If he has not said it, he is somehow managing to imply it. He is doing so by arguing that you are wasting money by not buying the items on sale, and that you are being silly and selfish by not wanting to buy collectables at all.

You are not causing his disrespectful behaviour at all. He needs to stop it, now, for good.

Does your H know you have posted about this? Is he willing to come here and post his side of the story?

Did you see my post about not posting with his user name? Are you wiling to create a user name for yourself?

Sugarcane is absolutely right. What is inappropriate is trying to FORCE decisions on your spouse. It sounds like your husband tries to FORCE you to accept his collecting.

Yes.

"Doing nothing" is not abuse. According to Dr. Harley, in order to be committing a love buster, you have to actually do something. If you are doing nothing, your spouse might not like it, but it is not a love buster.

From what you are writing here, there's no abuse on your part that is contributing to this situation. Besides, Dr. Harley's standard is that even if one of you does make a mistake and become demanding, disrespectful, or angry, that does not justify demands, disrespect, or angry outbursts from the other. So if you were doing something abusive, we would need to talk about that, but your husband needs to learn how to never say anything disrespectful (like calling you "wasteful") NO MATTER WHAT you do, no matter what mistakes you might make.

Please create a separate account so we can tell the two of you apart.

Here is what Dr. Harley told me about a very similar situation where I wanted to do something with Prisca and she discovered she was not enthusiastic:


Your husband needs to follow this rule. Make the request and if it is declined, withdraw the request unless he can think of conditions that would make you willing. This will get him thinking about what it will take to make you happy. That's a requirement for a marriage to work and for negotiation to work.

Once your husband learns to eliminate all selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts, the two of you can work through the full four guidelines for successful negotiation.

No.

I will create my own account but I'd like to finish this thread first. The only reason I brought up looking for my own abusive patterns is that according to Dr Harley it is very common that both partners engage in some form of abuse (like if I have an angry outburst) usually in relation to each others abusive behaviors and since I cannot change his behavior I was looking for what I might need to change in mine.

Thank you for all the responses. We will be going over them together tonight and will be discussing going through the training to help us make progress since both of us want a healthy marriage

Hi everyone,

This is the husband coming back and sharing my side of the story. Working on the policy of joint agreement has been interesting for us. I discovered it around 5 years ago...and shared it with my wife. We've been trying to apply the principles for some time now, but we seem to be stuck in a rut. Honestly our patterns are that I am a person that is selfish and I make selfish demands. My wife on the other hand gets angry frequently. It's been frustrating in that we've seriously tried to live joint greement...but we lack in progress and it seems that despite making a lot of efforts to live the policy of joint agreement that we still continue to struggle. Basically I had visions of having a perfect marriage...but we got stuck halfway there. My wife and I are best friends, and I believe that we have very real potential. Despite our imperfections, I do feel like we have made strides in trying to live these principles.

In the situation that my wife posted on, I have been showing our children Star Wars movies. My wife and I have agreed on owning the original series, but I had wanted to have the newer movies to share with the children. My wife is ok with the kids watching the movies, she just doesn't want to own them. I got frustrated with this because it is difficult to get the movies at the library, or it is very expensive to continue renting the movies online and we have a very limited budget. I do realize that this was a selfish demand. But that still doesn't make this experience easy.

I think that what adds to this frustration that I have is that I feel that most of the time that I am very accomodating to my wifes needs. Although I have strong wants, I also try very hard to give her what she wants. I generally don't feel like I am sacrificing when I do this. My wife has a personality in which she is very picky about style and preference of things that she wants in the house. I know that she shouldn't sacrifice. But it still feels frustrating to feel like I'm trying to give her things that she wants, but than to have a much narrower window of reciprocation.

Basically, am I selfish? yes. I'm quite aware of it. But I still want my stuff. I really would like to watch Star Wars with my kids. Should I go on a diet and exercise? yes. But I still like eating ice cream. What it comes down to is that Love Busters are hard work...and after trying to do this for the past 5 years, I'm feeling pretty stuck. And I've gained 10 pounds from eating ice cream.

It is good that you recognise this. However, what are you going to do about it? It needs to stop. POJA is designed to make selfish demands impossible, so if you are still making SDs, you are directly counteracting POJA. No wonder your progress has halted and you are in a rut.

And...so? Are you prepared to use POJA, or not? You have identified that you are using SDs, but you have then justified them "that still doesn't make this experience easy) and you have stopped there. What do you intend to do about your SDs?

