those feelings have had space to air, but that can’t happen if you’re jumping in with suggestions, action, or a ‘positive’ spin on things. We’re human beings, not doings, and if we get disconnected from being with ourselves it’s a really unhappy place to be in. So your presence, just being with someone, can help them get more connected to themselves and their inner compass, if that’s a gift you’re truly willing/able to give. Bear in mind that if someone is taking a long time to get to a more positive place, it shows how much shit they’ve been through.

You don’t need to soak up their feelings at all. If this is happening to you, you might not be the right person to sit with them in the mud. You might need to spend some time focusing on your own ‘mud’ and why you feel jealous, impatient, annoyed or whatever you feel.

Your friend obviously really trusts you and values your friendship to share so vulnerably what they need. It’s not really your place to question why they need this or whether it’s valid to need this (that’s exactly what you’re doing here and exactly what they’re complaining about!) It’s okay for them to need what they need, ask for it, and for you to accept/decline as far as you feel willing/capable. It’s okay for you to say no! Willingness is really important, because we feel whether someone actually wants to be with us in our process or not.

I presume that means just nodding along and agreeing that her life is shit and everyone is awful to her and so on. Am I reading this correctly?

Not quite - validating means listening to and accepting her feelings. She’s allowed to feel happy/sad/angry/lonely/whatever for however long she feels. We’re not in control of what we feel, only our response to our feelings. It sounds like she might be stuck in some feelings because she doesn’t know how to really be with herself and she might not yet be capable of responding (pausing, letting herself feel, and considering what action she wants to take - which may/may not align with the feelings). It’s always much easier to see the lack of pause and choice of response in others than it is ourselves, so maybe she really values your input but just needs some help pausing and feeling before finding the action that’s right for her.

Excellent post

Original poster

Pluvia · 05/08/2025 17:01

EcoChica1980 · 05/08/2025 14:46

If you're unhappy or angry or in any other way feeling negative it is really annoying to be told that, acutally, you shoudn't feel that way.

You do feel that way. 'Should' or 'shouldn't' doesn't come into it.

I've never told her she shouldn't feel that way. I've listened now for months as she tells me she's scared she's going to end up penniless and living on the streets. I've agreed that it's really scary facing a transition like this. She's used to the back-up and support of a wealthy partner. She'll get their very nice house, a big lump sum and a chunk of his considerable pension fund. Plus she's been a senior civil servant for the last 30 years and has her own pension. She's not going to end up on the street and I've occasionally suggested a reality check to try and interrupt her catastrophic fantasies. She doesn't like that.

OP posts:

DartmoorWanderer · 05/08/2025 17:02

That they’ve watched too much TikTok.

I find the entire thing draining. If your feelings are misplaced, no I don’t need to “validate” them.

RantzNotBantz · 05/08/2025 17:11

Pluvia · 05/08/2025 17:01

I've never told her she shouldn't feel that way. I've listened now for months as she tells me she's scared she's going to end up penniless and living on the streets. I've agreed that it's really scary facing a transition like this. She's used to the back-up and support of a wealthy partner. She'll get their very nice house, a big lump sum and a chunk of his considerable pension fund. Plus she's been a senior civil servant for the last 30 years and has her own pension. She's not going to end up on the street and I've occasionally suggested a reality check to try and interrupt her catastrophic fantasies. She doesn't like that.

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Sometimes friends are good for Tough Love as well as Validation.

With a CS pension based on 30 years she is looking at a retirement far more secure than most people. Not to mention the house and cash.

OK, change is hard and until she is OK she probably won’t feel OK.

But she also sounds spoilt and self absorbed. And allowing her catastrophising to drive herself deeper into doom. I can’t honestly see how validating such an emotional
trajectory is helpful.

Probably why I am not a therapist.

Maybe try “it sounds difficult. What would your therapist say?” followed by “what would your pensions advisor say?”

Purplebunnies · 05/08/2025 21:23

Op, you cannot help people that don’t want to be helped.

Crazymayfly · 05/08/2025 23:38

NewBeginnings77 · 05/08/2025 12:01

Is she Russian?

lol I was just going to ask this!

Crazymayfly · 05/08/2025 23:44

Pluvia · 05/08/2025 13:09

No, it's the end of a long relationship. She'd been talking about leaving for some years: they were living separate lives in the same house. Then he met someone new and filed for divorce. She'd assumed she'd be the one to end it when she met someone new, but he pipped her to it.

There's been no lack of support and empathy, but she's lost a lot of it because she's got herself stuck in a self-pitying rut. She'll be in the kind of financial situation most of us would love to be in post-divorce. She's keeping the house. She has a good job. She has friends. Given the fact that they were already all-but separated her reaction seems disproportionate and has gone on for too long. Everyone was really sympathetic to start with but this thing about demanding to be validated and laying down the rules for what we can and can't say is ridiculous. It's not how healthy friendships operate.

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No - that’s not how a healthy relationship works at all. Spot on with your last sentence. If it’s something that’s come out of the blue you can be supportive and a sympathetic ear but if it’s every time it ruins your relationship and you’re more than reasonable to say it’s too much for you. Then suggest she finds a therapist and makes an appointment. They can help her with coping mechanisms and they are better suited to validate where needed, and to refocus her attention when she needs to actively manage a MH spiral.

Pity parties can be useful in the immediate aftermath of a separation but are very unhealthy long term.

thepariscrimefiles · 06/08/2025 08:51

Pluvia · 05/08/2025 17:01

I've never told her she shouldn't feel that way. I've listened now for months as she tells me she's scared she's going to end up penniless and living on the streets. I've agreed that it's really scary facing a transition like this. She's used to the back-up and support of a wealthy partner. She'll get their very nice house, a big lump sum and a chunk of his considerable pension fund. Plus she's been a senior civil servant for the last 30 years and has her own pension. She's not going to end up on the street and I've occasionally suggested a reality check to try and interrupt her catastrophic fantasies. She doesn't like that.

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Does she have children? If so, is she worried about the impact on them? If she is an intelligent, senior civil servant and is getting a pretty generous divorce settlement, her worries about ending up penniless are probably groundless. She sounds to be in a much better financial situation than most of the women who post on here about their separate/divorce from their DP/DH.

Has she always been quite self-centred?