My wife is far to willing to say "I'm not going to discuss that any more." It takes almost nothing for her to decide that she's been wronged and is now justified in refusing to talk to me. Then suddenly I'm begging forgiveness for an unintentional fault -- all the while while she is refusing to apologize for things she does deliberately to hurt me when she is mad.

I know that I can only make thoughtful, respectful requests of my wife if I want to make love bank deposits. Therefore I can't demand that she talk to me about our problems until they are resolved, right?

But at what point do I get to say, "Okay, if we can't resolve it ourselves, can we get help?" She gets absolutely livid if I suggest we need to see a counselor. She won't negotiate with me to find a way to work out our problems; she won't apologize for or commit to cease love busters.

Do I have to come crawling to her begging her to talk to me and take me back whenever she thinks there is something wrong? Do I have to accept it that she will never apologize for anything herself?

Is it right for her to refuse to talk to me even about dividing up immediate childcare needs, just because she is upset?

Am I justified in saying, "Look, you won't talk to me, I won't talk to you, either"?

You already know the answer to all your questions about what is right. The thing you need to find out is how both of you can break this pattern of non-discussion. Start with a concrete example, rather than generalities. It is disrespectful of her to use words like "you always" and "you never", to her face, so try to get out of the habit of using such terms. If you could start with one issue, there are a lot of people here who have, or had, the same issue. They can tell you what worked for them, what doesn't work, and point you to some articles here addressing that very subject.

Okay, specifics.

She was unhappy with my sexual performance last night. She wasn't going to say anything to me about it, but I asked her to talk and was able to get a little bit of helpful information out of her. But all this was by email conversation during my work day, and at one point when I took too long, in her opinion, to respond, she burst out "so, what does it matter" which has been her way for a long time of telling me that I obviously do not care about her feelings and have decided to ignore her.

I was hurt that she took a productive conversation and used such a hurtful tool again and told her so, which made her completely angry with me and she told me in a non-polite way that she wasn't going to talk any more.

No apology has come from her at all on the subject. I've apologized for hurting her last night (totally unintentional) AND for accusing her of being angry and judgmental and for making her feel uncomfortable talking. She simply said "okay" to my apologies; didn't accept them or act as if they made any difference to her.

With her refusing to talk through this problem (and others still undealt with from previous discussions where we just gave up and quit talking about it), I told her that I want to go to counseling. We have been in counseling before. Each time we have stopped at a positive point, with a commitment to each other that we would go back if needed. She has never initially met a request from me for counseling in a positive way, though, indicating that she has no willingness to keep that commitment unless I drag her kicking and screaming (which I really don't want to do). So I feel the pain of complete emotional insecurity; I can't trust my wife's commitments, because it appears that she will say and do anything to get out of counseling and then not actually do what she said she would do.

Another example is that she promised me, long ago, that she would never refuse to talk about something permanently, that she would always give me a ballpark time at which she would come back to me willing to talk again. She has never kept that commitment. Our last counselor mentioned the idea completely independently to us, without knowing that I had requested that from her before and she had committed to it.

I am tired of getting the blame for my wife's poor sex life. I am trying to give her a STELLAR sex life, but there is only so much I can do with nearly zero communication from her on the subject. Many a time she has told me how angry she is about the subject, accused me of never taking care of her sexual needs (when the truth is I offer at times and she is uninterested, and many times I simply don't know what she wants). She seems to think I am selfish on the subject ... I'm not selfish; just CLUELESS. As many years as we have been married I think I should be an expert now, but she doesn't give me much help studying the subject. She doesn't seem to interpret frequent requests for her thoughts and feelings about sex as a sign that I care; she thinks I do not care about her at all. She resigned herself very prematurely to an unhappy sex life, before ever giving me a chance to learn how to tell what she wants, and without supplying any help interpreting her signals.

She allows me to fail, holds her anger in on the subject, and then explodes and vents it on me. For my part, I try to deal with issues promptly and politely, but whereas I would interpret "You seem upset; I'm sorry; could you tell me why you're hurting?" as a sign of love from my wife (I would fall head over heels in love with her if she would say things like this to me), she has always seen this as a mean thing to say.

Is it a selfish demand to ask my wife to keep a commitment she made?

