Sugarcane,
Son is 15, not an issue of babysitting. UA Undivided attention. FC time ?
Remark

JDTD is tracking the efforts she is making, that's why I thought she may benefit from reading your efforts as well, making an effort to speak her language.

FC time is Family Contribution, teens can be a lot of work with schedules, activities, friends. So FC time is the time you take schlepping, and doing fun activities together. My suggestion is to make these things something that would be inviting to her and easy to join. Like a pick-up soccer or basketball game, or going for ice cream, playing board games, or a movie night.

FC is "family commitment". It is not taking the kids to their various activities; it is more to do with guiding their moral upbringing. So, doing "fun things" with them like playing games can be a way of teaching them about fairness, teamwork, honesty, recognising the contributions of others, etc.

Here is how Dr Harley describes it:

In addition to a greater need for income and domestic responsibilities, the arrival of children may create in you the need for your spouse to become active in the moral and educational development of the children. I call that need family commitment. As is true for the need for financial and domestic support, if you do not have any children just yet, you may not sense this need. But upon their arrival, a change may take place that you didn't anticipate.
Evidence of this need is a craving for your spouse's involvement in the training of your children. When he or she is helping to care for them, you feel very fulfilled, and when they are neglected you feel very frustrated.

This is not just child care -- feeding, clothing or watching over children to keep them safe. Child care falls under the category of domestic support. Family commitment, on the other hand, is taking a responsibility for how the children will turn out, teaching them the values of cooperation and care for each other. It is spending quality time with your children to help insure happiness and success for them as adults.

But the need for family commitment is not met by just any form of training. It is only met when the training is enthusiastically approved by you. It can all be ruined if your spouse uses training methods and objectives that violate your standards. Your participation and agreement regarding training methods and objectives are essential before this need can be met.

We all want our children to be successful, but if you have the need for family commitment, your spouse's participation in family activities that guarantee that outcome will deposit so many love units that it will trigger your feeling of love for him or her. And your spouse's neglect of your children will threaten that love."

Family Commitment

NewEveryDay,

The FC time we spend together is usually eating out or watching TV/movies. In that regard, I historically commit LB of falling asleep (and snore), so I watch that. (And, if I feel tired, I get up and go to bed.) FC is very important to me, to a fault.

The son and I spend a lot of time schlepping, playing catch ( baseball), basketball or ping pong. I deal with him after school/work and feed him, while my wife deal with him in the AM before she goes to work.

It's tough for my W to enjoy, or schlepp, when our marital problems weigh so heavily on her heart, (not that it doesn't weigh on mine.) She calls it "froo-froo stuff".

Thanks for your help,
Remark

So, the answer is no? You are not willing to focus 100% on your wife and marriage?

We are all aging. Your parents have been "aging" for the entire 20 years you have been driving 6 hours to see them. They could continue "aging" for another decade or more. Your marriage is on life-support and WILL end without 100% of your attention.

Have you ever made the effort to truly understand what would make an activity "froo froo" as opposed to valuable to her?

Could it have anything to do with Sugarcane's post? The actual purpose of FC, especially the underlined part?

How would you feel about emailing your wife to learn more about this from her perspective?

Here are some suggestions to consider:

Ask thoughtful question to clarify.

Summarize back to her to make sure that you are accurate.

Make that you understand her view so well that you could convince anyone to buy it.

Ask if she is enthusiastic about you posting that summary to us.


Would you be willing to do that?

Remark-
Marcos asked you to tell him what was told to you before. I missed that in your response.

Would you be willing to do that?

DQ, he did post this a couple of weeks ago:

Although I've used the above quote, I just want to clarify that Remark made that post in response to my question about how they spend UA time. It was not about FC time, in other words. Still, it might help to answer DQ's query until JD2D's email response is received.

It seems that the meaning of "frou-frou" for JD2D, in the context of spending time with Remark, is along the lines of light, frivolous, non-serious, fun or trivial. It might even mean "romantic". JD2D appears to have told Remark that she cannot go along with his desire to focus on "frou-frou" conversation and subjects when their marriage is in such deep crisis.

Remark, my feeling from what you wrote about FC time is that you have not understood the term "FC time". I gave the proper definition of it when I quoted Dr Harley, but you went along with NED's definition of it, and replied only to that: "NewEveryDay, The FC time we spend together is usually eating out or watching TV/movies."

