I can't, and I shouldn't have to solve all of the problems on my own.

CanItGet, that might be just a little bit explicit for this board!

So I would focus on making those love bank deposits for her, on studying how to do that and how to get better at it. You may have a balance in your account in her love bank that is in the negative thousands. What deposits are you making?

Can you listen to these?.....

I'll give them a listen next opportunity. Traveling and checking in with cell phone till Sun. Night So not easy till then.

I found the quoted portion of your post depressing. W seems to bar the door to the love bank when I attempt to make deposits. For example: when I took her out to supper yesterday, she took out her kindle to read.

I am afraid to communicate with W about her LB. If I complain about a DJ she doesn't see her words as anything unreasonable even though I know she would take offense if I said the same thing to her. So I just take it. Would it not cost me Love bank units to point out that she is hurting my feelings if she won't see it from my point of view?

So I should just roll with the punches because with that huge negative balane I can't afford to lose more by telling W when she is being unkind.

I wantto ask W to fill out the love busters form so that I can focus some effort on eliminating my unhelpful beavers. The problem is I am reluctant to fill out the form myself and share my answers with W.

I know this is good advice and I am actively working specific plans every day to better meet the needs W identified as most important.

I think my actions are mostly on the right track. My emotions are not following.

What I'm asking for here is help maintaining a hopeful attitude

Once they see each other's caring efforts, and rebuild their Love Bank accounts, they re-enter the Intimacy stage. But there's an irony that trips up some couples. Which spouse do you think is the first to move back into the state of Intimacy: the one who makes the first effort to meet the other's needs, or the recipient of that effort? You may have guessed it. The recipient of care is usually the first to return to the state of intimacy, and not the one who make the greatest effort to save the relationship.

If you set a good example by meeting your spouse's needs first, alas, that usually means that your own needs are met last. Your Taker is not pleased with this arrangement, and may try to sabotage it. You will need to make a deliberate and patient effort to override the Taker's instinct to retreat back to fighting and name-calling. But if you resist that instinct to argue, and instead focus attention on behaving thoughtfully and meeting your spouse's needs, your spouse will be encouraged to reciprocate.

Granted, when in the state of Conflict, it's much more difficult to be thoughtful and meet each other's emotional needs. That's because the Taker's advice dominates the Giver's advice, and the Taker isn't interested in thoughtfulness or meeting someone else's needs. So if you want to return to Intimacy, you must override this instinct with great effort. Meeting an emotional need in marriage is easy when you are in the state of Intimacy, because the Giver encourages you to do just that. But in the state of Confict, it seems very unnatural and even unfair.

When your Love Bank balances are finally restored, and your love for each other is triggered again, the struggle is over.

Three hour drives are great UA time! Chat it up, and remember the friends of good conversation! (Be mindful of the enemies, as well.) You read that article, right?

That is why I offered to ride with W. We'll use part of the time to listen to HNHN or Love Busters using her Kindle. My strategy for dealing with her bringing along the Kindle has been to ask her to load some books we can share. It works better if she drives. When I drive, W tends to haul out personal reading or go to sleep. When she drives, she wants conversation to help pass the time. If sleepy, I'll lean back and close my eyes, but I'll stay in the conversation.

I almost always hold W's hand when we are in the car together. Also in restaurants except while we're eating. She seems to be very pleased when people around us notice the hand holding.

I don't really like spending time with her family, though I've learned not to say so (especially when she says so herself!) Her sisters are lovely warm people, her brothers are drinkers and disrespectful of women. W's father's standard reply to "How are you?" is "Hateful as ever." W has 6 brothers who've had 6 divorces. Both sisters are in good marriages.

Okay, then how about for the first round, you just ask her to fill it out? You can tell her "I know that I have probably done some of these things to you. I would like your perspective on what I have done that has hurt you or caused problems for you, and how I can change."

We all change in life. Married people need to change for each other if they want their marriage to grow happier.

Frankly in many situations, the husband needs to go first and win his wife over. Particularly if that husband has been unfaithful in the past.

Look at your wife as if you were not married to her and wanted to date her. How would you behave to make yourself attractive to her, catch her interest, and get her interested in dating you full time?

Get a good night's sleep, and be sure to drink plenty of coffee. Eye contact can be important in conversation, so if you can avoid having to close your eyes it may help. For your wife, the conversation is very likely about the connection she feels, rather than the content (which we men tend to focus on ), so this may be an important key to meeting her emotional need.

Hopefully down the road you guys can work out a solution to this that you are both enthusiastic about. But for now your number one problem to solve has got to be filling your account in her love bank.