Cold differentiation, fusion and stuff.

[Kettricken]

Cobra, I understand you to be saying that your wife shows no particular interest/willingness toward discussing subjects that interest *you*. If so, sincere commiserations.

If such were my situation, I would tend to run out of patience/interest for listening to S. talk about work *much* faster. Not admirable, but human.

I see this as being a bit different from the "wants/needs" discussion. I perceive you to be saying that you have no particular drive toward accomodating her desire to talk about her day. You do it, but you're not thrilled; it's not your preferred way to exchange conversational intimacies with her, especially given the lack of equal time for your interests. Fair enough, as far as communication dynamics go. I see this as being a somewhat different animal from "meeting needs", though.

To me, meeting someone's needs has little to do with expecting to enjoy it simply on the merits. I don't particularly *enjoy* listening to the periodically-recurring endless loop rants about outsourcing, management idiocies, or questionable hiring practices. But it helps him to get it out of his head. I don't enjoy it per se, but I enjoy being able to give him that listening ear by free choice. "It's just a little service we provide."

OTOH, I *do* (to a relative degree) enjoy understanding what he's working on and what's going on in general. Some days you get the cupcake, some days the broccolini. Some days I enjoy the conversation, some days I'm meeting a need. Savvy?