Is it a disrespectful judgment to tell her that we are in the circumstances where it applies and that she is not keeping it? (I suppose it is a disrespectful judgment to say that she has never kept it, but it is true.)

Markos, welcome to MB! Good for you for being willing to discuss such a difficult subject. I can relate to coming here and reading the books to try to figure out if I was "right" to want what I wanted. Because if I was "wrong", I could try again to make do with less.

Markos, what I found here was a total change in thinking! That a marriage is where both folks work together for both folks to share all the things that are special and meaningful to them It took a long time, and developing long term friendships where we were each looking out for the others' common goals, to really internalize what I found. Do you have a mentor IRL? What do you think about that idea? What do you think about calling the Harleys as a marriage coach? I'm glad that you have Retread here, too.

Okay, so you were hurt how she closed the conversation. Actually, if you look at the Four Guidelines to Successful Negotiation, each person gets the safety to table the discussion. But using the Basic COncepts, you two can make these conversations ones that will make deposits instead of withdrawals. Until she will want to continue the discussion at a later time, not just be "willing to go along with it."

Do you Have His Needs Her Needs? Dr. Harley in his chapter on SF explains how this stuff isn't obvious, and recommends a book for further reading. Maybe she's just frustrated that you two aren't further along in that direction, but as you two start making progress together, that feeling will be replaced.

It's not a selfish demand, it's a thoughtful request, to ask her to keep a commitment. but if she's no longer enthusiastic about it, then it's time to renegotiate it, find something that both of you are enthusiastic about today.

It is a DJ to tell her that there's something wrong with her behavior. I think you'll get a lot further telling her you'd like to see an outside counselor yourself, than trying to push her through the door. As you get more familiar with the Basic Concepts, and get to know us here, you'll see there is a lot one partner can do to restore the love to a marriage. And that's the key. Once she's back in love with you, she'll love to talk with you, work things out with you, all of it.

She was unhappy with my sexual performance last night. She wasn't going to say anything to me about it, but I asked her to talk and was able to get a little bit of helpful information out of her. But all this was by email conversation during my work day, and at one point when I took too long, in her opinion, to respond, she burst out "so, what does it matter" which has been her way for a long time of telling me that I obviously do not care about her feelings and have decided to ignore her.

It appears to me that she has a mindset of not mattering to you. Where she got this from, only you could know. Do you have a history of Independent Behavior, making decisions for the both of you on your own, neglecting her?

I was hurt that she took a productive conversation and used such a hurtful tool again and told her so, which made her completely angry with me and she told me in a non-polite way that she wasn't going to talk any more

Have you come out and told her: "I feel so hurt and frustrated when you say that. It feels like a knife in my chest." Some people will respond to their actions when a visual is given.

No apology has come from her at all on the subject. I've apologized for hurting her last night (totally unintentional) AND for accusing her of being angry and judgmental and for making her feel uncomfortable talking. She simply said "okay" to my apologies; didn't accept them or act as if they made any difference to her.

Some people just don't know how to apologize or how to accept apologies. Don't get so hung up on what she is or isn't doing to damage the relationship. Concentrate on what you can control - yourself and what you say and do. You are not her conscience. My advice is to set a good example. Apologize how you'd like to be apologized to, and accept any possible apologies how you would like yours to be accepted. You can drive yourself crazy waiting for her to behave like you think she should. Just concentrate on yourself for now. You are not her teacher either, so just set the example without instructing.

Based on the posts I've read from you, I would say there's a real issue of communication breakdown.

I would suggest that you exercise daily your communication style (you, not her) and don't tell her what you're doing either. Take an ordinary subject - something you've read in the paper or something going on at work. Tell yourself that your goal is to have a normal, decent conversation with her, and in the flow of that conversation, you're going to ask her opinion of something. You're going to maintain eye contact, not interrupt. You're going to mirror and validate. You're going to, through daily consistent conversations show her that you're capable of listening and hearing her out, of wanting and respecting her opinion.

Don't wait for a relationship conversation (sex, affection, yadda yadda) to demonstrate what a great and respectful conversationalist you are. The subject matter already puts the odds against you. Choose a mundane topic, and show her through consistent daily exercises that you're a good and respectful listener who values her opinion.

