That other person may have no early desire to control you and they may not want to be on the hook for providing the validation you crave, so you go out of your way to figure out what it is they *might* want and you start giving it to them so they'll give what you want.

This very much rings true for the way my H behaved in the early years of our R. I would say he stored up a lot of resentment that I did not fulfil my part of the covert contract.

I completely agree with pretty much everything you've said Burg, the ideal R to my mind is two high functioning self-validating individuals who happen to get a kick out of being together. Finding they have a lot in common, enjoy the same kind of food, music, hobbies, conversation etc which means they can spend plenty of quality time in each other's company. And if they enjoy each other sexually too - well WOW!

Fran

if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs
Erica Jong