I have been doing this a long time. I still am resentful. I am in a situation that most would deem to be unequal. I earn all the money, do all the homework, make nearly all dinners, do all dishes, etc. I have spent a good 5-6 years working on myself, read 80-90 personal development books, have 3 life coaches that I meet with once per week, and make a good $300k/year.

I am not perfect by any means. I still judge, criticize, and have a fond relationship with being right all the time. My tendencies run deep and despite all the work, I continue to fall into the same trap. The trap is revolves around resent. I accept her for who she is, relationship improves, something happens, and then I pick a fight and we derail. Over, and over, and over again. Where do I go from here?

How about using Marriage Builders? Why haven't you and your Wife tried MB?

725 posts. We did 6 years ago. One of the most viewed posts on all of MB! I was in a bad spot back then. I am much more educated, aware, and motivated as compared to then. Despite that, I have made many mistakes along the way, mostly because I valued being right over anything else. I need a restart.

I know you did it 6 years ago and then what just stopped it? You struggled with UA time. Are you still getting 15-20 hours of UA time a week?

Why do you need 3 life coaches? Have you ever thought of doing the online program where you work with a MB coach?

No we get almost no UA. 3 kids. She is overwhelmed, or I enable her being overwhelmed. This alone is good.

Have you read this?
The Critical Importance of Undivided Attention

Are you still committing love busters?

Its really simple:
1. Cut out the 3 coaches, you are a grown-up, paying people to listen to you.
If you are able to hold a 300k job, you can't be that crazy and don't need them.
2. Read the anger management posts at this website and learn to relax when feeling tense, it will help with nr 3
3. stop love busting rightaway, you can. Start thinking intelligently and find out why your wife has another perspective.
4. Take your wife out to do fun stuff and become good at meeting her emotional needs.
5. sit down with your wife and negotiate how to make her less overwhelmed, maybe a cleaning lady or help in the garden or children's homework would do her good.

Tip: if she is not willing to spend time with you you must be doing a very poor job meeting her needs, or hurting her with love busters.

Tip2: if women are overwhelmed, they are likely depressed and if so, chances are this has everything to do with their husbands.

Now go do this.
This is free advice from a medical professional. Dr Harley has 100s of pages of free advice coming from a licenced clinical psychologist. It's all there for the taking. Now go bathe in the river Jordan Naaman and stop the silky coaching thing. Just grow up.

And another hint:
HiPos often score high on the narcissistic trait inventory, which leads us to think we know everything best, which does't work very well in marriage as Dr Harley has so eloquently pointed out.

The upside is that these same traits lead us to want to be the best in anything we do, like following Dr Harley's doctrine because you see that it makes sense and it works.

Again, don't have your soul tickled by people you pay for it. Just apply MB rules and discover that they also work in business relations (except for SF and the like of course).

No, you never really did follow the program. You never gave up your lovebusters. What are you going to do about that?

It doesn't seem like all those books and 'life coaches' are doing much good for you.

MB will teach you how to STOP being so unpleasant.

I don't pay my coaches, we trade services so the cost is minimal. I am completely happy with the value and have grown leaps and bounds through the coaching process. With that being said, as I have changed over time I have become more organized, efficient, clean, etc. It has gotten to the point where I just started doing everything because it made me happier. I make more money, I do the kids homework with them, cook all the meals, etc. The unfortunate impact of that is that my wife feels inadequate. In addition, she has taken up being busy socially with her friends and runs all the time where she is just not around all that much. It is me and the kids and we are happy together, but I am still not fulfilled in my relationship. What I have been stuck on his the LB's. From my perspective, I feel my wife should do more as a full time mother and wife. She doesn't work. I feel like a single parent which would be fine if my needs were met, but they are not. Now I have to take ownership in the following:

1. Judging my wife for how she parents, how much she produces in her role, etc.
2. Resent. I have a tendency to bottle things up and expect her to assume what I need.
3. The need to be right. I think one time in marriage counseling I said point blank, "It isn't that I have a need to be right, it is just that I nearly always am!" Ewwww, I'm surprised she didn't divorce me right then and there.

