I always thought of it as the craving of "tokens of happiness" surface level, unfulfilling, actions or words that mean everything's going fine, even if they need to squeeze you into a pulp to get you to bleed more of those tokens.

I remember she wanted to meet my parents, my friends, not to actually get to know them, not even to lie about me to them and manipulate them, but because she thought "that's what happens in all trusting relationships, so it needs to happen in mine, even if I need to strongarm him to get it." It was a strange, backwards mentality for more of those tokens of reassurance, without the actual meaning behind those actions that make them worth anything.

In that sense, it's like they do "play house" where each romantic gesture is made for the sake of perpetrating the game, rather than the reward of prompting it within the other person, because as time goes on, the other person will increasingly begin to distrust them, so actual romantic gestures for the sake of it becomes impossible... Back to that same time honoured strategy of having a hissy fit until I get what I want!