When should a man know to separate from his wife ?

He should know that he did everything he possibly could to get her to fall back in love with him.

Are you listening to the Marriage Builders Radio show so you can find out how to do that?

Have you written to Dr. Harley?

What are you doing to try to persuade your wife to follow the Marriage Builders program?

I listen to Marriage Builders Radio

I have not written Dr. Harley

Ive found it difficult to persuade my wife, that�s why I�m here.

Please don�t presume she fell out of love for me. What if I fell out of love for her?

Threads combined. Please stick to one thread.

Either way, the fix starts with you following the program to get her to fall back in love with you, so that she will be motivated to meet your emotional needs so you can fall back in love with her.

Why haven't you written to Dr. Harley? Why are you leaving important stones unturned? This is a great way to get help learning how to persuade and motivate your wife.

Have you eliminated the contrast effect?

Typically the woman falls out of love first. She then stops meeting her H needs because she has no motivation to do that, or to avoid lovebusters. Often she maintains a friendship but shes not doing much else. So then he falls out of love with her too. Often, he believes he's the first to lose that feeling. I've heard Dr Harley correct that idea for a lot of male callers.

I'm interested in what you think happened when she stopped behaving the way you liked and subjected you to annoying habits. Do you think there's a chance she could be more 'comfortable' than besotted? That makes being alluring too much of a hassle. Or do you think something else happened?

Markos, I assume Dr. Harley very busy.. I want you to believe that I�ve turned over many stones.

I do not know what contrast effect is.

Honestly indiegirl I don�t think she knows much about men, what they like, and why they do what they do. When we got married things fell apart with laziness, and lack of experience, and a sheltered conservative upbringing. I�m the only male that has been in a relationship with over three months.

Why would you assume that when you can hear for yourself on the radio show that he and Joyce help people every day?

I'm watching a man at church lose his marriage. I begged him to send Dr. Harley an email last year and talk to him. Guy passed up a chance to get free help from the best marriage counselor on the planet. Now his wife is divorcing him. They have lots of children.

Here are two articles that explain the contrast effect:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5069_qa.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8122_Pornography.html

You need your wife to stop the love buster of angry outbursts.

You'll need to learn how to complain about this love buster, correctly.

Again, I recommend you contact Dr. Harley and ask for some help. "How do I complain to my wife about her angry outbursts?"

Here's an article Dr. Harley has written on this subject for men:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8111_quit3.html

She knew enough to catch you in the first place. I'm curious about what made her laziness AFTER this. A woman in love is highly motivated to keep doing what has worked in the past. Why did she stop? You think it was simply being married?



Why is that a problem?!!

I have emailed mbradio but I have not gotten a reply.

We both got married at 35 & 36 years old, we have no children. We waited until getting married to have sex. She has no sexual partners in the past and I�ve had 3. According to Dr. Harley, from listen to mbradio, it�s difficult for us because we married later in age and it�s hard for us to adjust than a younger couple. I admit our church hasn�t done a very good job with pre marital counseling.

Before getting married I noticed a few things I was caustious of but as we all heard couple aren�t perfect. After getting married it was one annoying habit after another. I wanted to address it with her but every time I brought something up it seemed to her that I was trying to fix her.

So, I poured myself and love into her. I gave and gave. She was happy I thought I was doing the right thing by sacrificing myself and dropping my expectations and setting aside my needs. Then, it finally hit me. I broke down. My needs weren�t being met. I couldn�t take any more. I broke down crying one morning right in front of her. The night before I discussed getting on medication to help me.

See, three weeks after being married i had to asked her if we could see a marriage counselor. When I brought up she didn�t want to look at me. She said while out the window at nothing in particular �we don�t need to see a counselor, we just need to make it though this.� I didn�t like what I heard but I knew I had to keep asking for it.