Easy or hard, if you want to get past the problem where you make SDs, and your marriage is unhappy because of them, you need to stop using SDs.

You are misusing POJA. In fact, you are using the fact that you "try very hard to give your wife what she wants" as a weapon. You are bullying her with the fact that you have given in over things she wants, to pressurise her to sacrifice for you. You still care less that her sacrificing will make her unhappy in the short and longer term, than you care to win what you want.

You are misusing POJA as tit-for-tat. You are giving in on things that you do not want, deliberately so that you can hold that against your wife later, forcing her to give in on things she does not want. You need to stop playing that game. You are giving your wife the impression, at the time, that you are in enthusiastic agreement with her desires, and then you are throwing it back in her face later, that she got her way and is being unfair by not letting you get yours.

That is a disgusting tactic. It is dishonest and cruel. If you are enthusiastic about your wife's desires at the time, that should be the end of that. The agreement should never be brought up at a later time, as part of a negotiation or a completely different subject. Whatever she agreed to earlier has nothing to do with the Star Wars films that you want to buy today.

If you were not enthusiastic about whatever you gave into before, then learn from that and do not give in to things you are unenthusiastic about, ever again. In fact, go back now and undo any agreements that you are still unhappy about. Don't give in, and then hold that against your wife. That is not a Marriage Builders marriage. No wonder you are both unhappy and stuck, if you have been doing that.

Distorting and misusing POJA in this way is not caring for your wife, and neither is it trying to reach enthusiastic, mutual agreements that will make you both happy. It is not actually trying to improve your marriage. It is an attempt to get what you want, regardless of how unhappy you are making your wife. That is abuse.

The words you used have gone beyond explanation, into justification, defence, and belligerence. Do you realise that you have just said "I know I am abusing my wife, but I want to to, I like it, and I don't intend to stop"?

Do you realise that?

I'm very shocked to see that kind of argument being used by someone who has come to MB claiming to want to have a good marriage. Do you intend to stop this abusive behaviour, or not?

Dr Harley has just posted this reply to a wife whose husband becomes disrespectful when he does not get his own way:

Time will tell if your husband is willing to accept his new role as a respectful equal instead of his old role as a judgmental master. If he is successful in making the adjustment, both of you will be happy in this marriage. If he cannot, both of you will be miserable. Until he is able to become a respectful equal to you, there's really not much you can do. The decision is his to avoid saying anything that's disrespectful toward you

Well, are you ever demanding, disrespectful, or angry? So far, if so, you haven't related it on this thread.

All right - you guys are my kind of people! Now this is the kind of stuff that is worth negotiating about. Figuring out which order our kids should see the series in has occupied my thinking since my wife became pregnant with our first child over ten years ago. (His grandmother babysat him when he was one month old so we could go see Revenge of the Sith.)

Have you considered getting a one-disc subscription to netflix? It's pretty affordable and you could get ahold of the movies any time you wanted in physical form, and get ahold of other stuff as well.

Do you have any friends who own the movies that you could borrow from? Know anyone who can download it for you?

You guys sound a lot like me when I first came here. I had discovered Dr. Harley's principles and was wanting us to put them into practice, but my wife was not motivated to and I couldn't figure out why. I started counseling with Steve Harley and eventually we got into Dr. Harley's program where we got the help we needed to learn to negotiate. Just like MelodyLane described, that is what was lacking in us being able to make the program work. And the main problem was love busters. Like the husband here, I would not take disrespectful judgments off the table. In fact I was saying a lot of things that were disrespectful that I did not know were disrespectful.

Are you guys exchanging the weekly love busters worksheets as described in Love Busters and Five Steps to Romantic Love (the workbook)? This is the missing piece - this step is vital. You have to exchange these worksheets and save and review them and strive to achieve a blank sheet each week. This is how you learn what is disrespectful or what is an angry outburst, so you can learn to avoid it. If your spouse says it's disrespectful, or says it's an angry outburst - IT IS, even if you disagree (this rule bit me all the time. But by scrupulously following it I learned to avoid the love busters!) And if one of these behaviors happens, negotiation is off and you have to stick with "doing nothing" for now. If you want to do "something," you have to learn to lock up the nuclear weapons in the closet so that everybody is safe at the negotiating table.

