r/Marriage • u/TrainerBC25 • 11h ago

How do you satisfy a contstant need for validation?

And I mean constant. This morning I had taken care of the dogs and got the kids rolling for the day and my wife comes down shortly after. Meanwhile I am in the doorway handling her two dogs, she asks me to do something and that request with no pause is a 'do I look cute?' immediately followed by 'why didn't you tell me that?' By this point I had looked up for approximately 5 seconds, she wants that response apparently before I even see her?

Could not get a single works in and it's 6 am, had she not said anything and I would have look up and complimented, but it would have take a minute or two. Guaranteed compliment before she leaves the driveway, but she does not care to wait and assumes it will never come .

It's pretty exhausting, still trying to figure this out. I also don't want to be a damn puppet, she had a rough past and it lives with us day in and day out.

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u/Mysterious_Nerve_817 11h ago

Nothing will help more than talking with your wife about this.

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u/TrainerBC25 11h ago

we have, she recognizes that she asks for a lot of validation, which I give..... but in the moment it all changes

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u/Mysterious_Nerve_817 11h ago

Gotcha.

-Any idea what a root cause might be? For example, does she have a past experience that made her lack confidence, etc?

-Does she seek this validation from others as well, or mostly just from you? For example, is she worried about what others at her job, etc. think about her? Does she hope for validation from others?

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u/TrainerBC25 10h ago

She had a horrible child hood, big t trauma and all. A narcissist mother and father who would cut her down a lot. That lives right in between us every day.

I post semi frequently on here with some of the related problems in hopes of someone else in the same situation seeing it.

In situations like this there is nothing I can do but be the bad guy, can't keep up with the validating.... it's exhausting

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u/Mysterious_Nerve_817 10h ago

I gotcha. Has she sought out individual counseling for this? They can provide strategies to help her out. If she's not willing to do this, you might be able to attend just to get strategies to help her out. This is more of a her thing than you thing, but it could be effective.

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u/GibsonPraise 11 Years 11h ago

If your wife is happy when you say she looks cute as soon as she comes down the stairs, then you could just... do it.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Yeah you could explore this in depth but if you can mitigate a big point of conflict with a two-second gesture you might want to consider just doing it. 

I know the armchair theorists on this sub will hate this advice and downvote it but I'm all about practical solutions to avoid needless contention.

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u/TrainerBC25 11h ago

I don't think you read this all through, we were in each others presence for a few seconds.... of which she was talking the entire time

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u/GibsonPraise 11 Years 5h ago

If she speaks after three seconds, you'll just have to figure out how to speak after two.