Emotions and Validation

I've recently come to the realization that I'm a very emotional person. I've found that I have a need for my feelings to be validated by others, so that I feel useful or needed or loved, and especially by someone that I'm particularly close with.


My problem is that she (an ENTJ, I think,) doesn't seem to understand, or be able to always provide me with this sort of validation. I don't lack any empathy for her situation, she's in a place in her life where she has to find herself and be on her own, but I don't see why these needs can't coexist.


Do other INFJ's feel a need for this sort emotional validation? Do others have a hard time recognizing or giving it?


I hate extremes, but this is a difficult thing for me to deal with. It seems as though it's all or nothing, either I get the support I need to feel good about myself, to be happy and succeed, or I have to withdraw from the person completely, in order to protect myself and prevent continuing disappointment or pain. That's not something I want to have to do.


Any thoughts on how to stem this emotional hemorrhaging? Or how to deal with the need for emotional validation from others when they aren't in a position to give you what you need?




Thanks.

 

Learning how to validate yourself is easier said than done, and believe me, I've never had a problem with it before.

This has popped into my head before as well, "She does care but she's just a different person with different ways of expressing herself."

The problem is that I feel like I'm spending so much time, energy, and emotion on her, doing things 'her way' because I understand how she works, that I should be getting something in return. No relationship is ever a one way street, and I'm tired of things always being someone else's way.

Regardless of the fact that I'm the only one that can ensure my own happiness, it seems off to me that I put so much effort into trying to make her happy, yet I'm still stuck being told that I should be the one "validating", i.e. helping, myself.

My issue is that just being around her is what provokes the need I feel for support or validation. Therefore, being "Just friends," isn't out of the question, but if we stay friends, I'm still going to have this need.

I've resigned myself to three options really:

A) I find the support I need in her, either by making her more keenly aware that I need it, or learning how to take what she gives me in such a way that it feels sufficient.

B) Finding it with someone else, so that we can remain "Just friends." (Which doesn't seem too likely...)

or

C) Taking her out of the picture completely. I would have no problems if I was on my own, cut out the cause and you remove the effect as well.


Of course, (A) isn't possible if her feelings don't coincide with mine, she's closer to me than anyone I've ever known, achieving that with someone else (B) will be difficult, and cutting someone so close to me right out of my life (C) is almost unthinkable.

 

They aren't expressing a want to be with me. That's the point.

We don't feel the same way about each other, hence her inability to give me the support I "need". I say need because, unlike before when I was perfectly ok without something like this in my life, I feel differently now. It's not that I'm heavily reliant on others to feel any self worth at all, it's that at a time I really needed someone, and I turned to the only person I truly care for, they weren't there for me. It's not something that happens everyday, but it's not something I can let happen more.

And by the way, I am not "perfectly alright with no longer associating with this person", I love them very much, I never said that doing such a thing would be easy for me, let alone "perfectly alright."

The type of validation I mean, is validating the feelings I have for her. It shouldn't be so hard to figure out. The fact of the matter is, because we don't feel the same way, she can't validate me, end of story.

So what it really comes down to, if we want to remain friends, is me finding it with someone else, or totally shutting myself off to the world emotionally. And since, after all this, I'm really not in the mood to be feeling anything, I think the latter sounds much more appealing.