I'm really glad you got good news about the mental health board freedom.

I was thinking about what you said about how you and your husband keep "missing" each other's point and not validating one another, etc.

We can only talk about ourselves. In your situation I would try to learn to say, "When you say/said X, I felt hurt. You are the one with the feeling, it is yours. If we say, "You said X and hurt my feelings", that is an accusation of the other person, that tells the other person they are responsible for your feelings. What happens if I say to you, "You said you like my new haircut and hurt my feelings." You'd be helpless wondering how that could be. How about if I added, "Since you like my haircut now, you must not have liked it before." Because I believe that, you can see how I would feel hurt, however, you still are not part of the equation; you did not hurt my feelings, my own false belief hurt my feelings.

If I say to you, "You said you like my new haircut and I felt hurt." You are not feeling blamed for my hurt and are concerned that I feel hurt and curious as to why so ask me, "Oh! Why did my saying I like your new haircut cause you to feel hurt do you think? That doesn't sound like much fun!" And so I respond then add, "Well, I believe that since you like my haircut now, you must not have liked it before?" (notice the question mark) To this you fall all over yourself saying, "No! No! I liked it before too! I love your hair any way you wear it, it's so nice and thick and shiny and I'm actually a little jealous since mine is stick straight and so thin; I don't feel there is much exciting that I can do with it."

Accept responsibility for your own feelings, don't accuse the other person of "making you feel" something, and keep curious about why other people feel the way they feel about things. If you say to your husband, "You hurt my feelings" and he replies with, "I guess you didn't like what I did for you. . ." you miss out on a great discussion with someone you love about nice, thick, shiny hair