Since we got married I was able to sleep over 4 hours. 5 hours were my good nights. It was nothing to see 2 to 3 hours of sleep. I brought up the medication idea. She said if I thought it would help I should. The next morning I broke down at breakfast before work. I called in sick. Went to the doctor and was give medicine for sleep, and anxiety/depression.

I took 4 months before we would go to a counselor. I believe she did more harm then good. We often left angry and fighting. She asked me to leave once but I didnt. I knew if I left I would never go back.

I tried going to a church recovery group. She didn�t like me going. It thought that It looked bad for me to go because I made it looked like we had a bad marriage. She even made a commit once that she was jealous of her brother and sister in law for having a better relationship even though they lived together before getting married.

At one point I got so depressed I called the suicide hotline. I�ve had two anxiety attacks.

She believed I was mentally ill. I even took test from licensed people that came up negative for anxiety disorder, depression, PTSD, schzenphrneia(sp), and bipolar disorder.

I went though all that for my marriage, and it�s not all of it. She hasn�t apologized, she hasn�t asked what can I do. She has even lifted a book on marriage. She hasn�t even suggested we have a problem in our marriage because as she admitted about a week ago �it hard me to admit and deal with problems I have.� She makes no effort to put something forward for change. Every idea and suggestion to work on our marriage gets wiped clean in her mind every morning.

I haven�t done everything but I�m tired. I�ve been running to find something, the key ingredient, a missing link, the epiphany. I�m laying in the shoulder of the road gasping for air and gripping my chest.

How long ago did you write the Harleys? Have you tried again? Also, notify the MODS so they can let Dr. Harley know that you�ve been trying to get a hold of them.

Complaints are always tricky. If you grew up in a family where everyone yelled to get their way or where nobody confronted problems, this is a skill you need to learn.

The secret is always to make the complaint be about you and your feelings so that your spouse does not feel you are educating her. Once someone feels they are being educated, they switch off.

- Find a neutral time to set out your complaint. Never in the heat of the moment but when you are both calm and peaceful. Maybe at the end of dinner or maybe first thing in the morning when you wake. Perhaps on a long beautiful walk.

- Introduce the subject by asking if you can make a complaint.

- Be strategic, one complaint and make it an important one. Be sure to praise any efforts made by your spouse to address the issue.

- Express your complaint only in terms of how it affects you. So if (for instance) you do not want your wife leaving clothes on the floor, you might say 'it bothers me when you leave your clothes on the floor because a tidy bedroom makes me feel calm and peaceful'.

- If your spouse wants to talk more about it, you can propose solutions together. Suppose she says that her closet is too small. That would be a problem that you could happily solve together, depositing love units in the process.

- If nothing changes, you can make the complaint one more time. Then you may have to follow the link Marcos posted and separate. That is why it is so important to be selective in the subject you chose for your complaint. It needs to be something that really matters to you.

I�ve been trying to work on the Love Buster questionarie but I�m having difficultly understanding what exactly caused me to loose love for my wife. I believe it�s resentment from the past (previously mentioned).

I feel I can�t move forward unless she acknowledges and understands what I went through. What I�ve been doing to try to help our marriage. The past is what makes me so mad, it�s built resentment. Do I tell her this? And brings it over the top she doesn�t take any responsibility for what�s she�s done.

Stop trying to educate her. Nobody wants to be educated. Why would she take responsibility for something you chose to do? She never forced you to sacrifice.

Try something like this:

"I now understand what I have been doing wrong. My sacrificing has caused my giver to collapse of exhaustion and now my taker is in full blown recovery mode. I know you never asked me to sacrifice and I take full responsibility for the present situation which was entirely of my doing. It was misguided of me to believe that this would help my marriage. Would you be able to help me get my giver and my taker back into balance so that we can return to joy?"

If she then asks how she can help, you could ask her to support and encourage you to make complaints. If she does not want to read the books, drop the subject. You might be able to revisit that later when love has returned or you can just use use MB principals. She will soon notice!