The truth about seeking validation from your friends

[RELATIONSHIPS EDITION]

Why is our friends’ validation so important to us?

When we want to make a decision in life we are taught to ask other people if it is correct since we are children (that is validation). Not that that is wrong since it is a really big part of our survival as infants. We trust that our parents will tell us what will keep up safe. They know best, to a certain point.

What happens sometimes when we grow up is that we struggle to create independence. At school when our parents are not there, we find comfort in other people our age telling us their experiences. We might start to trust and rely on them for advice.

But there is a very thin line between advice and straight-up orders. Most of the time that depends on us and how we have developed our sense of independence.

This relates very closely to how much we trust ourselves to make decisions and who do we want to put the blame on if something doesn’t go right. When we lack that sense of independence we tend to take opinions and advice very seriously. Almost with an “all or nothing” approach.

You might think, either I do this thing that they are telling me is in the best for me or they will think I took their opinion for granted. Maybe you think that if you don’t take their advice and things actually go sideways they will feel judgmental over you and you might feel ashamed. 

Building community and the sense of belonging

This also connects deeply to how we work as a society. It becomes harder every day to make decisions that are purely our own and are not deeply influenced by others. Not that it’s wrong to do things that others do.

(I have always disliked the “I’m not like them” trope. There will always be someone with similar interests to you. It just shames those who actually like what everyone else does.)

We seek our friends’ validation because we are trying to build a community. A place where we feel safe and know that we won’t be judged by what we do. The much-needed sense of belonging also comes in here.

Biologically we are made to function as a community and not alone, we need other humans. So the mind seeks to feel in tune with others. 

The problem is when this reaches a certain extent where we lose ourselves. We can’t seem to understand who we are without others and we seek constant validation.

We can’t make decisions on our own because we have shut down our inner voice so much that we are paralyzed by the most personal decisions. Like our romantic relationships and how we search for so much approval of them from our friends. 

Our friends vs relationships?

Disclaimer: This does NOT apply to abusive relationships. 

In the last few years, I have been seeking constant approval of my relationships with my friends. And this has only ended in one of our two ways. Either I lose a friendship or I ruin a relationship with doubts that are not my own.

This is a cycle that I know I’m not the only one in. So how does this end up happening?

From the words of a friend of mine, “you are the only one that is actually in the relationship, not your friends.”

We often forget that we have a different perspective on things. So when we go to our friends complaining about what a partner did, they start to hate them, and most of the time is justifiable.

We go with anger and want them to be angry too.

But what about when we are no longer mad at our partners and want our friends to love them again?

This happens especially in age groups that are just starting to understand how complicated relationships actually are. Instead of showing some type of support to the friend in conflict we just constantly tell them that they deserve better and that they should leave.

Obviously, this is said with a lot of love. We all want better for our friends. Sometimes we forget that people grow inside of relationships. Some conflicts are there to learn how to fix them.

Of course, no one wants to hear that, when they are angry that their boyfriend hasn’t called her beautiful at all during the week. We want everyone around us to be angry as well.

These are the kinds of conflicts that we should keep to ourselves because our friends keep score. And once the conflict has been resolved and they don’t change their opinion about your partner that fast, you get stuck trying to convince them how good they actually are.

It is also a known fact that we tend to share the bad moments more often than the good ones. I have some friends that would always judge couples for anything happy that they did, so I never felt comfortable sharing my happy moments with them since I felt they would judge me behind my back. I felt way more comfortable complaining about how enraging men made me.

How does this “validation” devalue our relationship?

The worst part about all of this is that since your friends begin to constantly side-eye you every time you mention your partner this starts affecting your relationship deeply. You can no longer trust yourself and your partner doesn’t understand where all these feelings that you are having come from.

This generates a lack of trust between you and your partner. It creates a strain as you can’t make decisions by yourself. You ask yourself if your friends would approve of what they are wearing or the flowers that they bought you. You lose your own opinion. 

What happened to me was that I became so afraid of showing my love for my partner publicly because of what would my friends think.

That my partner felt like I didn’t appreciate him or didn’t want anyone to know I was with him. This created resentment that led to further problems.

Even when deep down I did feel like showing him this, I was just internally ashamed.

How does this make it harder for you to make choices in the future?

Not only does this addiction to validation from your friends create a strain in your romantic relationships but even worse it creates a strain in your relationship with yourself. You abandon who you are, your opinions, and your morals. 

This is an open conversation for you to reflect on the value of those opinions and how much you share with your friends. This might not be the case for everyone but when I stopped sharing intimate details about my relationships with my friends, the quality of these increased drastically.