A man marries a woman hoping that she will never change.

A woman marries a man hoping he will change.

Both end up disappointed...


The most damaging Love Busters are annoying habits. AOs we can identify at once. SDs we can pick up on pretty easily (except when it is us doing them). DJ's take a lot of work to understand and only the one committing them can do anything about them. It takes awhile for the thinking to change that results in the new actions. We KNOW when we are lying and so can stop lying anytime we actually choose to do it. Sometimes we continue just because we always got something from it in the past but once we know we should quit doing it, follow up is just a matter of the will. We know when something was done without consulting us and our feelings were not considered before acting. We know if we acted independently.

But annoying habits are like cancer. They remain hidden from view and destroy the marriage a tiny bit at a time. They happen over and over again. The one doing them seldom even knows they are happening and the one that is being hurt by them seldom is able to identify the actual problem. We just know it annoys us when ___ happens. We tie ___ to our emotions. From our emotions we get pain. From the pain we end up resentful. From that resentment we begin to judge the motives and intent of the one who is annoying us...

BOTH Love Banks take a huge hit and nobody even knows why...

And every day we repeat the same thing again and again. The socks end up beside the hamper instead of in it. The dryer is left full of clothes that should have been folded, hung up and put away. The dishes are piled in the sink instead of placed in the dishwasher. The coffee is spilled on the counter and not wiped up...

Day in and day out we repeat habits without thinking about them. Our own habits lead to habits that our spouse learns in response. Nobody thinks. Nobody changes. Nobody knows that the love is dripping from the bucket one drop at a time.

Drip...

Drip...

Drip...

Annoying Habits are the OVERHEAD of a romantic relationship. They are the fees charged by our spouse's Love Bank and we don't know they being debited until we find ourselves overdrawn and nearly bankrupt.

Mark

Actually, we don't always know we are lying. Most of us go around lying to ourselves to varying degrees without being conscious of it.

It's called DENIAL.

Here's what it stands for:

Don't Even kNow I Am Lying

One of the reasons I married my husband is that we were/are pretty good at communication regarding most topics. That includes the annoying habits. There are some key things that he does that he refuses to change.

1. I do not want him to sleep as late in the morning as he does. He is chronicly late for work, and takes our child to school late, and on weekends when I am the only one up with the kids I am incredibly lonely without him. He knows this. I have beaten a dead horse about it. He won't change.

2. He stays up late and plays video games or paints figures. i don't mind a little of this, but his whole life revolves around this hobby. I thought it would taper off after we got married, and it did because some of his college buddies moved. But some of them didn't and he found more This is an IB that drives me up the wall. It's not that I want him to stop completely. I want it to be less of the focus of his life. I feel like I am selfish for wanting this. But at the same time, it impacts our life together. I feel that wife and family should come first and if there's an hour or two left over here and there, that's where the gaming should come in. A few hours a week. Not a few hours every night until 1 in the morning.

These are the two biggies. Of course, the anger as well.

That's very similar to how I've been directed to work Step One of alanon. First, make a list of the things I'm powerless over. Then pick the 10 most irritating and write about how trying to control them has made my life unmanageable. Not only was this exercise eye-opening for me on the unmanageability front, it also had the effect of making those things much less of a problem in my life. It was miraculous.

And yes, as one makes a list of unconttrolables, it also makes one aware of the controllables, too.

I�m not sure if this was just a rhetorical question. I guess I �expected� that marital sex would be similar to the positive sexual experiences I had prior to marriage with other partners, and even with my husband. Because I did have a lot of healthy, positive experiences. I also had a lot of negative experiences too, so I figured, avoid anything that looks, smells, tastes and feels like the negative experiences. However, the times that I had good SF in the past were in situations when I became aroused automatically, probably because my Love Bank was full and there was plenty of UA time and all the things that we talk about being present in a healthy marriage. With my husband, I find it very interesting that I wanted to �wait again� once we were engaged. My mom AND my therapist both commented (after I was married) that it seemed unusual to them that once I was engaged I�d be spending less time with my fianc� than more, and that I would become less welcoming of physical intimacy. I could �chicken and egg� it to death, but the bottom line is that he and I both made choices that depleted my Love Bank (and started on his) well before we were ever married. We started on very shaky ground, which is probably why 4 months in I was as much of a wreck as I was. And all the actions I took (the rollercoaster of withdrawl and conflict, all the times I tried to do the right things on the surface without having the right attitude within, etc.) contributed to the problem. So did his actions.

