“Lost and Exhausted” - the Chronic Invalidation Paradigm

I come from storytellers. Part of my family culture – and Irish culture – is telling a captivating story.

I was a creative writing major in college. I was fascinated by perspective, narrative, and the power of framing.

Years after college, I saw the 2002 movie City of God about a group of children growing up in the Rio de Janeiro slums. It’s a cult classic, not the easiest to watch, and violent.

It did something I hadn’t seen in movies and maybe not yet in life – it showed how each character became who they were in adulthood from the time they were small. And, no surprise, even the antagonists didn’t feel like “bad guys” – they just felt like people doing destructive things to survive.

Their dysfunction was understandable. No good guys or bad guys. Only people behaving in interesting ways that make sense if you rewind the tape far enough.

Those are my favorite stories. They’re not easy to create in fiction and it’s even harder to see the world that way in real life.

Most of the time, divorce isn’t one person’s fault. The big umbrella is that there is a deficit of tools, a misunderstanding of expectations, loss of trust, and a breakdown in communication.

There doesn’t have to be a big betrayal to lose trust.

Not being safe to give an opinion for fear of being criticized chips away at trust. Being met with inaction when telling your partner that you need a break from leading chips away at trust.

People entering divorce are not starting from neutral. They are coming in after years of feeling misunderstood, dismissed, or not fully heard.

What has been surprising to me in doing this work is the profound cognitive impact of chronic invalidation.

It turns out, feeling disoriented, reactive, or having brain fog is not a personality or a personal failure (read that again, my overachievers!). It can be the result of years of trying to be understood; the confusing and disappointing reality that the way you think and feel are impossible for the person closest to you to relate to.

Chris and I have a term for a certain dynamic we see in couples that we call “Lost and Exhausted” – where one partner has no agency in the relationship and feels completely adrift. Who am I? When did my inner world disappear? Why is it hard for me to have opinions or take initiative? Can I ever do anything right? This is lost.

The other partner is exhausted. They have all the agency, they feel like they make all the decisions, and everything rests on their shoulders. They have a deep and scary feeling that they can’t count on anyone but themselves. They wish someone would give them some – any! – relief from feeling like the only grown up in the room.

These are not the only dynamics that exist in couples, just a prevalent one. Both people are unseen and unsupported.

These roles aren’t fixed, and they’re not moral.

Sometimes both people feel lost. Sometimes both feel exhausted. Often, each person can make a compelling case for why they had to become exactly who they became. And it always makes sense.

When someone’s internal experience is repeatedly missed, minimized, or corrected, it doesn’t just stay at the level of frustration. It changes how they experience themselves.

There is a well-documented physiological component to this - when a person feels understood, the tension in the body releases. Defenses go down. When they don’t, the tension and defenses stay up.

Over time, that activation looks like what we see walking into divorce: confusion, reactivity, shutdown, urgency, uncertainty, indecision. Different presentations of the same underlying experience.

Which is part of why divorce can feel so disorienting. It’s making important decisions in a state that has been shaped, often for years, by not quite being able to land with the other person.

In our work, we spend time teaching communication basics for the transition from marital partners to co-parents to unstick some of the tension and defenses.

It’s not about fixing the marriage – it is about creating the foundation for a new kind of team.

These communication tools serve the family, but they also serve the individual. The “lost” person finally gets some agency. The “exhausted” person finally gets some care.

Our work is about building co-parenting teams and in the process, rebuilding lost, exhausted, well-meaning people.