Quote: Well he doesn't want THAT, he wants me to acknowledge his efforts in THE R (which is way harder to do, b/c it's more vague & our perspectives are different about it): to thank him for spending time with me talking about his day when he never did that before. He still doesn't do much of it now, IMO, but apparently HE VIEWS it as a large amount of time and effort.
Here, here. My W wants the same thing, and then in the next sentence, she'll tell me how unsure she still is about everything. I guess to us, that kind of thing makes us want to affirm LESS not more. I guess we need to understand that they are looking towards us to make them feel ok about what they are doing, or not doing.
Quote: ...he leaves OW and returns to the M, but we continue to have an SSM? WTF? where did all of his passion/emotions go? They surfaced, I witnessed them, you can't deny you have them. It's like the Lost Colony: poof! disappeared. <insert suicidal tendencies here> j/k
Amen here too. My W, the one who throughout our entire marriage has been the one who resisted sex or who at the very least was not passionate about it (lots of it my fault, BTW) had this admittedly torrid affair with lots of passion, etc, then when she's back in "us" she is back to being her old, cold self.
I hate that too, but as you said, it's REALLY complicated.
While I said my W wants affirmation, I REALLY want it too and I think you and my W suffer from that same "this is stupid to have to tell him the same damn thing over and over again" mentality. I can only tell you that there are certain things that I don't think I could EVER hear enough of and almost all of them would just be simple words of appreciation from my W. I can't tell you what words to use, but rest assured, using the same ones over and over again may not be nearly as trite as you think.
