I would view #7 as a reclaimation effort of respect. Though Mrs. NOP has often said on this board that 'lack of respect' was never an issue for the two of you.
I see lack of respect as insults, condescension, rudeness, verbal cruelty - that sort of thing. We didn't have that in our relationship.
I see #7 as Nop "got it" similarly to what MrsCac referenced about "knowing" but not "getting it".
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But as a fellow LD, when you lost the anger? And she really knew it? Probably tested it a time or two or three or four... threw a plate for good measure... and you still did not return to angry NOP?
NOP's anger wasn't overt, he kept it very much under control. When his anger stopped AND he continued pushing the sex issue, my anger came roaring through - I wasn't testing him in regards to his anger - I was just massively pi$$ed off. His actions "unbalanced" our relationship. I had entered and built a bunker in Withdrawal City. The imbalance pushed me back into dealing with our relationship and all the emotional baggage I had been collecting for years literally exploded.
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You and I could both say, with a fair amount of certainty, that yours and Mrs. NOPs R never deteriorated to the point that HD now finds himself in.
NOP and I had reached a point that we didn't even interact with each other much. We spoke minimally in order to get things done and then we would both return to our individually icebergs.
The initial sex I had with NOP was the teeth grinding kind - we both got off, but that was about the extent of it. I was there for one reason only - I had determined that it was the right thing to do. That was initially the extent of my emotional investment. NOP put up with a lot of begrudged sex. Here's a link to my earlier description of it:
In an SSM, I don't think anyone is going to go from little or no sex to full-blown desire. It would be nice, but I just don't see it happening. The HD men have to gird their loins and recognize that to get from here to there, they're going to have to walk through some barren landscape *for a period of time*.
