Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[adinva]

She tells me I am meeting 100% of her needs. She tells me her "love tank is full" per the 5LL's, and that she has the relationship she's always wanted. The only thing she doesn't like is that she doesn't feel I'm happy with what she's currently bringing to the table, and she wishes I was.

I don't get what she's bringing to the table. What does she think she's bringing to the table? Just more ML?

She wants to live with no expectations. She wants me to view anything she does for me as a gift. She wants me to expect nothing. To be fair, she tries to treat me that way. She really never expresses an expectation and makes very few requests if any.

Assuming you're talking about your basic human emotional needs, I think you're missing something. She's denying that she has any emotional needs that she looks to her H for. While I'd argue that she's probably in denial about that, that all humans have emotional needs, just the fact that she had an EA suggests it's untrue. What did she get from the EA? She might benefit from counseling to figure out why she wants to avoid emotions, but she'd have to want to do that. Coming from you it would sound like pressure. (Where I'm getting this is that my H seems to be similar. While I always thought he was unemotional he really was just not expressing his emotions and then resentment would bubble over. My T pointed out that because he got angry with me I could see that there really were emotions there.)

Yes, she read it and took it to heart. I think she understands that it's a huge issue and a deal breaker for me, and the message in the book for the LD partner to "step it up" resonated with her, so she is making an effort there.

Well, ok. She learned there was a deal breaker and she did something about it. Maybe you go along with status quo until you discover that you've come to another dealbreaker - maybe with the physical needs being met better, you can be OK without the emotional part. Are you OK with that?

I still don't get what she values about your R that caused her to turn around on the ML issue. You presented a rational argument, the finances and why-not etc, and it worked - wow. For me, the rational arguments aren't enough - my H is in a fog about that stuff and just wants o-u-t. I'd still wonder what she was looking elsewhere for, just so you can improve on what you have with her.

Re my "aggression" comments. I'm projecting onto your W what I've learned about me. It may not be a fit. I always thought of myself as the better half of our relationship. I communicated, I was flexible, I was understanding and tolerant, while he was increasingly rigid, complaining, and difficult. I stated upfront when I needed him to be more respectful, affectionate, communicative. I really thought he had all the problems and my flaws were minor. I have since learned that my "minor" flaws were major in his value system, which is just as legitimate as my value system. My "minor" transgressions were creating a miserable existence for him. My excusable and understandable, and fixable, intimacy issues may have been destroying his love and respect for me. He wasn't communicating any of this so I thought we were happily married until he told me that he wanted to separate and get divorced. Not to go through every detail of our sitch, but in retrospect I think I was actually a lot more resentful and angry at him than I was willing to admit to myself or anyone, and I subconsiously took it out on him at every opportunity. The ways I did this were so innocuous as to be unrecognizeable - getting caught up reading the internet late at night, being right in the middle of something when he pointed out things that he wanted done, not fixing a food he remembered liking because I didn't think it would be good. Just little tiny ways of saying without speaking, "I do not care about you." In other words, my failures to meet or even understand his needs were acts of aggression I didn't even know I felt.

So when I hear someone won't go for a 10 minute bike ride because they don't like to bike...or kayak...or walk...or ML...it sounds kind of like aggression to me. If I can't get outside of my self-consciousness to do something my H would really love in terms of ML, well, again it sounds like resentment to me. In my case it was. I always planned that when my issues became a real problem for us I'd go get help from a sex therapist. But that time should probably have come a long time ago - my H just wasn't telling me that he was bothered. Instead he just decided the problem was that he wasn't attracted to me anymore.

I guess what I'm trying to say to you is that your wife sounds angry or resentful by withholding her needs from you and withholding her fulfillment of your needs. What she says on the surface, that a marriage shouldn't involve needs, doesn't ring true to me. But it takes all kinds. The real question for you is probably is your marriage enough to fulfill you now or how can it become fulfilling for you.

Rambling a bit today. Rooting for you, and happy about your major success so far!