Red Hot Crucible

[MJontheMend]

I resent the fact that he does these AOS and then looks for praise when I feel he's doing stuff that just needs to be done.

Weirdness. My real-life Type 4 friend said almost exactly the same thing to me the other day. She said "--- is so narcissistic. He always wants me to praise him for things like doing some little job out in the yard.". Perhaps it would be helpful for you if I told you what I thought but didn't say to my real-life friend when she said this. My thought was "You are obviously someone who is very neat and detail-oriented. Your husband is not. When he does a super-neat job edging the lawn, he is doing this as a favor to you because if he was single he wouldn't have to give a d*mn what the lawn looked like and could spend more time watching sports. Therefore, he expects or at least hopes for WOA when he does things like this.". I also had the unspoken thought "Girlfriend, I know your H pretty well (he used to be my boss and I knew him for years before I met his wife) and you are d*mn lucky to have him because he is one of the nicest guys around and always gave the impression that his family was everything to him and he is obviously enamoured of you because his hand was on your thigh when we went to the movies and when we went to the beach. You really need to get a grip on your depressive introversion and start giving your man some sex and WOA or you are going to lose him.". I should note that I felt very sorry for my friend when I had these thoughts because I like her very much and I felt very sorry for her H because I like him very much also.