Context
My wife (26F) and I (27M) have been in LDR for the past year (eight hours apart). We met in 2023 and got married one year later. Some months later we went LDR. I’m currently abroad, trying to secure a research contract, and she stayed in our home country. The plan is for us to reunite in October. Our original plan was to see each other in June, but bureaucratic procedures didn’t move fast enough.
Through this separation we’ve stayed in close contact. We talk on the phone every day. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes for hours. Every weekend, we set aside a day to talk and do something together, whether that’s watching a movie or just spending time together.
The discussion
This morning, she called me at 7 a.m. She told me she felt frustrated because she wanted to talk but I had things to do. I told her we could, that I could skip the gym and we’d have an hour and a half to talk before I had to go to the lab. She told me she didn’t want to talk because it was “only an hour and a half”. She said she’s tired of having to talk in short bursts, of always having to cut our conversations short because I have to go to work, or to the gym, or somewhere else. While she was telling me this, she said she was tired of the fact that we “haven’t talked at all this week,” which also made me feel unappreciated because just on Tuesday we talked for two hours on videocall, even though I had a presentation to prepare for the next day.
The conversation escalated as I told her how she was making me feel, and she told me I had lied to her by saying we could see each other in June. That hurt too. I did everything I could to make that happen, but it ended up being out of my control. And we were always aware that if it didn’t work out, we’d have to wait until the end of the year. I don’t think that I lied.
She told me it hurt her that I focused on how she made me feel bad, that she wasn’t trying to attack me, she just needed to vent. We hung up.
The second discussion
Later in the afternoon, I called her to talk things through. I told her I understood her frustration and that I’ve also feel it, but that the way she expressed herself made me feel invalidated and unappreciated. So told her that she should be more careful in the way she expresses her feelings.
She thinks that I am in the wrong because she can’t say anything anymore because I’ll just get upset, that she does not want to have to watch what she says when she is the one feeling bad (but I also feel bad about the situation….)
My question
How can I navigate this situation ? Clearly she needs to vent and express raw feelings, but I cannot avoid to feel hurt. I also want for her to be able to express what she feels to me. I don’t like the idea of having topics that we cannot discuss. Even more if we are talking about are feelings.
TLDR
TLDR: My wife (26F) and I (27M) have been in LDR for the past year. She is frustrated about this and the way she expresses it to me make me feel unappreciated and invalidated. When I bring up this to her, she says that she does not have the energy to watch everything she says, and that she can’t talk to me. I wonder how can I approach this situation, making her feel heard while also protecting my own feelings.
Comments
I would suggest rather than trying to find reasons why what she is saying is incorrect or inaccurate, see what you can learn from her. She’s giving you examples that describe what she’s feeling, even if the examples might be a bit off or exaggerated or what have you. What it says to me is that she’s frustrated with the situation in general. If that’s the case, telling her you’re doing your best or it’s not as bad as she’s saying is only going to drive a wedge between you even further.
Sit down, ask her to tell you how she feels and do *not* offer any solutions or suggestions. Only ask questions of clarification, then at the end, tell her what you heard. “So I’m hearing that X, Y, and Z. Am I understanding it right?”
Tell her that you are listening and that you want to try to figure out a way forward together. It’s not you vs her, it’s the two of you vs the problem.
The worst thing in your post is that she said you lied about meeting in June? Obviously she shouldn’t say that if it was truly out of your hands but if there’s nothing else and she’s just expressing frustration with the situation then I don’t see why you can’t let her vent and acknowledge her feelings instead of turning the conversation into how you feel.
She said you have barely talked this week and you try to say she’s wrong because you spoke a couple hours Tuesday. I mean, obviously whether or not you’ve barely talked is a bit subjective. To me I would agree it’s Thursday and you’ve talked a couple hours, I guess to you that’s a lot but she’s allowed to disagree and feel frustrated by that. She’s not attacking you personally, she’s angry at the situation and telling you she needs more time.
Obviously I don’t know the tone of voice used during these calls and if she’s been aggressive or rude in them but again, based on what you wrote I don’t know why you are taking this so personally.
She’s anxious attached (It seems), and she’s reacting from emotional scarcity. The distance, missing June, short calls, it all feels like disconnection to her. Even if it’s not what you meant, that’s how her nervous system takes it in.
You’re trying to reason through it, but that doesn’t work with feelings. You can’t think your way out of emotion. People, especially anxious types, don’t need solutions in that moment, they need to feel heard.
And emotional safety? You don’t build that in the middle of a fight. That happens outside the conflict, when things are calm.
You cannot have a reasonable conversation with someone who is being unreasonable.
