With 90% accuracy researchers can now predict whether your marriage will survive or end in divorce. There are four conflict styles that best predict divorce (we call them the Four Pipelines of Poison). Shut off the pipelines and your marriage will survive and thrive. Let them flow and your marriage will erode to ruin. We have now come to the third style of conflict which is called – INVALIDATION.
Recently my wife and I had some really terrific discount coupons for a local restaurant. We drove over for a nice dinner and I presented the coupons at the cash register as we were ordering our meal. The woman at the counter pointed to the fine print on the coupons and scolded me saying that they were INVALID…they were offered on a time limited basis and had expired. I glanced behind me at the line of impatient people wanting to get their food. I was holding them up and looking pretty foolish to boot. My really cool coupons were worthless and I was feeling the same. INVALIDATION in your marriage leaves you with similar feelings.
Invalidation is what slams your marriage down onto the wrestling mat.
It includes a wide variety of behaviors including, digs, put downs, public humiliation, contempt, bitterness, name calling, the war of words and revenge. It can take on subtler forms such as sarcasm and “joking” about your mate. If you don’t feel safe, if you don’t feel special or valued there is a good chance that your marriage is suffering from INVALIDATION. This is the conflict style that wives seem to be the most sensitive to and have the greatest need to eliminate.
As marriage counselors we most often hear wives asking for “emotional safety” and to know that they are “number one” – i.e. their husbands’ priority. Often times we see husbands scratch their heads about such things, and ask – “what in the world is emotional safety? Or - What shelf is it on at Wal-Mart?”
Emotional Safety and Validation occur when you are able to tell your spouse what you are feeling or thinking without being criticized, put down or told to “just stop” feeling that way. You feel “safe” because you know you won’t be verbally attacked or judged for your feelings or beliefs. We find that this safety OPENS THE SPIRIT of our mate. (In contrast invalidation puts up the walls of defense in our partner.)
We
do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom
of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No,
we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God
destined for our glory before time began.
I Corinthians 2:6
It
is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of
faith we also believe and therefore speak
II Corinthians 4:13
On
the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.
We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.
I Thessalonians 2:4
Jonathan,
David's uncle, was a counselor, a man of insight and a scribe.
I Chronicles 27:32
Ahithophel
was the king's (David's) counselor.
I Chronicles 27:33
"To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.
Job 12:13
And
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you
forever - the Spirit of truth.
John 14:16-17