No, I'm not going to come back at you; you are exactly right.

I can see that far down the path, just haven't walked there, yet.

I don't think I'm capable of A, at least not without some medication or a blow to the head or something. But, I'm probably wrong!

For now I don't think I can handle "Wait and tell Steve," so I'm thinking I maybe need to take these opportunities to practice thoughtful requests that we discuss matters and renegotiate. I actually I think I might be getting a little bit better at that. But since I felt that avenue wasn't open to me, I waited, and that simply doesn't seem to work, right now.

Would've been great just to hear "I don't want to go there" in regards to what I thought had been planned that day. Or even "I hate this stupid time change and it turns out I can't make it anywhere this morning, so let's just forget it."

Well, I hope that's what it was. Not sure though since my wife says I was love busting all weekend. But I'm optimistic that I'll find out what that was all about, sooner or later, and preparing myself to react in a way that builds love rather than tears it down.

And my wife says the major love buster was ...

... when I told her that I did not have an anniversary gift for her.

And I recognize that I should have had one.

Focus Markos, keep your energy focused on what you can control, yourself and don�t go making assumptions about your wife. Heck, maybe she�s thinking the exact same thing about you�lol� Focus on you.


Have you looked at the Recreational Activities Questionaire. Man that�s full of interesting stuff that sometimes we don�t even think about that we can do together. Some things can be a huge success and some a huge failure�lol�. My wife and I both love to cook, so it�s only natural to think that we should cook together� WRONG�lol� We don�t do so well at that�haha� But we recognize that and now our idea of cooking together is me manning the grill outside while she does the other. Or one will cook and the other keeps �em company.


Is that realistic? Again focus on what you can control. I�d love to spend time with my wife in the morning but here�s the problem, SHE HATES MORNINGS� So me asking her to get up with me at 5:30 is a no brainer. Sure she�d like to do it but the bottom line is it surely is a short term gain and long term loss for us. I�ve been blessed by being an early bird trapped in a night owls body, so we�re able to 4-5 hours after the kids go to bed. That to me is definitely something I can deal with is ensuring that the kiddo�s are to bed on time so mommy and daddy have their time.


You may not think so now but you are and you can be, it�s all about choice. Times like that for me, I have to look at the BIG PICTURE. Will being late to whatever it is or miss whatever it is destroy my life or cause infinite harm to my family, if the answer is no then what�s the point of getting worked up over it. It just doesn�t matter in the big picture therefore it doesn�t matter. As I see it, if I let someone get me all worked up like that then my emotions become their prostitute to do with as they please. Dude, I totally lived that life pimping my emotions out to many different people, places, and things but today I just can�t. My emotions are mine. I own them. I keep them in check and they are no longer for rent.


And I�m sure that Steve will work with y�all on that whole Love Busting thing. Main thing now is to eliminate those LB�rs you know about and consistently ACT in a way that builds love. I�m telling you man, there is little need to worry about learning new exciting and different ways to REACT if you�re constantly ACTing out of love. That may sound trivial to you but I�m telling you it huge, I�m still reading Victim in your posts and you are not going to build a successful loving intimate marriage if you are a victim, you just aren�t. We have to squash that way of thinking. You are powerful��

Seriously dude, that's pretty huge, you definately dropped the ball on that one. I don't know about your wife but one of my wife's top Love Languages is gifts which is foreign to me because mine is Words of Affirmation so we've had some learning to do. I love to write poetry and I can write the most beautiful poem for my wife and she's like that's nice, but if I come home from the store with a candy bar, or a pair of slippers, or some 5 buck friday flowers all a sudden I'm the Dapper Don of love.... Do you know what her love languages are?

WOW. That is a huge LB. Wasn't this your 10 year? How did you blow it this big? Why, markos, why???

When I think how upset I was over valentine's day...well...I'm just glad you lived to tell the tale! lol.

No, it wasn't.


Well, the full answer is that I did give her a TRIP. I never really thought explicitly that the trip was taking the place of some other gift; it's just that getting the trip in place consumed my thinking so much that I forgot to think about getting a gift.

I did buy her an anniversary card, which I screwed up and didn't think about bringing on the trip...

My wife and I are in exactly the same situation.

I knew the minute it came out of my mouth that I had screwed up drastically because gifts are my wife's love language.

Man oh Man, I know it ain't funny but I can't stop giggling, my co-workers are starting to look at me funny......lol..... But seriously man, I feel ya on the whole "the trip" is the gift but you know as well as I do that that don't fly. I've done those for my wife as well and even though we agree that we're doing this for us as a gift to us I ALWAYS GET HER A PRESENT. Some may say that I'm breaking a deal by doing so or getting the shaft because I don't get a present in return, my gift is the appreciation she shows afterwards.... From hence forward, always, always, always, always get a gift Markos, ALWAYS, ya dig? Get her a birthday gift, get her a anniversary gift, get her a valentine's gift, get her a Monday gift, get her a Friday gift...lol... Seriously, being married to someone who's love language is Gifts is the easiest thing in the world once you figure that out. Straight up, I do the books in my house because my wife hates all those numbers, if the budget I do there is money every two weeks in there for gifts budgeted because every 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks I'm getting her a gift. Some are small, ie her favorite candy bar and some are big like diamonds. No matter how big or how small each one she gets, she knows that I took time to pick that out for her, I was thinking of only her, and she feels that love. Ready for the funny part, I give a gift she feels love and out come those words of affirmation that I thrive on. We're in a viscious circle of love, it's great and again it's all about choices. If I chose not to show my love through a gift for 6 weeks, 8 weeks, or 3 months she may make the same choice. ACT out of love always and there's no need to react......

