Corri,
There's an element of genius to your post (beyond some good insights) that you may or may not realize...
This thread is about my W wanting a list of "specifics" because I always seem to speak in general terms about more our SSM and then expect her to figure out the "action". I had a hard time empathizing with her until I read your post. You are made some generalizations about respect but by the time I got done reading, I was clueless how to translate it into action. Pretty wild...I see my wife's point.
It's unlikely that "respect" is a major factor in this. It's more than the fact that we have simply operated independently with strong friendship but little passion. There's been plenty of mutual acknowlegment, attention, listening and care given to each other and we've always had a good friendship. The lack of "passion" (good and bad) has made life very easy and peacful as we've never raised our voices or had a "fight" in the 10 years we've been married, heck even in the 6 years while we were dating...or even in th 6 years prior to dating that we knew each other (at 12 years old). This is really the problem I think...her definition of marriage is what I'm describing - a good and peacefull homelife without drama. She is always telling me how much she loves her life and feels like the luckiest person in the world. Every time I hear this, I get frusterated because I don't want to be a buzzkill and tell her how crappy I feel. When I start to explore the inner-workings of our relationship, I get extremely angry inside....maybe your right in that "I'm not being respected" by her...which is seems like the reverse of a lot of other people's situations.
