Wish, I am trying to formulate a way to help you understand what I am saying. I would 25's post ot you which she responds to your explanations to me. There is lots of value in that.
You keep saying she needs to tell you, in addition to what she needs, how much she needs it. ALl you need to know is that if she is telling you that she does in fact need it. I would feel awful if someone would only want to fulfill my needs because I would leave them if they don't. I would hope I wouldn't have to quantify how much and define what the consequences are if they didn't do it.
Your wife told you that you sleeping in the other room makes her feel bad. She was very direct with you, and while you like to women only understand these things because they at women, she was actually way more direct than most women.
You let her chose where to eat because YOU didn't care where you ate. So she gets what she needs only when it doesn't matter to you? What if you did care where you ate? Then you don't make the sacrifice?
If it something you really can't provide for her, you don't only provide it because you will lose the M. You discuss it and come up with a compromise. Express why you can't make that sacrifice. Maybe a solution to the sleep problem would be to sleep in the bedroom x amount of times a week. maybe those few days are more difficult to sleep, but your W expressed very clearly it is important for her to sleep in the same bed with her husband.
I hope you see what I am saying. She didn't blindside you, although I am not minimizing that you did feel blindsided. And no, all women can not just shut off feelings like a light switch. I certainly can't. And those WAW I know didn't. It was years of them saying what they needed, their husbands not doing anything about it, and they protected themselves by detaching because they felt so hopeless. Her A is not right by any means. But your W has been crying out for a while now, but because she didn't threaten to leave, you thought it wasn't serious when she expressed what she needed.
You said you have a desire to improve upon this in future relationships and that's what I am trying to help with. You don't only take action on something expressed to you because they didn't tell you how badly they needed it. If someone tells you they need something, they need something. So no need to ask going forward how badly they need it. Just communicate and see if you can compromise if it something really difficult for you to provide.
