I went to a good MC who picked up on this theme. He told me that she views meeting my needs like working in a rock quarry. Every day you show up, pick up your shovel, and shovel rocks from one pile to another. The whole time you are shoveling from pile A, there's a conveyor belt dropping more rocks on top. Therefore, no matter how hard you shovel, it really doesn't help, so you might as well go slow and do the minimum, because what's the point? I think she feels that if she meets my stated EN's, there will just be another set that will take their place, and she'll never be good enough. i.e. if I give you A, you're just then going to ask for B, C, and D. MC said this has more to do with her than with me, and that my needs aren't really inappropriate at all.
He said that this dynamic of feeling the EN's are insurmountable makes W feel "unsafe" in the relationship, because her contribution is never good enough, and that reinforces helplessness and feeling trapped. Therefore, his advice was drop expectations and work on acceptance.
This was not a good marriage counselor. This was a marriage counselor who sucks and can't help you. Dr. Harley would look at that situation and know just what to do next.
I'm going to look for and bump a thread for you, about what changes when a wife falls in love with her husband. When your wife falls in love with you, it will handle the issue of how to get her motivated to meet your emotional needs. It will not feel like rocks in a quarry to her any more. And Marriage Builders is a plan for husbands to get their wives to fall in love with them.