Later on, when you two can carry on conversations on a regular basis without it ending badly, you'll have had plenty of practice for the conversations that involve your relationship.

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Have you two filled out the LB questionnaires?

Markos, y�all seem to be entrenched into this pattern of poor communication and while you have a lot of valid desires to result from communication, until it becomes a safe and productive place none of those desires will be met.

���My wife is far to willing to say "I'm not going to discuss that any more."���

Why do you think she does this? It sure sounds like a self-preservation/self-defense mechanism to me. In other words she�s communicating that further discussion will inflict harm and you are not in a position to determine what it takes to get her to this place but you are in position to try to communicate safely in a manner that shy�s her away from feeling the need to go there by practicing active listening, validating her thoughts, and keeping your responses respectful.

���Is it right for her to refuse to talk to me even about dividing up immediate childcare needs, just because she is upset?���

If it�s right is of absolutely no matter, it�s how it is, it�s how y�all have made it. Don�t focus on right or wrong, focus on improving.

���Am I justified in saying, "Look, you won't talk to me, I won't talk to you, either"?���

If you�d like to do more harm to your relationship rather than good then go for it. Seems rather childish to me. I see a lot of right/wrong, justified/not justified in your post. Some serious black/white thinking and there is nothing wrong with that, many are black/white thinkers but by the same token many are grey thinkers and you have to be able to see that.

����But all this was by email conversation during my work day, and at one point when I took too long, in her opinion, to respond, she burst out "so, what does it matter" which has been her way for a long time of telling me that I obviously do not care about her feelings and have decided to ignore her.���

First and foremost, NEVER have a serious relationship conversation via text message or e-mail. AVOID this at all costs. An e-mail or a text message cannot truly convey emotion and since most communication is non-verbal (i.e. voice deflection, body language, eye contact, etc) it truly is ineffective. And second, �So, what does it matter�, that is her feeling, her thought, her opinion, and it�s valid. You can be butt hurt all day long but the fact is that she conveyed a feeling/emotion to you and how did you respond? You responded by �I was hurt that she took a productive conversation and used such a hurtful tool again and told her so, which made her completely angry�. So she conveyed an emotion and your response was a lecture? And thus her response was to end the conversation. I don�t know about you but if I�m having a conversation where I don�t feel anything productive is going to come out of it, I stop it. So evaluate your communication and see where it�s breaking down, it�s likely a similar cycle and change your response.

���No apology has come from her at all on the subject. I've apologized for hurting her last night (totally unintentional) AND for accusing her of being angry and judgmental and for making her feel uncomfortable talking. She simply said "okay" to my apologies; didn't accept them or act as if they made any difference to her.���

OK. Again no need to keep score, so you apologized for your LOVE BUSTERS. Let�s see, you �unintentional� hurt her, ACCUSED her �obviously intentional� of being angry, ACCUSED her �obviously intentional� of being judgmental, and admittedly made communication uncomfortable. OK, that is 4 Love Busters from that one conversation. If each Love Buster takes 36 Love Bank deposits to cover then those 4 Love Busters just cost you 144 Deposits. I�m presuming you didn�t make 144 deposits that day so the love bank for that day is definitely in the red. Now if this is a cycle, which you indicate that it is, what do you think her long term Love Bank balance is?

���I told her that I want to go to counseling.���

GREAT, go to counseling to work on your communication skills. Even better, counsel with the Harley�s. Dude, your focus here is totally blurred. You�re so busy and intently focused on her that you�ve made yourself blurry and can�t see you. You can only control you, PERIOD. Work on you. Work on you communicating. Work on you making love deposits. Work on you. Get her love bank in the black and I bet, I bet she�ll notice.

���Another example is that she promised me, long ago, that she would never refuse to talk about something permanently,���

I would permanently refuse, if we must use those dramatic terms, to talk about pretty much any issue if I felt it were pointless or didn�t feel safe in doing so.

���I am tired of getting the blame for my wife's poor sex life.���

Obviously, sex seems to be a big issue with y�all. Can you expound on exactly what she has communicated to you in the past about it. And the challenge is to do it in a respectful manner.

