This is an interesting one particularly when it comes to listening well in intimate relationships— the wisdom is that men are generally worse listeners and have

This is an interesting one particularly when it comes to listening well in intimate relationships— the wisdom is that men are generally worse listeners and have a tendency to want fix things rather than just being present with their partner to understand how they are feeling and where they are at. And that learning to do this and learning to ask for it, are important pieces of long term relationship success. All of which makes sense, but I do think some of the times when I've struggled with this was maybe tied into what your describing: a concern that while my partner's feelings of hurt or whatever were total valid, I found it hard to separate validating just the feelings while not also validating what I felt were unfair judgments/characterizations about the people or situations involved, and was nervous that letting those judgments go by unaddressed was indeed going to cement them as a future factual reference point.