Been trying to spend more time with the kids and talking with my wife about being more involved in helping her teach them the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need to develop at this age. Sometimes I don't know when to push or just relax and get involved as much as my wife wants because my fear is that she'll think I'm trying to use the kids to get closer to her or criticize her in some way.

Yes, she will lose interest as long as your love busters continue. You need to up your game, eliminate the disrespect and the demanding attitude, engage her in alone time and conversation for 15 hours a week (or better yet, 25, according to Dr. Harley). He enthusiasm is directly related to how well you are doing.

Dr. Harley says that if the husband in a marriage is reluctant there is not much the wife can do, but if the wife is reluctant, the husband stands a great chance of bringing his wife around if he will consistently make massive love bank deposits and avoid withdrawals.

I know in our case, my wife's enthusiasm for Marriage Builders has been a definite ZERO at times, but by sticking with it, her enthusiasm for me changed, and her enthusiasm for MB changed as well.

My guess is that there are a LOT of love busters she's not pointing out. She may just not think you're ever going to change, or she may just think certain behaviors (unsolicited advice) are something she should tolerate. In our case, Prisca thought there were a lot of things she should just tolerate. So when I would do or say those things, it would make her very unhappy, but she would think she shouldn't say anything.

Nowadays I'm glad my wife has a no-tolerance attitude toward love busters. She's had enough of those for a lifetime, and she's very willing to complain if I say something that makes her unhappy.

I don't have enough context here, but do you and your wife disagree about when kids need to learn these things? I picked up on your statement as asserting that there is a "proper" age to learn to read, and the fact is there's lot of disagreement over this. If by any chance you and your wife disagree, you need to make sure that you don't make statements that present your opinion as "correct," because that would be disrespectful to her.

I'm a big advocate of early reading, but through homeschooling I've learned of lots of people who insist on letting kids wait as long as they want to learn to read, and many of them seem to do just fine.

My wife and I decided agreed that honesty and openness is the most critical need that needs to be met right now so we agreed to make it a point to let the other know if a love buster occurs.

With regards to the kids my wife has highlighted not being satisfied with their development and I mostly agree in some areas for example one of my daughters is 3 and still struggling with her AbC's or actually her LMNOP's. I'm trying to get more involved in teaching them but on this and some other issues but to do this I need to spend more time with them but don't know how to approach it for fear of seeming to take over or using it as an opportunity to see my wife because that's the impression my in- laws get which causes conflict between them and my wife...so I back off. It just seems like one of those tricky situations for me to wrap my head around but patience is needed I guess.

I want to trot this out a bit here.

One thing you have to look at, is that while MB is a marriage-saver, integrating it into your lifestyle and marriage can very easily be a disaster.

Why?

Because one thing you can get tied up in far too easily, is getting your own needs met.

What can end up happening is that the MB program gets used a SD/DJ bludgeon by one spouse or the other - "You should be meeting my needs! You should be avoiding Love Busters!"

Disrespectful Judgments via appeal to authority. MB becomes the indesputable authority in all situations.

That makes the program quite a turn-off. The program - as well as the selfish and disrespectful spouse brandishing it - become very unattractive.


Instead, if one spouse begins to MODEL the program through their own actions, and in the process builds a positive Love Bank balance, and then INVITES their spouse to participate, it is a much more attractive solution.


In other words; it begins with YOU.

Okay, good - the main thing I wanted to make sure of was that your wife was in agreement with you (as opposed to you DJ'ing her over the kids' development, which I could easily see happening in some marriages).

You may not have read enough about Marriage Builders yet, but Dr. Harley actually prescribes 15 hours of Family Commitment time a week, as well as the 15 hours of Undivided Attention time. You spend the time together as a family, and among other things you spend that time passing your values on to your children. This is for the FC need, but even if neither spouse listed Family Commitment very highly, I think Dr. Harley still strongly suggests you spend this time (so you don't realize later that it was actually a bigger need than you thought -- too late).

You could easily make time to sing the ABCs with your 3 year old every day (by phone if nothing else). I find if I sing a song to my kids every day it isn't long until they can sing it with me.

But start looking into the larger issue of Family Commitment time. You can read about it in His Needs Her Needs For Parents, among other books by Dr. Harley.

