I guess that some "other validation" is ok. As long as you don't need it to be happy about yourself, it seems to be OK. That would be my situation, I don't need her desire to feel good about myself, I am fine with myself. I need her desire because it is my primary need.
One thing I not in most of the threads where you enter with your first post, you pose a question of “How is it possible to make a ND woman want desire” or something to that effect. Because there is not clear and convincing set of procedures or method with a high enough success rate, you chose to do nothing. Why is that? Am I to assume that you will not be happy with an improvement in your R, that only a jump to nirvana is good enough and anything else is not worth the effort?