HappyGiant, It is not my intention to bum you out on this most romantic day of the year but I have to tell you that it seems to me that your R is not very equal or balanced. You put a lot into it and get little back.
Why are you okay with this?
I'm sure you will answer that you are not, so my next question is: Why would you keep pouring, and I mean pouring, your energy and time and heart into projects for someone who doesn't appreciate it?
A big step in fixing my R, for me, was to work on my own self respect. I was willing to tolerate a lot of stuff in order to get a smallish gesture that was sorta supposed to meet my needs. One day I woke up and thought, What the heck's the matter with me? Don't I respect myself enough that I would say that this is simply NOT working for me...?
In other words, I overemphasized my abilities to "work wonders" on my spouse.
I hope this wasn't a downer. Actually my intentions are to pump you up a bit and help you realize that the one-sidedness of your R is utterly unfair to you and that you have the ability to negotiate for more, for yourself.
As far as her getting sick all the time, well, she could be a sickly person or she could be extremely susceptible to stress. If it's stress, I'd take that as a good sign. She's aware, on a very big level, that she's not meeting your needs and it stresses her out so much that she gets sick. At least she's AWARE of what she's doing. I think it's much harder to convince a person (say, an obtuse husband, lol) that the R needs work when they're perfectly happy with the status quo. You have proof that the status quo is not working for her, either, in that she gets physically ill, so maybe she will be willing to work on the R for her own health benefits.