However, while FC time could involve eating out and watching TV, it would only fit Dr Harley's definition if those activities included some sort of moral guidance for your son - which they could, easily. Mealtimes could easily be times when you talk about your day, and about issues in the news, or issues that he is having with friends or with teachers. For a Christian family like yours, mealtimes might also include a blessing or a prayer.

Television and movie watching could include selecting items that are morally uplifting or challenging, or discussing the moral issue behind "trivial" items, such as soap operas.

But FC doesn't simply involve "spending time together"; it involves that aspect of moral training that Dr Harley speaks of: "the moral and educational development of the children". Therefore, watching TV together might not fit that definition at all, while making your kids tidy their rooms and do other chores could well involve moral training ("teaching them the values of cooperation and care for each other"), and Bible study certainly would involve moral training.

So, if we use Dr Harley's vision of FC time, it does not imply "frou-frou" conversation with your wife. In fact, it is not primarily focused on your involvement with your wife at all; it is focused on your involvement with your son: "It is spending quality time with your children to help insure happiness and success for them as adults."

Spending FC time will make valuable LB deposits for your wife, because, as with most mothers, FC is probably one of her top 5 emotional needs, for now, while your son is still young enough to need "training".

"the arrival of children may create in you the need for your spouse to become active in the moral and educational development of the children. I call that need family commitment. As is true for the need for financial and domestic support, if you do not have any children just yet, you may not sense this need. But upon their arrival, a change may take place that you didn't anticipate."

The logical implication of this is that the need for FC will change as the children get older, and eventually go to college, and then leave home for good. The EN will not disappear, but the amount of time you need to spend on it, and the way in which you spend it, will be different for a 15 year-old than it will be for a 5 year-old.

To summarise; while spending FC (using Dr H's definition) will deposit LB units for your wife, and is therefore, in a sense, being done for her benefit, the practical application of it is targeted at your son, and does not require "frou-frou" conversation with your wife.

from his posts, but wouldn't it be more productive for him to practice listening to his wife and VERIFYING with her that he truly sees her picture instead of making blanket assumptions based on him taking snippet statements from his conversations with her and then applying HIS OWN way of thinking to assign meaning to them?

I would like to see Remark in the habit of communicationg and being ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE with her before representing her perspective to us. He needs to view his statements as PRESS RELEASES. He is in the habit of forming conclusions and tossing them around.

The other thing about that is that he needs to DO NOTHING until he has enthusiastic agreement from her and I would go as far to say in writing. That exercise would 1)help prevent breaches of POJA like his phone call with disclosure of the separation to his family, 2) Give him practice at respectfully exploring and defining her opinion/feelings, 3) Help JD2D to see his efforts to integrate with her, and efforts to curb his impulsive tendencies toward IB, 4) Give Remark a written record to review and JD2D can refer to it to save time and energy. No rehashing.

I wasn't disagreeing with your approach at all, DQ. In fact, I was trying to show Remark that he was applying JD2D's statement about "frou-frou" conversation to the wrong circumstance.

I was also trying to correct the definition of FC, since the thread had moved to talking about that.

Your email idea is very good! I wasn't criticising it at all.

DQ, SC,

1)help prevent breaches of POJA like his phone call with disclosure of the separation to his family, 2) Give him practice at respectfully exploring and defining her opinion/feelings, 3) Help JD2D to see his efforts to integrate with her, and efforts to curb his impulsive tendencies toward IB, 4) Give Remark a written record to review and JD2D can refer to it to save time and energy. No rehashing.

All good advice.

Yes, 'froo-froo' means pleasant, non-problem-addressing conversation. She can't have 'froo-froo' conversation when her heart is focused on our marital agony. There's no conjecture here. I know what she means. (I simply am not confident on how to spell 'froo-froo'.) Nevertheless, for your clarification, I can/will discuss what she means by that term.

I will discuss with her beforehand whenever talking with other extended family or other POJA issues.

I could always do better on bible study-centered or morally-centered discussions and leadership of/with the family.

Lastly, I do spend a lot of time on these communiques and do consider them 'press releases'.

Thanks, Remark

Coffeegirl,

Yes we're all aging. Let me be specific. Dad is 89. So, he's kind of a priority.

