> Do you have a phrase that works for this, but isn't prone to misunderstanding?
Not a single phrase because there's a decision matrix around the reaction:
1. Do I think I understand why the emotional reaction is happening?
2. Do I think the emotional reaction is healthy?
3. Do I think the emotional reaction is reasonable?
And how I respond depends on the answers to these questions. When the answers to the questions are "no" I fall back to building a space of emotional safety things like:
"Thank you for sharing your feelings with me", "it's ok that you're feeling that way", "feeling that way doesn't make you a bad person". These statements tend more conservative if I'm feeling it's important to remove misunderstanding.
Sure, that's in an interaction, but that kind of phrase is a good starting point when talking about the situations in the abstract. As in any conversation, you then adjust and clarify as needed.
What I mean is you don't get to choose what emotions you feel. So making someone feel wrong/bad for feeling them isn't useful.
> two fairly incontrovertible things
You say this, but neither my wife nor I took either as incontrovertible until the last few years.
I don't have a better way of discussing it or bringing it up though. Do you have a phrase that works for this, but isn't prone to misunderstanding?