I don't have free time to come here and learn as much, and as often as I would like to. My day is really filled, and little is left for internet time.

My wife spends a fair deal of time on the internet at home, spread throughout the day.

I feel like my wife is often using marriage builders as a "weapon" against me, for every tiny little thing - any faults I have seem to become "annoying habits" or "deal breakers"and I feel as though and I am being held to a such a high standard of perfection (faultless-ness) that no man can ever hope to possibly achieve that level.

When I explain to her how she hurts me with her annoying habits and disrespectful attitude towards me, she says I am making "disrepectful judgements" or "selfish demands"of her, but it isn't true.

I feel beaten down. My wife very, very seldom ever apologizes for anything, even things that are very obvious to anyone that she should be apologizing for, but she often refuses. She likes to play the "blame game"; that all of the problem we have is all my fault and that she isn't responsible for any damage to our marriage. Anytime I confront her in truthfulness about her actions, she just gets upset and says I am making disrespectful judgements or selfish demands, when I am not asking for anything out of the ordinary.

I need a "shield", please.

Also please go easy on the acronyms at first... like I said very little time is available on the internet each day and I don't have a lot of time to research what they mean.

It may just be difficulty with the written word and not what you meant but when I read....

"I confront her in truthfulness about her actions"

I don't hear

"I try to discuss my perception of her actions in a calm productive manner".

It sounds like you both are too focused on the other guy instead of worrying about their side of the street.

That being said, there may, in fact, be "truthfulness" to your interpretation or not. I don't know and I'm not a gray area kind of guy. You may very well be right. She may very well be right too. However, you wouldn't be the first person that had a spouse use MB in a passive aggressive manner. Usually it's POJA (Policy of Joint Agreement - See "Basic Concepts" if you haven't read it) that becomes the real problem whereupon a spouse uses the "poja stick" to control/micromanage everything their spouse does while at the same ceding no control of themselves.

Most of the time this is OK as you're both learning. The first year of recovery or implementing MB methods you're supposed to be learning the concepts and just "practicing". You won't perfect it for a long time and it gets easier once your feelings for each other start taking an upswing and you begin caring more about the others perspectives and opinions. For example, when you were courting her for marriage if she had told you something you said was disrespectful...you'd have been jumping through hoops in order to apologize for offending her. As you learn the vocab and begin to apply these principles/methods expect mistakes. She, too, needs to be careful with her labeling of your behaviors as that could be a lovebuster as well not to mention she may be mistaken.

Focus on the 15 hours a week of undivided attention and just try to be tolerant of her mistakes (leading the way for her being tolerant of yours) and find some recreational activities you both are enthusiastic about. PRACTICE the other stuff. I promise she'll do better once she's in love with you.

Mr. Wondering

Can you give us some examples of annoying habits or disrespectful judgments on the part of your wife, that you are complaining about and she is dismissing?

Take note that it is not disrespectful of her to complain; it's important in a good marriage for both husband and wife to be able to complain.

Have you read this?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8115_prob.html

Ernie, man, that's too bad to take a good program meant to give families the tools to create a happy life together, and then use it to make a spouse more miserable. It's state of conflict talking, she may still see it as a battle of you vs. her. How about reading up on respectful persuasion and having a fun, light discussion with her about seeing things as for the marriage or against the marriage? As in what we wouldn't do for our spouse, we would still do for the marriage. And everything we do affects our marriage positively or negatively. So instead of using words like "deal-breakers" she can look at it as "things we will look back together and laugh about one day."

It's great information to get a list of 100 AHs - annoying habits, it helps you understand her better. She'd probably be highly motivated to reread that article together because it's something she has an interest in. It says in there to keep writing them down, but just work on them one at a time, and by like the 3rd one or so the rest won't bother her nearly so much. It'll give you two a boost of positive momentum and practice working together as a team.

I remember being in State of Conflict and even some tv shows used to grate on my nerves. But over time, as I felt protected and loved again, a lot of that stuff didn't grab my attention anymore. And the stuff that still grabs my attention, I know I can bring up and we will find a solution that makes us both happy. What do you think?

Hi Ernie,

can you be more specific about you marriage problems? Would you like to use MB to fix your marriage?

It sounds like she may need to spend a little less time on the Internet to me. It creates a lot of unrealistic expectations for both men and women. I don't know how you do that, but I think it would help.

My sister-in-law also blamed her husband (my brother) for everything that didn't go right for them. He soon realized that her mother had done the same thing to her husband. My brother talked to her about it, and she is actually doing much better. When a spouse is able to stop playing the blame game, it helps them work together to make things better. That's what you need. She needs to stop the blame game and start working together with you.

This is my H guys. My thread is over on the Marriage 101 board. I doubt he will post again soon.

He posted before on 101 board and he had this very conversation with me that day before he posted here.

The day he screamed at me on our front porch making my mom (who was on the phone) cry and my girls cry while telling me I treat him like a dog as I have no right to tell him what to do while he is home.
He wants me to apologize for texting him to stop chopping down trees (which caused the horrific scene), for trying to "control" him and for talking to my mom about the incident.? Um, she was on the phone when this outburst occurred!

He has since come up with more names to call me for refusing (nicely) but the subject has been dropped for now.
I have never used the word "deal breaker". However, I have made it clear that I will NOT live in an Angry, disrespectful marriage and he can choose to learn how to live with me (by taking anger management to start with)or he can choose not too.I really am not looking for perfection but he says that no one can never be angry.

Anyhow, I don't think I am suppose to post on his thread so I will just point you to both of our original boards.