My wife is asking me this morning if our marriage is worth saving, and why.

Any tips for encouraging her?

I'm not really sure any encouragement I offer is going to matter right now, since it's coming from me.

How is any encouragement from the clueless dingbat who keeps busting holes in her love bucket going to ever sound encouraging?

OK great, now that you have that out of your system you ready to move onward and upward?

Here's my penny's for the day. There was a reason your wife chose to date and then marry you. Unless she was isolated from the world in a little bubble where you were the only man she got to see then she made a choice to be with you. She chose you. And hey, despite how you feel about the conversation this morning she still is chosing you. Granted she chose you initially during a whole different period of life when kids and jobs weren't so valued and y'all had more time to just be with each other. I'm willing to bet that you layed down some charm and woo'd her a little to seal the deal..... Am I right?

Well then life happens, kids, jobs, responsibility, etc. Well all that has led us to today. Where's the charm? Where's the woo'ing? Sure you just took her away for a weekend but seriously during your dating period didn't you "bring it" everyday? Heck maybe you didn't, I don't know, but most guys I know did. And most women I know want that. Us guy folks, like hunters, do what it takes to get the girl but then we forget about the thrill of the hunt once we have our prize leaving the ladies wanting what once was......

Honestly, Markos, you got nothing to say to her in response to her question this morning but you got plenty you can show her? Don't you? Woo that woman...... Show her that she made an awesome choice in chosing you....

I think I'm not communicating well here, Bill. I'm not discouraged ... she is! I know that this marriage is worth saving, and I know that some point in the future she is going to know that, too.

Despite the fact that I referred to myself as a "clueless dingbat," I am not actually beating myself up, nor am I wallowing in despair. I know it might have looked like that from my words. What I'm trying to do is simply acknowledge a reality that Steve Harley communicated both to me and my wife: even if what I say to her is completely accurate, I'm probably the wrong person for her to receive it from right now. I've still committed love busters in the recent past, I've still recently been the source of her greatest unhappiness.

Thus I'd say it's unlikely that anything I say right now is going to be very encouraging to her, today.

As for being a hunter, I've been doing what I think it takes to win the girl every day for six years, and I don't need to be told about the importance of that. It's not a matter of me needing to be motivated to go out and fight the fight every day and keep pursuing her. I am seriously motivated.

Right now we have an encouraged husband and a discouraged wife.

Here's my problem:

I'm at work for the rest of the day.

Our contact is pretty much limited to email.

I could call her, but phone calls are always awkward (see above for some details of the specific situation ... I'm still looking for tips as to how to use the phone to deposit love units during the day).

And as I noted above, my wife's love language is gifts. Not words of affirmation, like me.

Short of buying her something online, there's not a whole lot I can do right now, for the moment, to deposit love units in my wife's love bank. When I get home, yes, I can do a lot about that, and I plan to.

But for the next several hours, she's home alone, feeling discouraged, loaded with the job of taking care of our children and house.

And in my long list of reasons I sent her why we should save our marriage, mentioning that the sex will be FANTASTIC was apparently not the thing to say.

I wonder if she read any of the rest of the list.

Good, glad to hear it. And you're right there may not be a lot you can do today but you reach into that "outside the box" thinking and there's plenty that can be done. Little notes and or surprises stratigically placed, not over the top just fun. Get those creative juices flowing man.......

You can send her flowers and have them delivered.

Again, you really have nothing to say and I'm hoping you're figuring that out. Again SLOW DOWN, there was absolutely postively no reason for to send her a list, none..... Had you asked the forum if you should have the answer would have been HECK NO. Slow down, focus on you and your actions.

No, I'm not figuring that out. I'm at a loss: when my wife asks me why our marriage is worth saving, why should I not respond, and what should I say instead? If I need to back out of the conversation, how do I do that gracefully?

Markos, obviously we're not privvy to how the conversation started or where it's heading but typically speaking, a statement like that from her would be an excellent opportunity for practice those active listening skills, maybe you did or maybe you reacted out of emotion, we just don't know. I do know that if my wife were to come at me with that, more than likely she just wants to communicate to me how bad she feels. She doesn't want steps to feel better, she doesn't want a list, she just simply wants me to know how she is feeling. And if I react to it rather than slow it down and actively listen then I can miss a truly intimate moment with her.