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Not knowing your story at all, it feels a little like she is setting you up for failure. It just seems like a red flag to me that you DID change your work schedule to address what was becoming a marital issue, but it's still not "good enough" for her. This is where wayward thinking would get her into trouble again, thinking she is justified to go outside the marriage to get her "needs" met.

Is it not possible to compromise on the vacay thing? Can you start planning more 3-day weekends with her if that's something that can accommodate your schedule better than weeks off at a time? Maybe some shorter date nights during the week or an every Friday or every other Friday night date or something?

If she's truly trying to R and expressing her feelings, maybe she just needs some reassurance that she is more important than work, so you ask her to discuss it and work on compromising something that can be a win-win all around.

But she needs to compromise, too.. If you keep feeling like you are fighting a losing battle, even though you are giving it your best shot, then the problem might not be you..

[This message edited by ButterflyGirl at 6:30 PM, May 21st (Wednesday)]

I find that I often say "I want xyz" instead of "I feel I could use some (affection, attention, fun, etc)" with a few ideas about how those needs could be met - by my WS or by me. That's a pretty radical difference and the first almost certainly puts me in the position of being constantly disappointed. How often can a spouse meet my exact desire without a second thought? Everyone has their own stresses, limits and interests and putting someone else on the spot to meet my demand, rather than being supportive as I meet my own needs, is a recipe for failure. Also it removes the truth of the spouse's personality and affection for me. Its critical for me to know who my spouse is, how s/he shows love and even if s/he is capable. The results could range from a night of romance to a silly song to absolutely nothing and I need to know and act on each of those. You can't do the emotion work of her being able to see the situation that way, but you can ask her what she's feeling she needs and offer your personal solution to that, even if its just footing the bill for her spa day.

Thank you everyone for your input. We actually went out on a date last night and talked about some things during dinner. Not sure if anything really got resolved but it was at least nice to get out. We did decide to do a date night every few weeks.