This:
> we’d have an hour and a half to talk before I had to go to the lab. She told me she didn’t want to talk because it was “only an hour and a half”
…is ridiculous. A 90-minute conversation is a long conversation. How long does she want to be able to talk in a contiguous block for it to be “enough”?
This:
> always having to cut our conversations short because I have to go to work, or to the gym, or somewhere else
…is also ridiculous; life happens, people have jobs and responsibilities and commitments, and those things happen with some regularity and break up the “available” time all of us have; it would be no different if the two of you weren’t long-distance.
> She told me it hurt her that I focused on how she made me feel bad, that she wasn’t trying to attack me, she just needed to vent.
People should not vent about each other to each other. Venting is something that is used to get anger, frustration, hurt feelings, anxiety, resentment, or stress out…but if the person we are venting to is the person we are venting about, it doesn’t make that stuff go away; all it does is move it from me onto you.
If she needs to vent about you, she should be doing that to a third party (a close friend, a counselor, a therapist, a cat, a forest) that won’t be hurt by her expressing what she’s feeling, so she can get it out and then it can go away.
The two of you have a lot to learn about how to communicate as a couple.
I would recommend couples therapy or counseling, thought that might be a challenge with the distance involved. And it won’t work in any event unless both of you:
Recognize that there’s a problem,
Are willing to put in the time, effort, and energy to resolve the problem,
Believe that counseling or therapy can help with the problem,
Are willing to accept that you each might be contributing to the problem, and
Are willing to change the parts of your respective selves that are contributing to the problem so that they aren’t contributing to it any more.
If either one of you fails any of those five criteria, then counseling or therapy is a waste of time and money.
It sounds like you both probably could do some adjusting here. She could probably learn some ways to communicate her concerns to you that are more constructive. It’s generally not that useful to “vent” to someone when the vent is about them – if she needs to vent about you, she should do that with a friend. Just as she would vent to you about a friend.
And you could learn to listen for her concerns (and not always focus overly on the way she says things) and accept that sometimes she’s going to say things that you don’t want to hear. Like, maybe she shouldn’t have said that you lied, but maybe also there were some things that you should have done to prioritize the June visit, and maybe that’s hard for you to acknowledge.
You might bring up with her that you two don’t have a lot of relationship history and don’t have a lot of practice yet with conflicts, and it might be good to intentionally work on your relationship. You could choose to read together a reputable relationship book, like those published by the Gottman Institute, and discuss it during your calls.
The Discussion
First of all I completely agree with her here. She was opening up to you, she was expressing internal frustration for not having her needs met due to your current circumtances, she was telling you how she feels and how she needs to be able to express herself about this and so on.
However, instead of you listening and talking about this stuff – things that she’s going through because of the LDR – you make it all about yourself. This was a really bad move. Really bad one. Because you left her completely alone with these things she’s going through, she must feel really abandoned here. She was opening up her heart and mind and your comment is to “shut up because you make me feel bad”. Come on!!
You should have done what a good partner does which is to listen, maybe ask questions, share your own feelings about certain things to see if you both feel the sa,e way and so on. You know, support. Thats what people in relationships do, they support each other.
The second discussion
“made me feel invalidated and unappreciated”
this is definitely more of a YOU problem than her problem. We people have feelings and we experience things the certain way – we don’t have any control over these things. It’s quite alarming that her feelings make you feel this way but you have to understand that not everything is about you. Her opening up about her experience in LDR and coping with the big challenges its had – no blaming, nothing. she was talking about the circumstances which neither oneof you can change. Based on what you wrote this had nothing to do with you, all she wanted was a good conversation focusing on these things but you made it all about you.
And the solution to this problem was for her to be “more careful” so she doesnt share her experiences anymore or shes scared to do so because she doesnt want to offend you. im sorry but this solution is the beginning of an end. The real solution is for you to get counseling and work with this person on self growth.
“She thinks that I am in the wrong because she can’t say anything anymore “
Ah like i said, you just took the first big step towards the end here. She couldn’t be more right. Like who is she going to share her experience with LDR and the challenges it bring into her life than you? But since you always think that everything is about you by getting offended, she can’t even share this level of things with you.
My question
I think you should seriously get therapy and dive into this issue. Why do you get hurt and offended over something that no one blames you for (she blames the distance and the job, Not you or anything you have done or you do, she’s just venting) ?
You know, this hurt that you feel and other things, this is a learnt coping mechanism (quite bad one too) and behavior that you can learn also to not do it anymore. Thats literally what therapy is for. Therapy is where people do the most self growth and you can often tell at my age whos done it and who hasnt. And I seriously think everyone should. But back to the topic.
