Dr. Harley allows for recreational activities apart as long as:

1. You are each other's favorite recreational companion
2. You are getting 15 hours of UA each week
3. The activity doesn't include members of the opposite sex

There will be time for recreational activities apart later. Spend the next few months concentrating on your marriage.

Thanks Prisca. I agree we need to spend months at our marriage. We have a road trip planned for the end of March, driving 2500 miles to Florida and spending a month there before driving 2500 miles home. Lots of UA time😊. Between now and then I hope to get
15-20 hours per week.

I spoke with Joyce again today and we agreed that we are not ready for the radio show quite yet. We did discuss some things that she said she may bring up as topics on the show, possibly today.

What do you mean by "not ready"?

Not ready...the original questions I/we had have been answered by delving into the books and MB website information. We are working our way through the worksheets and doing the required amount of UA time. Because we feel that our biggest issues can be dealt with using POJA, but don't feel equiped to tackle that yet, (as we are working on filling love banks first), we decided POJA questions would be where we need help.

Hello again. So, yesterday I tried openness and honesty. We have a family dinner coming up and my husband told me that my son has invited my husband's parents. I do not care for my MIL because she is very critical, demanding and controlling. For the past few years, I have mostly avoided family gatherings they are at. So yesterday, I took the plunge and told H that it stresses me to think about his parents being at the gathering because I don't like MIL meanness. He replied that she is old, she isn't going to change now, I shouldn't expect that, etc. I said I am not asking for change, what I would like is to brainstorm ideas as to how I can lessen stress at the gathering if she starts something. He said he doesn't know what can be done. I said, well, for example, if she starts, maybe you could come to me and stand by my side and put your arm around me. He said he could do that. later, he said to me that I needed to get over my dislike of his mother and suck it up and like he has been telling me for years, I need professional help. Things went downhill lots more after that. Although he says he wants me to share how I feel about things, he doesn't make it safe for me to do so. It was a mistake for me to open up to him and I feel stupid for starting to trust him.

The default position in the POJA is to do nothing until both of you are enthusiastic. This means neither one of you should visit with your husband's parents until you are both enthusiastic about a solution to your mother-in-law.

Of course, you cannot negotiate a solution right now, because your husband continues his demands and disrespectful judgements of you.

So, neither one of you should be visiting with his parents for the foreseeable future.

Thank you, Prisca. We are definitely struggling in our marriage. It is wearing me out mentally and physically to continue this way. I have asked my H to come here and be open to being educated on how to have an MB marriage and lose the love busters.

We did very well for several weeks with UA time and building love bank balances. However, we were totally avoiding conflicts or discussing conflicts. This weekend, we had a severe setback. It seems impossible for us to discuss things that we differ on.

H asks me a lot of questions about how will we deal with hypothetical but probable situations. I try to explain we would do it MB style. But my attempting to educate H leads to problems too as he has a lot of "yeah, but(s)". I have requested that H ask his questions on the forum so others can guide him. I will do the same.

H has some annoying habits that are love buster's to me. I shared them with him on the worksheets. Example, he has terrible posture and slouches something fierce. This has caused him to become quite stooped and to lose some range of motion in his neck. I find his posture unattractive. Sometimes I will say, " give me some eye candy" and he will straighten up. Yum!

I have asked him for years to give physiotherapy a try. He has gotten a referral for this twice but hasn't made an appointment. He has recently been to a doctor about his neck and mentioned his posture. That doctor says well, look at your father, what is his posture like. H's father is 95 years old. So, hunched, yes.

H tells me it is a love buster for him when I mention his posture. Or other annoying habits.

I read him the section on complaints being a good thing because they give him information he can use to make deposits. H says my complaints are love busters to him and thus love bank withdrawals.

How do I handle this?

Another question..I told H that I am tired of taking the lead in improving our marriage. He asked me "are you willing to follow then?"

I don't want this to be an adversarial process although that is the way it feels. How do I articulate that it is not for me to do all the heavy lifting?

Complaints cause love bank withdrawals but they are not love busters. You can minimise that by the way you handle them.

First always chose a neutral moment and ask permission. Something along the lines of 'would now be a good time to tell you about a complaint that I have?' Important not to do this at the time when you have a problem but later. Not only does that mean you will not be irritated (which will come through in your delivery) but it will give you time to think about how to present the issue.

Secondly you must always present your complaint as an issue for you so that it does not come across as a lecture. So you might say 'it bothers me when you fill the kitchen sink with dirty plates'.

Then drop it. Don't have a discussion. You do not want to put yourself in a defensive position. It really does not matter why it bothers you. The fact is that it does.

Some issues are harder to resolve than others. Certainly many years of poor posture would be a lot harder to address than a few dirty plates. But suggesting a solution is a love buster as you are lecturing him. You simply say that his poor posture bothers you. If he asks for suggestions on how to solve this, think of something that he might enjoy. Obviously not physiotherapy. What about tango dancing?

Ok, living well, that is very helpful. Clearly, I am not addressing complaints in anywhere near the correct way.

How many times do I mention a complaint? Once and done? Do we revisit the LB worksheets occasionally to review progress?

Complaints make lovebank withdrawals because they are a negative. No one likes to be told they've done something negative. However, they are not considered lovebusters. Complaints are necessary in a marriage, because without them, course corrections cannot occur. Both of you need to know when the other is feeling a lovebank withdrawal, so that you can both stop the withdrawals.

Since both of you have a history of lovebusting, stick to using the forms when making a complaint. Do not complain face to face. Use the forms, and be matter-of-fact. Leave emotion out of your complaint. All you are doing is informing him of a love bank withdrawal. You don't need to punish him for making the withdrawal -- don't criticize.

There is a difference between a complaint and criticism. So, "It bothers me when you hunch over" is a good complaint. "Your posture looks lazy and unattractive" is criticism.

Also, don't tell him what to do to solve the problem. He may ask for your help, but he doesn't have to. Telling him what to do is a lovebuster. Let him figure out how to solve the problem.

Have your prioritized your list of annoying habits? If not, you should put the list in order of priority, from the most annoying to the least annoying. He should then take the first 3 and concentrate on those.

You've made the suggestion, so now drop it. Do not make this a demand. If he is willing to stop his annoying behavior, then he can figure out how to do that without you telling him what to do and how to do it.

Since both of you have a history of lovebusting, stick to using the forms when making a complaint. Do not complain face to face. Use the forms, and be matter-of-fact.

What forms are you referring to? The LB forms?

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, the lovebuster forms. They are found in 5 Steps to Romantic Love. You should be exchanging the forms once a week.

Ok, got it.

You're not supposed to be doing the heavy lifting. You are both supposed to meet each others emotional needs, use POJA, and avoid love busters.

Ask him to do what you need him to do to improve his side of the marriage. Leave him him to make any requests he has of you, or not.

Okay. I will work on a list of things I need him to do to improve his side of the marriage.

Can you give me a " for instance" to get me started so I can avoid SD's?

Well you certainly don't want to turn into a nag. That will devalue the currency.

But neither should an issue be swept under the rug. So revisit if nothing changes. Yes review the LB worksheet if you use that. Praise is good if there is an improvement.

I like Prisca's idea of ranking your complaints and focusing on the top three.