As far as me being a HiPo. You are right. I excel at everything and it is hard for me to comprehend and understand that not everybody approaches life that way. I don't understand NOT being intense. To me it doesn't make any sense not to be intense. So I live each day with this beautiful woman, my wife, who I love, that I have grown apart from. She maxed out after child #1 and went over and above her max with children #2, and #3. My goal that I need help with is simple, which is to replace feelings of resent with acceptance and compassion. I believe with immense conviction that I am remaining in this relationship and to make it more fulfilling and WANT and NEED to accept and love this woman for who she is.

Yet you haven't stopped your lovebusters. All your accomplishments really don't mean much if you haven't done that.

Yep. There are the disrespectful judgements.

What are you going to do about those?

Hint: It takes more than just "taking ownership."

Wives tend to do more when they are not depressed.

Wives tend to be depressed when they are married to abusive husbands.

A husband saying "I feel my wife should do more" is an abusive husband. He is abusing his wife, saying that.

I don't know. I feel that things are unfair and I am having a hard time being ok with that.

Practice accepting it when we tell you you are doing something wrong - and change it!

For example, it is imperative that you learn to filter out disrespectful or judgmental statements about your wife even when you are talking to counselors or on this board. Nobody makes it if they don't do that.

It's seriously important that you learn how to filter out disrespectful statements about your wife and talk about the problems in your marriage in a way that is not disrespectful of her. Crucially imperative. Ought to be one of your highest goals.

Now, when I explain all this to a husband and he responds by letting me know why it's okay because he never talks this way directly to his wife, he only talks that way here, etc., I know that 1) he has a serious need to be right that is making him DEAF TO THE IMPORTANT THINGS WE HAVE TO TEACH HIM THAT CAN SAVE HIS MARRIAGE, and 2) he is never going to make it.

I am not saying that I am not abusive, but at some point I feel complicit in enabling lazy behavior. How could one human being allow another do do nearly everything? I get up at 530, do my morning meditations and work, then make kids breakfast and lunch, take them to school, workout an hour, come home and clean up, go out to work all day till it is time to pick up kids. Meet them to do their homework. Make dinner, do dishes,and then collapse of exhaustion on couch by 6 pm. How does another human being allow someone else to do nearly everything? What is the mentality?

Okay, I can see that we're not going to be able to help you very much since nothing I said meant much to you.

This wasn't a rhetorical question. It wasn't rhetorical the first time I asked it, either.

Why not start doing things that make the both of you happy. And stop doing things that make her unhappy.

RR, I feel like I can identify with many things you have expressed. Some of those things really hindered my progress.

You are kicking against the goads on several levels. And when it comes to action, education and enlightenment can sometimes work against you. For example, knowing "too much" can cause you to take positions of justice, or distract you with philosophy instead of doing acts of caring that meet your wife's ENs that you already know need to be done and how to do.

I would encourage you to consider accepting some things, even if it feels blind. Forget understanding. Forget whether you agree with the specifics. Make a decision to commit to MB principles and just do it. Do whatever it takes to decide that this program is worthy of your trial.

Try it for a week, then another week, then another week. You WILL look back and see progress at some point, and will get into a good groove. Stay there.

Consider just accepting these:

1) For a period of time in winning your wife over, there is likely to be a long period of painful, lonely, unfulfilling, unfair experience. (No, you haven't been "doing this a long time" because your posts clearly show you are love busting.) Your kayak has rolled. Accept it and respond with appropriate, effective ACTIONS, based on logic and reason that will get you upright.

2) You keep citing a laundry list of things you rule at (making money, doing dishes, cooking, cleaning, time with kids, etc.) When I repeatedly read those things (in your old and new posts), it leaves me with several feelings: a) As an intense person myself, your intensity makes ME feel tense, b) if I were your wife I'd feel either like you were competing with me or would feel pretty intimidated, and c) it would make me feel like you are justifying your behavior which is very uncaring. Stop with the HiPo talk. Interact with your wife in a way that meets her needs.

3) Of all the things on your laundry list, what of those is fulfilling your wife's emotional needs (according to her)? Cooking and cleaning may or may not. Or she may value something else a lot more and you may not be doing that at all.

