Good piece. However I think you are a bit too hard on yourself and you take on all the blame for the marriage ending when it was also equally your wife’s responsibility to recognise that you were responding from a well intentioned place, and communicate her need for validation.

In my relationship my partner and I used to have occasional conflicts about this kind of thing, where I would be upset and he would try and tell me why I shouldn’t feel bad. Trying to cheer me up.

I communicated to him that while I understood he was trying to comfort me, I needed him to validate my sadness FIRST before trying to “solve it" and cheer me up.

This has led to a permanent shift in the way we communicate and now it’s very healthy.

So while yes it’s on men to validate their partner’s feelings, it’s also on the women to express their need to validation and also to not assume the worst of their husband.

The principle of charity in relationships is so important. Unless proven otherwise, assume your partner is well intentioned and trying to help you. Rather than seek reasons to believe they don’t really love or care about you.

Final point is that sometimes validating emotions can go too far. My dad would validate everything my mother felt. But the things she felt WERE unreasonable and hurting her children.

For example she stalked me online, and found a comment I’d written when I was 21 talking about how I felt sexual desire and was bisexual. She felt I betrayed her by having sexual feelings, that I was a slut, deceptive and an untrustworthy person. She gave me the silent treatment for a year while I lived in the same household as her and Dad.

When I said to Dad after she refused to “forgive" me for my internet comment, that her feeling so extreme about it was unreasonable, he said it was not and she was entitled to feel however she did about it regardless of whether it was fair or reasonable or hurt me.

So not all feelings should be validated imo.