You feeling this way is not who you are, this is not something thats built in you. To me it sounds like poor self esteem or self worth. So whenever your partner tells you something, your brain automatically seeks to find something that could potentially mean that you have failed her. It seems to me that youre quite fragile and your sense of being proud of yourself for example is also very very fragile. The smalles of things can completely crash that if you think you have been potentially critizised which makes you feel unappreciated. When normally it takes either one big fuck up from our partner or series of things. Normally people dont jump into such dramatic and over the top conclusions over something like this.
Check from youtube how to rewire your own brain
OP – its as simple as this; the distance is starting to get to her and Im not sure she will be able to cope with this for very long.
She might not know it yet, but Im just giving you a heads up.
So, what exactly do you mean by “the way that she does it”? Imo the things she said here could be fine or hurtful depending on how they are said, and that seems to be the core issue– but not something you really explained here. Is it her tone? Is she accusatory? Harsh? Insulting? Crying? Bitter?
The common advice for couples who have accusatory/defensive communication patterns is to use “I” statements. “When you do this thing, I feel lonely” rather than accusations like “you abandoned me”. On the flip side, couples need to try not to interpret statements like “when you do this, i feel this” as accusations if they weren’t meant to be.
The accusatory/defensive communication style is unfortunately so common, especially in LDRs, and it’s self-reinforcing. It’s hard to get out of because you each have to start being vulnerable towards someone you’ve learned to attack or defend yourself from, and hope the vulnerability is reciprocated. But yeah, as long as you’re in opposition to each other in these conversations, accusing and defending, it prevents you from connecting and working together.
That is a self-reinforcing problem too. It sounds like your wife’s core issue here is feeling neglected and not connected to you. Really common in an LDR. And people who lose that sense of secure connection often do become defensive and accusatory, because they don’t want to be vulnerable when they feel hurt already. So I would talk to her about this accusatory/defensive dynamic as a shared issue for the relationship— not an issue of accusing her or protecting yourself, but an olive branch, that you’re both hurting and you want to find a way to connect rather than push away.
She can’t ‘just vent’ to you about things that she feels you have done wrong- that’s just berating someone for things without allowing them the opportunity to explain or defend themselves. She can say that she’s feeling frustrated with the distance and lack of quality time, but she can’t say that you don’t make time for her or have lied to her about things and expect you not to speak up.
She sounds unreasonable. She knows you’re long distance and you both have things to do. You both clearly make time to communicate with one another.
It seems like she desires it to be more often and likely isn’t happy with long distance… but this is cuckoo behavior.
Good luck to you in that marriage. That sounds more like an exhausting nightmare.
I’ve done LDR before. She wants and needs you in person. If you guys can’t find a way to spend time physically together before October, that is a failure on the relationship, even though it may or may not be your fault.
To me this just reads at your wife expressing how much she misses you and hates not being able to talk more. Those things aren’t your fault, but you took that upset personally and decided she was insulating that they were.
When your wife starts venting about her feelings, ask yourself ‘is she upset with me, or at the situation?’ You can even ask her this if it’s unclear, or try redirect it to the real issue. You are apart, and that sucks. Think about how differently the conversation would have gone had you responded “I hate not being able to talk to you more too baby” instead of saying that her saying that made you feel unappreciated?
Notice how by going on the defensive, things then escalated and she then did go on the attack by accusing you of lying? You both need to approach this situation as you two vs the issue. If you treat it as you vs her, then instead of it being an opportunity to connect over your shared struggle and feel better, it becomes a conflict that leaves both you feeling shitter.
And maybe her tone does need work. Maybe she does come off in a way that feels accusatory. But the point isn’t to figure out who caused this disagreement. It’s to fix it. And given you are the one asking to fix it, not her, I’m advising what you can do. And that is to look past your gut defensive reaction to her tone and pay attention to what’s actually being communicated. That she misses you, because she loves you and you are apart. And that’s something I’m sure you can empathise and commiserate with her about.
You met in 2023. You have been long distance for a year. Its not even the middle of 2025.
You have been long distance for around half of your entire relationship. That’s not going to work. You did not build up enough history and emotional connection in that one year that you were actually together to survive this long in a ldr.
Also, you say she makes you feel invalidated and unappreciated, but what exactly is she supposed to be appreciating here? That you are willing to skip gym once a week to talk to her? That you didnt manage to get back when you promised? I know that wasn’t your fault, but what exactly ARE you doing that she should be appreciating here? Talking to her a few hours a week in short bursts?