Remark

I am SO sorry Sugar-
I was out, but now that I am catching up, I see that this is MY fault. My post is missing the whole first part! Was trying to cut and paste off my phone's word program. It sure made things confusing. But thanks for giving the benefit of the doubt and clearing things up.

Here is a more correct reflection of what I had. It did get erased before I realized that it didn't all copy. I have changed a few words here and there for clarity.

how does that change the point? It means that in probably less than a decade your dad and your wife may be gone from your life. Which will you regret most? Specifics don't change anything except to highlight that you are willing to make your wife and family less than priority.

Gee, Remark. This may harsh, but it is a differing perspective. Your Dad won't be around forever. Your soon to be ex-wife, mother and step mother to your children will be around for a VERY LONG time. If age were the reason for making someone the most important, then, why didn't you marry an 89 year old? I'm just being facetious.

Remark-
You asked CoffeeGirl if you were being reasonable. That makes me feel like you have tuned us all out. Why do you care if you are being reasonable? If Coffeegirl tells you that you are being reasonable, then does that solves the problem between you and your wife regarding your family?

lol. We crossposted.

This is something that you struggle with. You know that your family is a hot spot and you still called them. Following POJA is difficult, for a variety of reasons. Dr. Harley helped me to understand that for some people, following POJA takes LOTS of practice, due to their brain differences. I had to become a lot less judgmental, and agree to patiently work on this with my husband.

There are all sorts of reasons why following POJA is difficult. Maybe a spouse doesn�t see the need to apply POJA before it�s too late, or it could be IMPULSIVITY. Maybe they do consider their spouse, but accidentally apply their own logic instead of their spouse�s. Or maybe they just want to act first and figure that their spouse will never find out.

So how can you practically DO NOTHING without her enthusiastic agreement?. Dr. Harley suggests that a husband in your position start a list. (I would suggest a spreadsheet.) Title it ENTHUSIASTIC AGREEMENT LIST. Put a column for the date, a column for the activity, and a column for the associated conditions/exceptions . Then start adding things to list with her agreement. Take things off the list if they present problems or if wife changes her mind.

Dr. Harley asked us to do this and it felt strange. I didn�t like to be asked for simple, obvious things. But I also didn�t like getting hurt by IB. Much of my husband�s IB was his trying to be HELPFUL but in the worst ways for me!! (think of pumping up tires.) This list idea did help my husband to remember to consult with me before assuming that something would be helpful.

The most difficult situations are where we have agreement to do something, but midway, the conditions change and it just seems natural to keep moving forward. If you follow the rule of DO NOTHING that is not on the list, with EVERYTHING, then you will not wind up with so many blunders. Yes, your wife might get frustrated with too many questions, but that is better than too many blunders.

As you start to email your wife about things, be patient with her response, or lack of response. Little by little you can make progress. I would suggest that you don't have verbal discussions, just like everyone else has said. Just email. You may have to table the big decisions for a while. Start with less important things to get practice.

Are you willing? Would you check with your wife and see if she would be willing to try that? (I think Marcos even suggested this a while back.)



Is that YOUR perspective or your wife�s? Remember, it doesn�t fill her emotional need unless she agrees that it is lacking, and unless it is done in a manner which she appreciates. I would email her about it and then add it to the list or not. Make sure that you learn which types of moral discussions she would like to have, and if she would like to be included.



Okay. So could something be off on your VERIFICATION process with her? Had you VERIFIED how she would have felt about that phone call to your family, and what exactly she was enthusiastic about divulging, a lot of confusion would have been avoided. Instead called WITHOUT her EA, in a manner without EA, and information was disclosed without her EA. If you were to submit the written �press release rough draft� for approval and permission to release, you might be surprised at her response.

And another point about this�
I find it odd that you are scared to attempt to fill her love bank with admiration etc., because she might not be in agreement, but you are willing to call your family (IB), when you KNOW that she might not be in agreement. What message do you think that sends to her?


By the way, good job for hanging in. Your wife can see the effort, but is still scared that you will keep hurting her. You will lessen the hurtful actions if you DO NOTHING without her agreement.

So you were lying when you said your was your priority.

I was sent this list of my LB's for the week, so I could post it for the forum.

From JD2D,

1. In response to the LBs I listed that you posted on the forum last week, you told the forum that you knew what you were supposed to do, but you failed to tell them that that wasn�t how you actually responded, but instead bombarded me with more LBs.