���She doesn't seem to interpret frequent requests for her thoughts and feelings about sex as a sign that I care; she thinks I do not care about her at all. She resigned herself very prematurely to an unhappy sex life, before ever giving me a chance to learn how to tell what she wants, and without supplying any help interpreting her signals.���

WOW, dude look at how often your reading into her thoughts and presuming what things mean and taking no accountability in the above sentence. I mean seriously, can you see that? So what has worked in the bedroom and what hasn�t. If something hasn�t, are you still doing it? Does she reach orgasm everytime you�re together? I mean come on, sex ain�t rocket science, close but not exactly, and there is a TON of help in that area.

���Is it a selfish demand to ask my wife to keep a commitment she made?��� YES

���Is it a disrespectful judgment to tell her that we are in the circumstances where it applies and that she is not keeping it?���

Again YES

The good news is that that's not a change in thinking for me at all. I entered marriage with that kind of thinking. Unfortunately, my wife did not, and years of trying to communicate to her that we should do this and that it can work (and by work I mean make her ecstatically happy, not to mention me) have been unsuccessful.


Yes, I do. I have a male friend who listens to all of my problems and provides reams of encouragement and emotional support. He has seen me through some very tough times and I know I can rely on him in the future. I know that even if I had to "make do with less," he could support me well enough to survive. But I want to do more than survive. I want everything Dr. Harley promises a marriage can have.


That is my preferred course of action right now. But my wife does not want to do that at all.


I want her to have that safety. But she always makes tabling the discussion a love buster, and always attempts to make it permanent. I want to hear "I'm sorry, but I'm too upset to go on right now [or even I'm sorry but YOU'RE too upset for us to go on right now]; can we put this aside for now and talk about it tomorrow [or next week ... some rough time commitment]" and then see the commitment followed up on.

We have a list of problems we need to deal with. She will say or do nearly anything to avoid dealing with them.


Yep, I know that. Dying for that to happen!!! Will do anything to bring that about!!!

I need to show my wife that this can happen, and how wonderful it can be.


Yes, we have his and her copies, and probably an extra or two somewhere. And:
Love Busters (his and her copies)
HNHN for Parents
HNHN for Parents DVD course (I think that's the title)
and the Love Busters and His Needs Her Needs study kits/audio CDs

I am a big fan of Dr. Harley's teachings!

Also have:
5 love languages
5 love languages of apology
Everybody Wins: Chapman guide to solving conflicts without arguing
Love and Respect
Cracking the Communication Code

But Dr. Harley's instruction is my model for how I think about marriage.


Sounds great! I just wish I could convince her that is possible!


I'm willing to do that. But she's not willing to negotiate. I think she truly doesn't understand.

She's not willing to try to understand my perspective on issues, and she's not willing to brainstorm solutions (she responds by simply declaring things are hopeless). I think she simply doesn't know how to. And she doesn't know that it can work.


If the only way she responds to that is unenthusiastically, though, then I should not do it because of the policy of joint agreement, right?


Looking forward to it ... and looking forward to the day when my wife is looking forward to it!

No joke. Unfortunately it's pretty much the only means of communication about relationship issues that she is enthusiastic about.

I wish I could pick up the phone and talk to her during the day. It sure was fun when we were dating.

I think alot of it depends on how you "discuss" things.

If you are having a lot of give and take, with thoughtful requests, then she should not be telling you she won't discuss it anymore.

If you are berating her and trying to make her change how she feels and she feels unsafe and overwhelmed, then she is using a coping mechanism to deal with that buy saying she won't discuss it anymore.

On the sex thing: how much responsibility does your W take for the quality of her sex life? Does she ever, erm, man the helm? Take the wheel? Drive the train? I would encourage her to do that.

On the conversation and issue-discussion: do you tend to take an 'educators' approach to these discussions? Do you tend to point out how wrong she is? That's a fast way to shut down a conversation. When I figure out what to do instead, I'll let you know.

If she's the one putting up the walls, then she has to be open and honest about why she is doing it, and what it takes for him to avoid triggering her to put up the walls.

I get the impression she has the "electric fence personality" Dr Harley describes. Once she runs into the fence, she shuts down, rather than trying to find a way to keep moving, but avoid the fence.

I could be wrong, as I'm only hearing one side.

I do understand the frustration of dealing with a spouse who shuts down and shuts someone out who is genuinely trying to resolve an issue to the mutual benefit of both parties in the relationship.