HHH, that is a brilliant, excellent, and notable post.

You can't get your needs met by using demands, disrespect, and anger! That is the tool most frustrated husbands usually reach for. And unfortunately many of them misuse Marriage Builders to justify these anti-marriage behaviors. (Usually if husbands don't have these behaviors, they won't be frustrated about their marriage. Hmm...)

Dr. Harley told me repeatedly not to do anything my wife would perceive as demanding, disrespectful, or angry. Over and over again. Numerous posts on the private forum, not to mention lots of calls with my coach that aren't documented. I'd leave messages with our coach about a complaint I had with my wife - and the only answer I'd get back from Dr. Harley via our coach would be "no love busters, markos." The message is very clear: Dr. Harley's belief is that in order to have a good marriage, you have to avoid these at all cost, even if it means putting aside the rest of Marriage Builders for awhile and not getting your needs met.

It's worth mentioning that if a WIFE can't get her husband on board with meeting her emotional needs, Dr. Harley typically advises her to prepare for a separation. But if a HUSBAND can't get his wife on board, Dr. Harley typically advises him to work harder on eliminating love busters and meeting emotional needs and building a compatible lifestyle. No demands, no ultimatums, no separations, etc.

Would you believe that I had actually sensed that about you, Markos?

When I began to write that post, I actually intended to call you to the carpet on it, as I know you have a long history here, and you have a tremendous posting track record... but still stumbled in the blocks.


It's not enough, as a husband, to know Marriage Builders, you have to live it for it to have a positive effect in your Marriage.

THAT is one of the most notable revalations one can have here.

I'm getting it now. Avoid love busters at all cost. This needs to be my new creedo. Work on myself and let my love units deposited into my wife's account motivate her to deposit into mine.

I also take the point about total FC time.There has been very little time spent with me, the wife and kids.

I'll be drilling these two ideas into my brain for the next few weeks.

Thanks guys.

What is the schedule your wife is currently allowing for you and your kids?

What is your current dating schedule?

I get the kids every other Saturday...also I viit them at least once a week in the afternoon for 3-4 hours. On average I would say I spend 20 hrs. with them.

The dating schedule right now is Tuesday's and Thursday's lunch for 90 minutes. Every other Friday 5 hours minimum engaging in some form of recreational activity.

Forgot to mention...When the kids have the day off from day care I take care of them for the day. This week for example they are off all week and I have them for two days. Forgot to mention that. I would like to spend more time with wife and kids buy we used POJA to come to this agreeable decision.

I still believe you need to discuss FS with your wife.

I'll bet it is near the top of her EN's currently.

How attractive can an unemployed husband, living on his savings be? I'd actually bet your financial situation is depleting love units. This needs fixed quickly!

When we did the ENQ, FS was 9th on her list. We discussed it last night and she indicated that it might actually be higher on her list but she isn't sure. We tried to focus the discussion last night on what might be our immediate emotional needs. I am going to view it as one of the highest needs and of course finding employment soon will fulfill my own personal needs.

We also agreed that it is ok for me to expand my search to jobs in my field out of country since she would consider moving with me. My dilemma in this regard though is ( as I said before) if I do get a job out of country and most likely I would and she doesn't want to move with me, which is likely due to the stage we are at in our reconciliation I will not be able to accept the position because now is not a good time to be away from the family.

Before I decided to quit my job and move as far away a possible from OW, I knew that the job hunt would have been a difficult one. But I know I made the right decision and God will be my guide.

Then take a job outside of your field. You can do this and continue your hunt while employed.

Any job is better than sitting around playing video games on the couch.

Haven't been sitting around playing games. Don't have a game system...mostly reading and Food channel. Cooking is a passion of mine. But i get your point. As I mentioned before I've started the search outside of my field.

Micalex, there is never a good time to live away from your family.

It doesn't take very long at all listening to Dr. Harley to learn that living apart is a bad idea for marriage. Are you really getting into learning this program so you can put it into practice?

Yes i am Markos. I really want to become the man, husband and father God intended for me to be. This program will not only save my marriage but my life. For me this is a life changing exercise.

How's it going??

Job??

Conversations w/BS??