I expected that we would eat dinner together every night and watch TV together every evening and go to bed together and wake up together and make breakfast together and on weekends hang out around the house together doing all the stuff that needs to be done TOGETHER and it would be like one, long everlasting date. I imagined that we would be each other�s favorite recreational activity.


I actually do. College boyfriend. Even when we were in conflict, even when I was in withdrawl, the quality of our SF brought me out of it. So I actually do kinda understand how this works for men. However, the only time we ever had intercourse was also the LAST time we ever had intercourse. So our SF was for all intents and purposes, entirely foreplay. And our experience with intercourse was not good for either of us for many reasons. Had we been a married couple on our wedding night, we would have chocked it up to nerves and would probably have been able to resolve the issues together because of his superior skills in the foreplay area. He is now married and I am very glad that his skills are not going to waste! LOL (No, he doesn�t live anywhere near me, and we have no contact with each other, and I�m very grateful we DIDN�T work out. It was most definitely a bullet dodged!)

So I guess that�s kinda what I expected. Oops


I don�t know. I think the biggest reason women don�t have sex with their husbands is probably control. Both genders do that in their own ways. Yes, I think pain plays a role too. Especially during the childbearing years. I used to be on a moms board and was absolutely astounded at the difficulty people had after having children. In my case, having kids has made sex LESS painful on average simply because I no longer have the muscle tone, which in my case is a good thing.

I�m kinda with you on the last part to� I am a bit more traditional than progressive. I want nothing more than to give myself body and mind and spirit in trust and love. To be able to say �Take me.� I just can�t. �Have me� is the best I can do right now. (No I don�t literally say that to him!)

"Have me" is a start........

I think �withdrawn� is the best I can do to describe it. It�s not the kind of thing you can really explain except in retrospect.

It was like this for me with depression. I have always struggled with a long-term, low-grade depression, starting around the time I was 10. Not sure what triggered it, except perhaps the onset of puberty, and the fact that around that age, I became the sounding board for my parents� frustration with each other. I am grateful for this, because it has given me the ability to see problems from multiple perspectives.

Anyway, one day I just came to a realization that I was using depression to �hide� from other things (like marriage). When I realized this, it stopped being a problem. Now, I still get depressed. But it is a short-lived mood, not a prolonged state of semi-existance.

I was very numb when I met my husband. I was on the rebound from a painful breakup with no intention of serious dating, because I was emotionally numb. VERY normal. But I carried that numbness with me until one day by the grace of God it lifted. I believe it was held in place because of my inability to forgive. Several months after I had gotten married I prayed a very heartfelt prayer to God asking him to give me the ability to forgive the person who had hurt me so much, because I was robbing myself of joy even though this man was completely gone and out of my life. And it simply happened. It was all God and had nothing to do with any action I took other than praying the prayer.

Anger I still struggle with. I haven�t turned it over to God yet, because I�m not fully there yet. One has to be ready for God to remove our shortcomings, one must ask humbly, and then it�s up to God. He may remove the defect. Or he may not, because sometimes it is our defects that make us useful to Him. And that�s how I know it�s HIM working through me, and not me. Because he works in spite of my defects. If it weren�t for my defects, I would be very arrogant indeed. He removes our flaws in HIS time, not ours.

I think any feelings, especially negative ones, can be fed and kept alive. The trick is to feed the good ones, and not to feed the bad ones. I think Mark�s managing memories thread speaks to this a lot. We can�t necessarily control our feelings directly, but we can do things that contribute to their duration and severity. We can trigger ourselves.

Thanks

I admire you because you are really working hard to work all of this out.

No. I think I mentioned somewhere that he has been �porn-free� for a little over a month. I am very proud of him. But he is very proud of himself, too. In the not so flattering meaning of �proud�. He thinks it is great that he is doing this �without help.� The problem I see is that we may be able to stop doing a behavior with the force of our will, but if we don�t ever address the root source, it will just be acted out some other way. For example, he as been incredibly angry and irritable this month, about everything. He doesn�t see that it corresponds to the time frame of giving up porn. He still thinks this is something he has power over. And maybe he does. Maybe it�s really just an annoying habit that he can kick with willpower. That�s for him to decide.

I think most of his LBs are things that go beyond the scope of willpower. Actually, I believe all of our character defects are beyond the scope of willpower alone. Think about the people you know who are able to make noticeable changes in once-unacceptable behavior (I�m not talking leaving up the toilet seat here). Chances are it was not their willpower that made them change. It was the DECISION and DESIRE that was their part. But likely beyond that, they probably had help, in the form of accountability, religious faith, spiritual help, healthy support from family and friends. We can make temporary changes without help, but I believe that change cannot be sustained without continually making that decision every day and seeking help every day.