Markos...was your wife always like this - withdrawn and resigned and angry?

Pretty much, yes. We dated for nearly a year before I proposed, and she and I were both ecstatically happy during that time. During our engagement, I started to notice her becoming withdrawn rather than talking about things that were bothering her. I did everything I could to tell her that it was all right with me to bring problems to me and ask me to change and/or work on them and/or brainstorm solutions to them.

Once we were married, the very first time something did not go as she expected, she shut down. I don't think she understood the learning curve I was going to face learning how to please her sexually, and I don't think my assurances that I would do whatever it took to make her happy gave her any confidence or good feeling at all. So there were several early incidents of confusion and miscommunication on that topic which resulted in her becoming withdrawn and early on resigning herself to unhappiness in the bedroom. One day early in our marriage I woke her up in the morning to get ready to leave to somewhere we had planned to go, and she felt the way in which I woke her was rude and horrible, and shut down and refused to talk to me all day.

We bumped along still mostly happy for the first year or two, but over time her increasing unhappiness resulted in my increasing unhappiness, and eventually I started handling things in very negative ways, with angry outbursts.

We put a lot of things back together last year and were able to achieve a day to day happiness that has been very pleasant for both of us. Most of the time we have not had fights and have been making each other quite happy. But there are still a lot of unresolved problems, things we "don't talk about." Things we want to talk about, and need to talk about, because they are taking away from our marital happiness.

We are making love bank deposits again, thanks to the improvements we saw last year. But unresolved issues are making withdrawals, and we can't seem to approach those issues without making withdrawals.

That sounds a lot like what is going on. Where can I read more about Dr. Harley's "electric fence personality" concept?

I do want to be fair and say that my wife has made GREAT STRIDES toward being able to talk to me about things. The entire first part of the conversation yesterday would not have happened a year ago. We are getting there, and I need to be more patient with that.

Well, I don't think I was berating her when she got mad at me. Is it berating to say "Hey, I don't think what you said just now was very nice to me? Would you please not include that in this discussion?"

Believe it or not, we have daily conversations that are quite good. It's just the relationship things that we (usually) can't talk about.


Yes we have, although it has been awhile since I looked at them. I took the opportunity to read through what she said just now. I'm happy to say I've eliminated or improved dramatically on a lot of these. Right off the bat I see:
* "Puts my feelings down and acts as if they're not important or are stupid" - I can tell that's how she feels about our conversation yesterday

Okay, now we're moving into talking about how hurt she is by the whole fight. This depressed me, because my immediate thought is "When are we going to get to talk about how it makes me feel?"

She sent me an angry email earlier saying "you abandoned me." This is true; I left last night when she was refusing to speak to me, and I didn't come home until she was in bed.

So I tried to respond as best I could, without any love busters: "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do to change that right now. I do love you. I get increasingly desperate when I don't feel loved."

Her response later, in italics: "You abandoned me."

Now my natural reaction is anger. She abandoned me, too, when she was refusing to speak to me. But again I swallow my pride; I said: "Okay; I admit that, and I am sorry for the pain I have caused you. I don't know what you want me to do."

I don't want to hear it again right now unless she's willing to talk about my feelings, too. Will it be a love buster if I say that, assuming she says this a third time?

Yes it would be a Love Buster and would add to the in the subsequent conversation. If you'll notice earlier you mentioned that she feels as if you don't think her feelings are important or stupid. In your response to "You Abandoned me" the first time you again showed this, sure you offered a quick apology, didn't validate her feelings and then it ALL became about you.

And why did you leave in the first place, to punish her? What are some healthier choices you could have made?

How do I respectfully and lovingly end the conversation, then? I don't have to listen if I don't want to, right? Isn't that part of the policy of joint agreement?

I just don't think it's right to have to sit there and listen to myself berated by her for something that she essentially did herself.


Can you suggest a better way to respond? I honestly need help here seeing my responses through her eyes, and figuring out what kind of responses would make her happy instead.


Because I couldn't see the situation going anywhere other than me getting very angry and making things worse. I didn't want to sit there and subject myself to pain.

Same as her: she doesn't want to talk to me because it subjects her to pain. Fair's fair, I say.


Any guidance in that regard would be appreciated. I don't have any room in my house where I can go to be alone when something like this is going on.