Do the worksheets, and strongly consider signing up for the online program so a coach and Dr. Harley can help you eliminate the love busters - this will become much, much better for both of you.

Do you guys allocate any spending money for yourselves individually? We set aside a certain amount per week for each of us. If there's something the other isn't enthusiastic about spending our joint money on, they are usually enthusiastic about the other buying it him or herself. Maybe your wife would be enthusiastic about YOU buying the movies yourself out of your own spending money, if you have any set aside.

I make purchases from half.com and try to group orders together to save on shipping. I can usually get a used book for 75 cents plus shipping. Including shipping the first is about $4 and subsequent books are usually about $3-$4. I occasionally get DVDs there, too, although I don't remember how cheap they are - still much better than buying new! Amazon.com also has a thriving used marketplace.

We just bought our kids all six novels of the Star Wars movies, off of half.com. They are looking forward to reading them when they arrive.

Maybe your wife would be enthusiastic about you buying the movies, ripping them to hard drive, and storing the discs in the attic.

I got that suggestion from my wife. This is just one of many, many options. This is why you need to learn to get rid of the nuclear weapons so you can get to the brainstorming part of negotiation.

Dr. Harley explains that when you learn to avoid angry outbursts, your brain rewires itself to put that energy into thinking up solutions to the problem rather than having an angry outburst. This works with disrespectful judgments, too - you are short circuiting the process when you say your wife is "too difficult to work with" or "not logical." As you see from Dr. Harley's four guidelines to successful negotiation, you can't get to "brainstorming with abandon" (guideline 3) until you get through "set ground rules to make negotiation pleasant and safe." (guideline 1)

Hey, superpojaman(husband), be sure you read this:

Hey, superpojaman(husband); be sure you read this, too:


If I were to ask you the question "under what conditions would your wife be willing for you to own the star wars prequel movies?" could you answer it? If not, you need to withdraw the request until you can think of some.

If you can ever get past guideline 1 and make negotiation pleasant and safe, then guideline 2 (understand the issue from your wife's perspective) will help you start to think about conditions under which your wife might be willing for you to own the movies. Maybe it's the space. Maybe it's the money. Maybe it's something else. But right now you can't even get there because you've got to make guideline 1 work, first.

Put away the namecalling.

Hey superpojaman(wife),


According to your husband, you do have angry outbursts. Ask your husband to give you a written list, once a week, listing your angry outbursts that you've had during the week. There doesn't need to be any discussion about it - read it and see if you understand what behavior you engaged in that your husband felt was an angry outburst. If you have any trouble understanding why your husband felt something was an angry outburst, get help from us or from Dr. Harley - you can reach him on his radio show at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com

My wife very often handed me a worksheet listing angry outbursts that I didn't believe were angry outbursts. I remember when she put down that I'd had an angry outburst at the worker at a Burger King drive thru. That was very revealing - she considered my rude and sarcastic behavior to be an AO, and it was still a love buster even though it wasn't directed at her.

If your husband says something is an AO, it is - but I hasten to add that "doing nothing" is not an angry outburst. In fact "doing nothing" is absolutely what you are supposed to do when you feel frustrated. Do nothing other than concentrate on relaxing every muscle in your body until you feel relaxed. If you shut up completely when you feel frustrated and completely refuse to talk to your husband, that's not an angry outburst - that's how you avoid an angry outburst! Show him this paragraph.

By the way, here is a list of ways I've compiled over the past few years that I or other people I've heard about have been disrespectful to their spouse.

sarcasm
criticism
judgment: stating that their perspective is wrong
"should"
lecturing/attempting to educate
gestures, facial expressions, body language
expressing surprise or shock at an opinion or feeling or belief
saying that something is "obvious" (in other words, you "should" realize this or "should" know it)
disrespecting your spouse's feelings instead of accepting the fact that they do feel that way

guilting, shaming
hyperbolizing
always/never
exaggerated words
scolding
name-calling, labelling
saying or doing something you know your spouse identifies as disrespectful

comparisons: if I had done such a horrible thing as you, I'd be doing more to make up for it

defensiveness

minimizing -- "just" -- you just say that because ... [Translation: I don't have to address your complaint.]
psychoanalyzing your spouse
explaining away your spouse's feelings or complaints

attributing motivations
blaming, fault-finding
expecting them to read your mind


I statements may help, but are not an excuse for a disrespectful judgment:
I feel like (DJ)
I feel unloved.
I feel like you don't love me.