4) Relaaaax, dude. You say, "I feel complicit in enabling lazy behavior. How could one human being allow another do do nearly everything?" That can happen because she rejects your CONTROL. Accept the fact that you are married to someone who doesn't see the world as something to be conquered. EMPATHIZE. Decide whether you want to maximize your "HiPo" or have a relationship with her. Can't have both. She may be telling you to "go HiPo yourself and leave me alone".

5) I am going out on a limb here. A short, green, stout one. You are not almost always right in marriage. In marriage, even if you are independently right you are automatically wrong. This is really similar to the intensity issue for me.

6) UA. From one of your very first posts, your wife said, " We don't ever do anything fun anymore, forget the romance." and "What ever happened to walks to Starbucks, cooking together, anything for that matter.", and more. This is screaming a need for quality UA to me. As in, if you don't get this right, you are going to have big problems. UA must. be. consistent!

7) Emotional reactivity. Your emotions are very difficult to control during the period of winning your wife's heart because of your own unmet need. Understandable. But you'd better figure out a way to get a grip because I guarantee there is no way around keeping your cool. I am pretty sure I tried every other option and they don't work. You MUST keep your cool even when it hurts like rip.

Sure things are unfair. And they will continue to be until you take the necessary steps to fix your problems that you have control of. ONLY after you have done your part can you ever know whether your wife is being "unfair" out of reaction to your lack of care, or whether she is just being abusive. You first.

Oh. And #8 - it is unfair being the man because we have to go first.

Your posts are full of I, me, my.
This quite possibly makes you an obnoxious person to be around.
Secondly, you obviously feel vastly superior to your wife and this will show in every interaction.

If you are not enthousiastic about standing up early of doing all the housework, don't do it. Dr H recommends dividing the chores and hiring someone to do the chores nobody wants to do.

Why not spend UA time instead?

Why not follow the program again?
You are talking about accepting as in not having your needs met.
You could have your needs met and more, if you learn how to be a pleasant partner to your wife.

RR,

I am in a similar situation. We will agree on how to raise our children or what to do with our finances or rules for our children and my wife will change her mind.
If I remind her about POJA, she will tell me she changed her mind and doesn't care that she agreed to it and she will do what she wants. Or she will tell me she is selfish and can't help it.
On the other hand if I don't follow what I agree to she will tell me it is wrong and threaten to tell the kids that I am not a good father. Also, she will threaten some type of punitive action if I don't fix it.
Lastly, she will tell me I complain too much. My solution is to keep my mouth shut unless it is something unbearable. At that point I make the complaint and we have a multiple day argument and have to renegotiate the things she didn't do since she doesn't want to have to do those anymore.

***EDIT***

Givnup, I don't see where you responded with the outcome several yeas ago after recommendations were made for you to seek personal counseling with MB for this issue. How did that turn out?

RR, the advice given to Givnup was that if POJA is not being honored, the process may not have been done correctly, and the spouse violating POJA may not have been truly enthusiastic about the agreement.

Another issue could be that she doesn't feel safe being open and honest during POJA negotiations.

Are you sure POJA negotiations have been "pleasant and safe"? Four Guidelines for Successful Negotiation. Also, have you read He Wins She Wins?

I assume that at least some of the POJA violations are happening where she makes you aware in some way that she has changed her mind before she actually takes action. How do you respond in those cases?

In order to truly say that your wife refuses to follow POJA and is acting independently, you have to remove any barriers that may be caused by your own behavior, for a period of time. You also have to demonstrate care and exercise POJA properly on your side, even when she does not. When she sees you doing this, it DOES influence her in a positive way.

POJA is an essential, foundational policy. You cannot succeed in having an integrated marriage of care for each other without it.

Givnup, threats regarding kids and punitive actions, etc. are selfish demands. Have you read Love Busters? Has your wife?

"Complaining too much" indicates that you may be using complaints as a selfish demand - an attempt to badger, educate, or change her. That won't work. Neither will "keep my mouth shut".

On suggestion: When you come with a properly worded complaint, given in the right attitude, do you also bring a possible solution or two to the table? That was a big one for me that helped me check myself when it came to SD complaints. Generally if I did not have a solution in mind, my motivation for complaining tended to be one that would not work.

Givnup, if you are still in the same boat after almost three years, consider posting more about what is going on and get some direction.