Kind of like a 12-step program.

I had never thought of that Mark. I would have said IB is the most damaging. But I agree that I can definitely see how I LB in the other ways (even the Selfish Demands). Not all of it, but enough. But the annoying habits would be very hard to identify without him being able to provide some feedback.

I�m going to be extra vigilant on this from now and see if I notice anything I�m doing especially irritating him.

OK, a final post from me for a little while. Repeat from the other thread.

I think I know what I have to do. I have to provide Protection, Care, Time, Honesty and Unity. That's my part. It's my responsibility to show up and do MY best at these things, even if it isn't THE best. As far as sex goes, I'm going to be on a roller coaster about it. There's a lot more to this than I am sharing, and it is hard to know what is and is not relevant. I have hurts that are unresolved regarding sex, and I know that is playing into it. But I also know that those hurts don't preclude me from giving the protection, care, time, honesty and unity that I promised to give 9 years ago. I also trust that God has given me whatever power I need to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do today regarding sex. I don't have to worry about it. Just live my way into the solution.

I feel like this thread and the other has gotten SO hung up on HIM and what he does or does not do right or wrong. And trust me, I'd love to stay on that topic because it takes the focus off of me and and my choices.

Bottom line, sex is a touchy subject (God, that sentence is just FULL of puns!). I don't know that there is one black and white answer for me or anyone. I don't need to look for the justification for how I handle SF in my marriage. I just have to meditate and pray and trust in the direction God gives me that day. And right now, that direction I'm getting is to keep the focus on me and what I CAN do, and not on what I can't do, or on what he does or doesn't do. He's just doing the best he can do, too, and I do love him for it.

I'm gonna take another little break from the boards. Let everything sink in and make sure I keep the focus in the right place. Happy Easter!

Yep! I'm a big fan myself. He once said he would like to do something like that but doesn't want to be with "those" kind of people. Whatever that means. I take it as an insult by proxy

LOL, most people who need, but haven't been thru a 12-step program don't want to be with "those" kind of people.

thinkin, over time I've seen folks make a lot of progress eliminating some bad habits even when they don't acknowledge God working in their lives. I think for your H, too, if he picks better behaviors, it's possible that he can make huge changes, even if he doesn't realize all the external help he's getting. What do you think?

From the sex thread:


I most definitely see the truth in this. I suppose that's why when I hear that phrase "Feelings Follow Actions" it grates a bit on my nerves. It's not that I don't see the truth in this part of behavioral modification. It's that there is a loophole. Beliefs outwit feelings AND actions.

Here's that quote, Mark:




Beliefs follow feelings follow actions.


I think I formally disagree. I think ultimately beliefs DRIVE action, which create feelings, which either confirm our beliefs or put us in conflict with our beliefs.

I definitely agree it is easier to change our actions than it is our beliefs. But ultimately, changing our beliefs is what is most long-term effective, because simply changing an action acnnot be sustained.

I have a great example about this from my onw life that has very little to do with my marriage. I have mentioned I have an eating disorder. It's not traditional anoriexia in the sense that I believe that I'm fat and diet and exercise to extreme to stay thin, or vomit. However, I am very tiny, and I do have periods of time when I starve myself, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unconsciously. To say I'm a chronic undereater would be most accurate. The fact is that I know that I need another 5-10 lbs to be healthy. I know that my life would improve in some very concrete ways if I ate regular meals every day.

However, I have a belief (not the classic anorexic body image belief) which sabatoges my ability to make a change to my habits for any length of time. It's not a belief that makes sense, any more than a skinny anorexic's belief that she is fat makes logical sense. But it's a belief that drives me nonetheless, and letting go of it is something that willpower and action alone will not achieve.

The belief is wrapped up in my idea of maturity. I grew up in a home where my mom did EVERYTHING for us kids. She cooked, cleaned, errands, all the stuff that a stay at home mom does, and she did it well. She was also VERY resentful and angry all the time. Now as a kid I never understood that this was because of the issues that were between her and my father. Her "taking care" was something she willingly and enthusiastically did, because it was who she was. But what I saw is that if a woman becomes a grownup, she has to take care of everyone and recieves no love or compassion or help. THAT is what I believe being a grownup means, because that is what I experienced. Sacrificing for others with no hope of being loved. It's what she allowed and I believe that is what is expected of me. No wonder I've clung to immaturity for so long!

