Confessions of a Novice Marriage Builder - 03/31/10 04:10 PM
I've been coming to this form for almost a year now. Reading and absorbing all the information. I thought I'd step in and introduce myself. I've been hesitant to do so, but I'll explain that in a bit.
I'm 28, DH and I have been married about 4 1/2 years and just welcomed the most precious baby on the planet into our lives 4 months ago. My parents divorced when I was 2 and my mother commenced what has become a 25 year affairage that has at least produced 3 awesome sisters for me. Because of my mess of a childhood I vowed to never get married until I met a man who I absolutely could not refuse. Our marriage has been pretty darn good - I don't think we ever really left the 'honeymoon' phase. Sure things have been rough but we've been crazy in love the whole time. I thought it was just that we were lucky. Coming here, I've realized we've done A LOT of things right from day one.
One of the first things that attracted us to each other is we could be Radically Honest about everything with one another.
We meet Emotional Needs almost effortlessly - we took the questionnaire a few months ago and our top 4 are almost identical. The questionnaire was helpful, however because though the needs are the same in importance the way we want them met is different. Before we were shooting in the dark and just happened to be hitting our targets. Now we know how to meet our needs.
We by nature avoid Love Busters, which is saying something as we both have the typical Hispanic tempers. We've just made it a point to never turn them on each other. We both looked at the Love Busters Questionnaire and as we went down the list all we could say is 'You don't do this, you don't do that' That's not to say we don't occasionally Love Bust but I think our Banks are so high the rare Love Buster doesn't really register much. I have, however found some Love Busters in my behavior that occasionally occur and I've worked hard to limit those.
We implemented POJA small ways throughout our marriage so expanding it has been, though not easy, a bit more natural. (we actually hit upon this system in a really funny way)
We have had struggles. I have a natural tendency to just take charge and steam roll ahead on things, and my DH has a tendency he learned from his father to just sit back and let me take control to avoid 'rocking the boat'. I'm just like his mother in this so he's seen this pattern of behavior before. We're trying to change this. I need a partner, not an employee/ subordinate. And his thoughts and feeling are relevant to the decisions our family has to make.
There have been other struggles but I've found as we approach issues as a team rather than opponents we do so much better.
Anyways that's me/ us. I am adamantly committed to a good marriage. I will NOT give my daughter the life I was given. And just avoiding Divorce is not good enough. I want to be crazy in love with my DH for the rest of our lives. Thats what I love about the MB system. It gives us the tools to shape our natural tendencies to create just that.
This site has so many valuable tools. It saved me from a friendship that could easily have become an EA. I was in step 1 of that 15 step list to an affair and being here showed me how easily I could walk that path. It taught me about EPs so I can put them into place and affair-proof my marriage.
Can you get that I love this place?
But there is so much pain and anguish here too. So many people struggling with things I've never had to face, and I hope to use these tools to avoid those things. Infidelity, withdrawal, etc. I've been hesitant to post because who want's to take advice from someone who hasn't been there and done that? But so many of y'all are my heroes. I want to contribute, but I feel so small compared to some of y'all but we often learn best by teaching and conversing with others so I'm dippin' my toe in here.
Also I figure this would be a good spot for me to ask questions whenever we hit any road bumps along the way - keeping it in one thread as it were
I'm 28, DH and I have been married about 4 1/2 years and just welcomed the most precious baby on the planet into our lives 4 months ago. My parents divorced when I was 2 and my mother commenced what has become a 25 year affairage that has at least produced 3 awesome sisters for me. Because of my mess of a childhood I vowed to never get married until I met a man who I absolutely could not refuse. Our marriage has been pretty darn good - I don't think we ever really left the 'honeymoon' phase. Sure things have been rough but we've been crazy in love the whole time. I thought it was just that we were lucky. Coming here, I've realized we've done A LOT of things right from day one.
One of the first things that attracted us to each other is we could be Radically Honest about everything with one another.
We meet Emotional Needs almost effortlessly - we took the questionnaire a few months ago and our top 4 are almost identical. The questionnaire was helpful, however because though the needs are the same in importance the way we want them met is different. Before we were shooting in the dark and just happened to be hitting our targets. Now we know how to meet our needs.
We by nature avoid Love Busters, which is saying something as we both have the typical Hispanic tempers. We've just made it a point to never turn them on each other. We both looked at the Love Busters Questionnaire and as we went down the list all we could say is 'You don't do this, you don't do that' That's not to say we don't occasionally Love Bust but I think our Banks are so high the rare Love Buster doesn't really register much. I have, however found some Love Busters in my behavior that occasionally occur and I've worked hard to limit those.
We implemented POJA small ways throughout our marriage so expanding it has been, though not easy, a bit more natural. (we actually hit upon this system in a really funny way)
We have had struggles. I have a natural tendency to just take charge and steam roll ahead on things, and my DH has a tendency he learned from his father to just sit back and let me take control to avoid 'rocking the boat'. I'm just like his mother in this so he's seen this pattern of behavior before. We're trying to change this. I need a partner, not an employee/ subordinate. And his thoughts and feeling are relevant to the decisions our family has to make.
There have been other struggles but I've found as we approach issues as a team rather than opponents we do so much better.
Anyways that's me/ us. I am adamantly committed to a good marriage. I will NOT give my daughter the life I was given. And just avoiding Divorce is not good enough. I want to be crazy in love with my DH for the rest of our lives. Thats what I love about the MB system. It gives us the tools to shape our natural tendencies to create just that.
This site has so many valuable tools. It saved me from a friendship that could easily have become an EA. I was in step 1 of that 15 step list to an affair and being here showed me how easily I could walk that path. It taught me about EPs so I can put them into place and affair-proof my marriage.
Can you get that I love this place?
But there is so much pain and anguish here too. So many people struggling with things I've never had to face, and I hope to use these tools to avoid those things. Infidelity, withdrawal, etc. I've been hesitant to post because who want's to take advice from someone who hasn't been there and done that? But so many of y'all are my heroes. I want to contribute, but I feel so small compared to some of y'all but we often learn best by teaching and conversing with others so I'm dippin' my toe in here.
Also I figure this would be a good spot for me to ask questions whenever we hit any road bumps along the way - keeping it in one thread as it were