I think that separation would be the ultimate destination if your wife is truly as you indicate. But feeling like you have done everything right, and the reality can be two different things. Especially if you are looking at the situation with tunnel vision without any outside perspective.

In my own case, that was very much true. I was putting a lot of effort into doing things incorrectly, incompletely, and spending a lot of energy on emotional reactivity instead of solving problems.

Ok, ok, ok. So here is where we are at to a "T" at the moment:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8122_Nagging.html

Full blown stage 3. We have been there for a long time. She wants to feel heard and cared for, and I am totally overwhelmed at the sheer volume. I feel maxed out as it is, so catering to her incredible volume of complaints needs to be categorized and organized into 1 thing at a time. Honestly I feel totally badgered, day after day after day, and I know my kids do as well. We have to fix more, buy more, do more, read more, more bike riding, more activities, more, more, more! The hard part is, she wants me to do it all, her role is just nagging all of us to death. In the mean time, she heads off running for hours on end or consumed with posting on Facebook, Instagram, and her other platforms, comes home while I've been with the kids all day, and then finds the one thing that hasn't been done and complains some more. My solution has been to "check out", go silent, or get backed into a corner and snap. It isn't working obviously. What I haven't been able to deal with consistently is the resent. I feel that I am doing my job and half of hers, and since I get nearly zero needs met I am having a hard time not getting sucked into the trap of badgering her right back. Something has to change. Clearly I am not meeting her needs, but sometimes I feel like who on God's Earth could?

One more thing. There is a pattern. I am the kind of person that does things right away all day. I clean up after myself, get my workout in, go run my company, then come home and make dinner, and clean up the dishes. My wife doesn't do anything all day usually. She goes on long runs, shops, meets friends for coffee, then at night she is ready to get all of her stuff done. Different philosophy for sure. So I think there are perception issues for both of us. She doesn't physically watch all that I do all day outside of making breakfast and dinner, so it is almost like I don't get credit. In the mean time, my wife is texting me with pictures of her run, telling me what she is buying, or who she is meeting. So by the time I do the dishes after dinner, I feel accomplished and totally spent and want to relax, but she is just getting started. So what happens is that she gets irritated at all the stuff she needs to do and begins to get irritated at the rest of us. We all feel like we did our job for the day and we are entitled to relax, so she feels like she is the only one working. So over and over the kids are getting nagged to do things that irritate my wife, and my wife starts to tell me how unfair it is that she is working at night while we are all relaxing. Sometimes she'll push me too far and then I will mention about she could have done some of these things during the day instead and she comes unglued and says there is no time in the day and there is too much to do.

What are you going to do about your disrespectful judgements?

I think that's the 3rd or 4th time I've asked.

If you check users posts, you will see you have asked similar questions quite a lot more than 3 or 4 times.

Awareness is the first key. I think part of it is because I've been out of this process for so long and part of it is because I've let resent dominate the relationship. Here are some statements without DJs that I think reflect how I feel:

1. I'm feeling frustrated that my needs are not being met in my relationship.
2. One of the biggest reasons for this is because I am regularly engaging in disrespectful judgments to "straighten out" my spouse.
3. When that level of frustration crescendos I also often engage in angry outbursts.
4. I want to find other ways to communicate these frustrations respectfully.
5. I realize that my need to be "right" is getting in the way of getting my needs met.

Do you want to come here to complain, or do you want to come here to fix your marriage?

It seems you have been here a couple times now to complain about your marriage, but when posters took the time to help you their posts where ignored. You disappeared for a month without responding to people, and are back here a month later with more complaints and nothing has changed (shocker).

Are you ready to take advice and make some changes?

I read some of your posts from 2011. This is what I gathered

1. Eliminate Love busters. Have you re-read Lovebusters without thinking "if she would just ..., then I wouldn't..."?
You need to be very active. Get a journal, makea list of DJs to avoid. Add to the list as needed. Work on your anger, get a GSR if you need. Stop fighting.

2. Start spending at least 20 hours per week on fun dates. You need to fall back inlove with each other. No relationship or problem talk on dates.

