Validation is the Solution

Validating your partner’s emotional experience, rather than offering solutions, is the solution.

by Michelle Pomeroy, LMFT

Often the first thing a caring partner wants to do when their sweetheart tells them they are hurting is to help. You care, so it only makes sense you want to help them feel better.

Of course! I mean, you love them and don’t want to see them struggle. Perhaps in those moments you recall feeling similarly and want to do all you can to stop the pain for your sweetie. 

I imagine you have empathy pains wash over you as you recall times when you’ve been hurting. What do you do at this point? Do you offer hopeful words, encouraging advice, or helpful solutions? Do you try to help by solving the problem? 

If you try to fix the problem in this way, you might be taken by surprise when your partner gets upset or perhaps angry with you, telling you “you don’t get it” or “you don’t care.” Your sweetie’s response really stings because, in fact, you actually do care. A lot. This leads you to feeling hurt, confused, likely frustrated, and feeling more disconnected from your sweetheart, and that’s the last place you wanted to end up. 

So let’s back up a bit to the moment your partner reached out to tell you about the hurt. You chose to meet your sweetie on the first-floor where we problem-solve with our amazing cognitive abilities. On this level, problem solving works!

But when your partner is hurting, they aren’t on the first floor. They are on the ground floor, literally in a different brain space. On this floor the only goal is to feel secure and safe, which is achieved through emotional attunement and validation. 

Your intentions are spot on. You want to help your sweetie, because you care deeply. You simply need to meet at the right level. 

So let’s go back to the moment you felt the empathy pains wash over you. That’s the moment when you choose to take the stairs up to the first floor to cognitive problem-solving, or down to the basement to meet your sweetie in emotional attunement, drawing from that place of empathy. 

It can sound like this:

“Wow, that sounds really hard.”

“So what I hear you saying is that this really sucks right now.”

“The way you feel makes total sense.”

“I want to understand how that feels for you.” 

“I’m here with you.”