2. You didn�t POJA how, when, or what to tell your family regarding our separation, and did so 3-4 weeks ago at my exclusion. You�ve been trickle-truthing what was said since then. Apparently, you discussed their �discomfort,� and though you finally revealed that topic to me on Sunday, you still have not explained what their discomfort is, seeming to imply my guilt and your displeasure with me because of it. The discussion I had with you trying to find out why they felt that way was exacerbating, and inconclusive.

3. Another topic of discussion with them that you disclosed on Sunday was your playing softball. You had apparently at some point told them that you quit softball, supposedly to honor me. Your brother asked if you could come out of retirement now that you�re going to be separated, and you replied that you weren�t going to because of other reasons. So apparently, your quitting softball, (after the season was over) wasn�t actually �for me� as you�ve been claiming for these last 6 months, but for other reasons. And when I checked with one of your daughters about your participation this summer, she said that you�re retired but you were �on her sub-list.�

4. Other disclosures evidence that you, in fact, had more intimate, marriage-problem-related discussion with them than you initially claimed, likely further alienating me from them.

5. After the email exchange regarding the �discomfort� of your siblings, I asked you to forward it to them and get a definitive answer. You said to me, �I�ll forward this on to them tonight so as not to bother them in the middle of their work day.� Like the emails to Dr. H over Thanksgiving and posting on the forum, once again, you�ve demonstrated to me that this marriage is not important/urgent when compared to �bothering� someone else.

6. On Saturday, you told me what you were set off by on Friday evening: Friday a.m., you emailed me regarding Jake�s behavior. I emailed you back, indicating I thought it was pretty typical for his age and that we just needed to keep on him about it, and related a couple of things your older son did when he was almost exactly the same age. You liked my input and thanked me for �pulling you in off the ledge.� When I got home, you continued the conversation, and I referenced some similar behavior your daughter demonstrated, quoting an earlier disrespectful comment she made to you as another example. For this second response, you accused me on Saturday of attacking and criticizing you, blame-shifting responsibility for what your daughter said to you onto me, as if I said it to you, simply because I referenced her quote. You could have asked for clarification of my intent, but instead assumed the worst of me and then punished me with your negative attitude for the rest of the evening.

7. Tuesday evening, I discovered that you had listed our boat for sale. This was not POJA�d � not if, when, or even how much. I knew nothing about it until I discovered that you were exchanging emails with interested parties discussing when you would be able to put it in the water for a test drive.

8. After reading the pages of new posts generated on Tuesday, you stomped off saying, �circular verbosity!� I asked what was wrong, and you went into a rant about the posts � the posts that I appreciated so greatly � claiming that they were confusing and contradictory to what I�ve said, obviously pissed off about something. Then you gave a one-line reply to Marcos, dismissing the entire topic and didn�t even answer his questions, much less address the other lengthy posts. From my perspective, the posts were very clear and exactly parallel to what I�ve said, and the people on the forum are putting more effort into our marriage than you are.

9. Wednesday night, I watched as you continued to ignore the pages of posts, opting instead to watch tv.

10. On Thursday, when discussing how to resolve the issues regarding the pending condo purchase, I found it virtually impossible to get a straight answer from you on how you thought we should handle it. At one point, you �recalled� that we�re doing this because �I didn�t want to save the marriage,� blame-shifting the problems onto me. I reminded you yet again that we�re doing this because you�re still not doing what�s necessary to save the marriage.

11. Thursday night, you asked me if I was going to the choir concert at school, and I said no. I asked you if you were going, and you said you�d like to, but felt getting the condo purchase financing issues resolved was more important, plus you said you had a ton of posts that you hadn�t responded to yet. As you left to take Jake to the concert, you told me that you were going to check the program and maybe stay for a couple of songs, indicating that apparently it wasn�t that important afterall.

12. On Thursday and again on Friday, I asked why you still hadn�t responded to the posts on the forum. You told me you hadn�t because you �didn�t know what to say.� I�m relating this to what Dr. Harley said to you, that you�re either incapable or willfully refusing to do what you need to do to save this marriage. Since the answer to Apples123�s question � the last post -- was a simple �yes� or �no� and you didn�t answer it, I�m left believing that you are willfully refusing.

Remark