3. I suspect you have OCD, which will be difficult for your wife. You think there is a "right way" to do everything but that is just your way. Wives find this extremely stressful, being constantly "corrected." Stop it. She is not a child but an adult with her own way of doing things.

4. Reading 80-90 personal development books in a year(or even in a few years) is useless. There is no way to meaningfully incorporate what you learn. It is a good way to accumulate ammo in your disrespect of your wife. Stop it. Read and re-read Dr. Harley's books until the lessons sink in to the point that she notices a difference. You need to actually DO Marriage Builders, consistently, not just read about it.

No. It is because you have a condescending attitude toward your wife and feel superior to her. Anyone who reads your posts can see that very clearly.

And you give yourself permission to behave this way because you are resentful.

Here is the problem, your behavior is contributing to the demise of your marriage. Until you decide you are not entitled to this behavior and STOP, your marriage will NOT get better. When do you plan to stop behaving this way?

Until you eliminate the lovebusting, this is futile. I would not want to spend 5 minutes alone with you with your condescending and disrespectful attitude, let alone 20 hours a week. You need to STOP being so unpleasant. If you can do that, and as apples has said, commit to the POUA, you have a great chance of turning this around. But your attitude towards the lovebusting (entitlement) needs to change FIRST.

I'm not entitled to feeling superior to any other human being. I have to own that and become it. I presently struggle with this, but I will continue to work on accepting myself and others, especially my wife, as they are.

Which is why Eliminate Lovebusters is #1. No woman wants to date a man who is unpleasant all the time.

The problem seems to be accepting yourself as you are, therefore justifying the lack of change in your behavior. You need to refuse to accept that you are a disrespectful person and become respectful.

You have been aware of this problem for at least the 6 years you have posted here. Awareness has done nothing. You need to focus on action.

I am currently engaging in disrespectful behavior, which is a problem. I have a choice however. I choose to be respectful.

Ok so how do I handle mornings like this one? If feel completely berated and I also feel triggered by my wife's badgering of our boy. Neither one of us can ever do anything to please her. I am so angry and want to explode. Now she is yelling at our 6 year old because her hair is tangled and it is hurting her. I feel the need to defend my children on a daily basis and it is the most common disagreements that we have. She is texting me through the process telling me how ridiculous it is that I didn't pull her hair back. Now she could have pulled her hair back, not sure why that was my job. So I am not responding because I feel blamed for something that wasn't even some kind of assigned duty. I'm sure my non-response is pissing her off, but I don't want to just say, "Sorry dear, yes dear."

Do I need to respond to disrespectful judgments via text or do I just completely ignore them? That may sound ignorant, but I feel stuck in a no win situation.

You must eliminate disrespect and anger, first, despite what she does.

It takes more than "owning" it. It takes more than "choosing." It takes action. What are you going to DO?

Childcare is one of the most common conflicts in marriage. It's solvable. But not until you eliminate the disrespect and anger.

What are you going to DO? You need actual steps, not psychobabbly, feel good phrases.

Your first step is to eliminate disrespect and anger in yourself. Until you can do that, and can talk to her calmly despite your frustration, you need to shut up. And keep it shut.

This is the exchange I had with Dr. Harley on this topic:

The way you handle mornings when you feel so angry that you want to explode is you don't say or do anything other than to physically relax the muscles in your body until the adrenaline is purged from your bloodstream and you have calmed down.

If you are this angry you need to recognize that you are temporarily insane and are not capable of doing anything to make your problem better until your insanity is over.


It would be nice if your wife would also choose to not say or do anything when she feels angry, but she's not making that choice at this time. The only way she might make that choice is if you lead the way.

I have to ask, are you listening to the Marriage Builders Radio show on a daily basis? You really need a wholesale change in marital philosophy to get these ideas solidified in your mind enough that you will feel willing to override your emotions with logic and follow the plan that works to recover your marriage and stop the fighting. There should come a point where you recognize that your own anger is the problem!

You follow a post that says "I choose to be respectful" with a disrespectful post.

This statement is a disrespectful judgement. You need to STOP being disrespectful to your wife, even here on these boards. It has to start with you, do you see what we are saying? Yes I am sure there are many things your wife is doing to take units out of your lovebank. But you can't change her actions, you can only change your own.

What did she write in the text? Could you copy it here?