A speaker argues that seeking your spouse's validation traps you in codependency and resentment. Instead, practice self-validation and align your actions with your own values, not your partner's reactions. This breaks the cycle and creates a healthier marriage.
Your business might be transactional, but your marriage isn't. Every action that you take can't have an expectation to receive something on the other side. The only reason that you do that is because you're so uncertain and you feel so much fear and instability inside your marriage that you now seek validation from your wife. That's called dependency. And that's how codependency happens, is how you feel about me, honey, is how I feel about me. I'm having a terrible day today because me and my wife aren't doing well. I'm having a great day today because me and my, you know, my wife actually looked at me and made eye contact with me. So you're more focused on the external than you are with the internal. And that's why the real changes never happen, because you're doing this dance as a way to try to meet somebody's needs, or to try to placate or please them instead of actually doing the work that caused the problem to begin with. See, when you look inside and you finally start to make those changes, then the only expectation is from yourself and the competition with yourself about living in alignment with the, the man that you want to be, holding strong to your vision. The process of self-realization, self-actualization— as I'm climbing this mountain to become a better version of myself, I can validate myself in that process, because the victory comes from within me. It's a form of self-validation, not external validation. Every interaction doesn't become a transaction. Every interaction becomes an opportunity for me to prove to myself who I really am and act in accordance with the man that I look up to, with the man that I hold in high regard. So stop looking outside of yourself with an expectation that someone should respond a certain way according to what you're doing. Stop basing what you're doing, whether it's right or wrong, on how somebody reacts. You got to look inside yourself. Introspect. Look within you. What is your heart telling you? What is your intuition telling you? Because your intuition will never guide you into something self-destructive. Your own bargaining and justifying Expectations and self-manipulation do that. Stop having an expectation because every expectation is a pre-planned resentment. And so you wonder why you're resentful, you wonder why you're hostile, and you wonder why you're holding in and harboring so much anger. It's because you're looking outside for validation instead of looking inside for it.