Now in many ways I have been mature beyond my years. I've always been serious, a thinker, a bit of a loner, pretty self-sufficient. Anyone who knows me casually would probably say that I am incredibly mature . . . they certainly thought so when I was a kid! However, I was socially and emotionally immature and still am.

So back to the eating disorder. One of the reasons I don't eat is control. My body is the one thing I have control over, so eating or not eating is one of my ways to exert control. However, my belief in this area is changing as I am beginning to see where I have choices in my relationships and the power to make choices. Another reason I don't eat is that I struggle with suicidal thoughts and not eating is a way I can temporarily act them out without actually DOING anything. Long term, however, this WILL kill me if I keep it up.

But finally, I don't eat because I like being small and petite. I like when people take care of me. In fact, as long as someone else prepares my meals I will eat like there's no tomorrow. But if I have to do it for myself, I struggle with it. Because it looks like something a grownup does, and I don't want to grow up, at least not deep down inside. I think that as long as I'm the same size I was when I was 13, that I can stay the "same size" on the inside too. Because the alternative is that I become a grown woman and have to take care of everyone else all the while having no one who can love me and fill my needs.

I know this all sounds very crazy and selfish of me. I believe that I should be able to be a good mother without having my needs met because my mom was able to do it. I don't believe my husband will EVER be able to meet my needs, in part because HE doesn't believe he will ever be able to give me what I need.

I know there are blindspots all througout what I have just typed. But I do understand how our beliefs sabatoge our actions.

At this point I continue the actions because I know the alternative DOESN'T work. I also continue the actions because I have seen results. My husband came back out of withdrawl this week, and has even bypassed being in conflict and is mostly in the intimacy stage. He seems to be feeling all happy and hopeful. He's not being angry anymore.

He's also back to looking at the porn.

I used to be able to track his viewing habits by his moods. He had gone 5 weeks without looking, and he was about as miserable as I have ever experienced. I just "knew" that his turnaround in mood could just be because I'd been working MB for a few days. Sadly, I was right. I asked him yesterday, and he started back again a few days ago, around the time we attempted the sex from what I'm guessing.

My "driving belief" right now is that the best I can hope for is a husband who is in the intimacy stage and not actively lashing out at me with his anger, or both of us in the conflict stage with me practicing good detachment from his anger. I see very little hope of ME actually being in the intimacy stage with my husband for anything more than a fleeting exprience now and then following either lots of solid UA time, or after a bit blowout fight.

Well, it is true that he doesn't acknowledge the help he's recieved. He will tell people he got through college "all on his own" which is not really accurate. He had some scholarship help. He had a friend loan him some money. And even though his parents didn't pay, he did live with his mom rent free, and I think this counts as help.

i think the whole point of not being able to kick a bad habit without help is the actual acknowledgement that we NEED help and that willpower alone isn't enough. It's the humility that holds the healing.

A miracle happened in our marriage. I was very busy rehabbing two homes, selling one home, getting our tax stuff together. i did not have time to cook or anything.

I asked my husband to cook for a week. I went down there the first night and he was in the kitchen reading a recipe. Next thing I knew he made this wonderful stir fry that was better than any restaurant we had been to.

1 lb shrimp, tails off
3 bunches green onions, chopped in 1 inch lengths
1 tsp hot red dried peppers
1/2 tsp salt
5 garlic cloves, minced finely
Juice of one lemon
A large bunch of pea pods
cooking oil

Cooked rice to put this on.

He put oil in the wok and added the garlic and red peppers. Then added the onions, peapods and finally the shrimp (those were already cooked ) lastly goes the lemon juice.

The rice was ready so he put that on plates and covered it with the wok mixture.

I could not believe that flavor! I could not get something that good at a restaurant. I thanked him again and again for it. Next nite he made parmesan chicken. Then stuffed peppers. Then stir friend chicken, Then grilled pineapple chicken that had been pounded and marinated in garlic, hot peppers and pineapple pulp...with tasty parmesan pasta, then stir fry beef.

Wow. He went nutz in the kitchen and every meal was like a gourmet meal.

Now it is a new hobby for him. I think he appreciates my thanking him and remarking on how good it is.

What I am saying is that you could help your husband divert his energies into something both of you would benefit from. I asked my husband for help in the cooking area and he came thru for me totally. You could divert your husband's time into something healthy like cooking. This would also help you gain 10 lbs. Your husband would be helping you, tell him of your problem and let him know if he were to cook for you you would be able to be more healthy.