You know...I had a convo one time with my hubby...where he responded very similarly to your W. He gave me the opportunity (and I'm pretty sure your wife gave you this opening as well) where I was able to interject that "different" can be good...because what we were are continuing to do...what wasn't working for us before, still wasn't working and wouldn't somehow magically start working.
You know...that old saying, "don't keep doing what isn't working."
When I find my H gives me the openings to interject information like that...I do my best not to do it in a hateful or attacking manner. I do my utmost to make sure I have an attitude (a genuine one) where I'm really open to listen to what he has to say. Now I'm not saying you aren't doing this LOL...just pointing out what I do that seems to be working for me.
The first C we went to jointly...before he started therapy on his own challenged us to do this. When there is something I really want to talk about (like your convo with your W) and I've received the cold shoulder in the past to the convo (like your wife gives you). I'm to stop right there, put my emotions in check...in other worlds (HOM) and tell him that this is very important to me and that we really need to discuss it. Recognize that the other person isn't open to the discussion right then. If you wish you can literally call her on her body language communicating that to you. Let them know you expect to have this conversation within a certain time frame...even tell them you want to talk about it tomorrow or the next day (whichever fits your schedules best) and then hold to it. Now to be honest our C said for my H to set the appt. with me to talk...but I found that unless I gave him a time frame he didn't do it...setting a time frame for him seems to work for us. Otherwise he'll avoid the issue.
The reason I bring this up (sorry for the long post on this topic) is that I notice your convo happened in bed. Now I won't say my H and I haven't had some of our discussions there....but when he hasn't been open to the discussions, or I notice he's getting really defensive about it I literally move the convo out of the bedroom and to neutral territory so-to-speak. See...I picked up on with my H that having those conversations in the bedroom only made him feel attacked...even if I wasn't "attacking". Is it possible your W feels that way too?
Have you tried anything like I'm mentioned above? And if not, do you think she'd go for it?
