Sage, reading your post about why men won't commit reminded me of when my mother told me the facts of life. I, of course, responded "ewww, gross" when informed of the mechanics of ML, but when she said, "Men have this thing called 'ego' and it's your job to make sure you always feed his ego and make him feel good about himself", my 10-year old response was this: "Mom, don't WE get to have an ego, too?"
Part of what vexes me about your summary is that there seems to be a game-playing, ego inflation aspect which is jarring. I don't want to be in a R where I have to inflate an ego falsely, or where my ego is less important than my spouse's ego.
