Okay this is a pretty general question. Not meant to be applied to any one specific situation. I've read His Needs, Her Needs and i get these needs, but is it possible to have one as your top need and the other way at the bottom?

I think of the two as so interwoven that they should be somewhere near each other on the emotional needs rankings, How can you be open and honest without intimate conversation? How can conversation be intimate without openness and honesty. The two seem like each side of a coin. How can one be #2 with the other being #9? Looking for others perspectives on this.

When I ranked my own ENs for the online course, I had O&H as no 1, which my coach told me (and I have heard Dr H say) is almost always the no.1 need for a recent BS, or for one where the affair has not been fully revealed in some way. So far, so typical.

However, I did not rank IC in my top three ENs. I would have to go home and look up where I did rank it, but I think I did not rank it in the top 5 at all. The reason for that at the time (just after my last, 100th D Day) had to do with the fact that I could not bear to talk to my H about my feelings at all, and I did not want to hear him talk about his. If he had told me that he loved me and was totally committed to our family I couldn't have believed him, and if he had told me he loved his whore mistress, I couldn't have stood it.

But, the O&H I need, in the context of recovery from a long-running affair is not about talking to H, but about his laying out his lifestyle for me to see.

He was told by the coach how to do that, and he has done that, and the O&H need is being well met by him. I still don't want to have IC with him (not if by IC you mean talking about love within the marriage, and feelings, and all that) but my need for O&H is still my top need.

The way my H demonstrates O&H is by only using our home PCs, and letting me know the passwords to those and his only email account. (I have ways of knowing that he has only one email account.)

He is retired and so no longer has access to a protected workplace email account, which could not be accessed from outside.

He has no mobile phone and shows no interest in owning one.

He has no laptop or tablet.

He is at home a lot as he is retired, but he goes to the gym and runs errands and I have reasons to believe that he is only doing those things. His OW lives in another country and it is not easy for her to drop by for a few hours' filth, and I have an agreement with her H for us to tell each other if either spouse goes AWOL.

It's not so much that I can spy on him as that he is being as open as he can about his activities and communications, and he is spending all his time with me or our son and, apparently, being very happy doing so.

So, for me, O&H does not have to be linked to IC. It is about actions. I can see, however, that it might be linked to IC for other people, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Thanks for that. It helps me separate the two on a more practical level. It also helps me realize I think my own wife's needs are more closely aligned with Ic based on your description matching up what she said. She thought, wouldn't everyone want Honesty? But she was referencing more the thoughts and feelings I have, rather than the passwords, transparency actions you state. She's only read the appendix in SAA about the EN's and so I think her grasp on what emotional needs are is still in a state of infancy. I've read the book twice and still seeking clarification and understanding on what they actually mean.