There is something profound if I can understand the hurt behind this question and know how to answer it. I keep hearing,
"Why didn't you listen to ME when *I* tried to tell you what I needed? Why only when you read something or heard it from someone else did you decide to change?", and "I am your wife, why didn't you hear what I was saying. I was telling you what I needed, you didn't have to find it in a book?"
I get variations of this question and some anger implying that I purposely was not giving her what she wanted. It is frustrating because it is all or nothing thinking just like "why are you changing now, why didn't you change when I asked you to?". The fact that you were were trying to understand and working on it is not good enough. It would seem that finally understanding something important, like how to validate someone, would be welcome with open arms, "finally!". Instead it is judged as being too little too late or not good enough because you learned it from a book instead of from your spouse. I have tried saying "I was looking at every source I could find to understand what it was you needed until I learned the skills it took to adjust". But there must be an answer she is still looking to hear from me. I get that she must feel discounted somehow, like I wasn't listening or that she is direspected because I valued an outside opinion instead of hers. But I didn't understand her. I needed an interpreter or to hear it explained a different way.
