He wants a wife, she wants a relationship, and both need intimacy

The biggest discrepancy between men and women is the way they look at relationships. Women need a relationship to have sex. Guys need sex to have a relationship. That says everything. Guys could do without the relationship if they just had sex, most of the time. Women think they could do without the sex if they had a great relationship. But…they can’t, nor should they. Women’s ambiguous feelings toward sex and relationships tend to initiate most of the conflict within the relationship and marriage. It’s not that women don’t want sex; it’s simply that they want the relationship more. Guys cannot understand this, and they go to great lengths to try and “trick” the system, but the system is set in place, and the only one who gets tricked is the guy and whoever he is in a relationship with.
Typically, when men marry they feel a sense of accomplishment. They found someone to share their life with, help them face their battles and be their sexual companion. They may want kids, and trust this woman to help raise the children to grow up to be responsible adults. Women want all of this, and more. They want a relationship. They want to share their lives with their partner and feel connected. Women achieve this connection by talking in an intimate setting.
Men talk about this need to talk, and may joke about it, but they really don’t understand the importance of it until they are in their mid forties. Up until that time, it seems unnecessary to many men, and they draw no correlation between their ability to communicate with their wives and the frequency of sex they engage in. They should. Men are making a huge mistake if they tease or belittle this need for closeness that women have. Women cannot fight the need, and the majority of affairs women have are due to their finding another partner who addresses their need for verbal closeness. It’s not right, but it happens, and it happens much more frequently than the men to whom they are married could ever imagine. When men find out their spouse has cheated they are justifiably angry and tell her, “How could you do this to me?” “I gave you everything.” “Anything you wanted, I did for you.” “Why?”
He may have done a lot, given a lot, but he assumed his wife loved him the way he loved her. She didn’t. She wanted a relationship and that was the one thing he could not/did not give her.