Dr. Harley advises spending most of your leisure time together and to not build individual lives. However, because of my H's social anxiety, I participate in most of my favorite recreational activities alone. He refuses to treat the social anxiety in any way. Parties, weddings, dinners with friends, and specifically my ten-year reunion are just a few examples of those activities. Currently, I decline most invitations to get-togethers with our friends and family. I am less willing to decline wedding invitations because I feel the rejection is socially rude, especially to close family and friends, and I absolutely love going to weddings.

Also, attending my reunion alone hurt me immensely. I asked him politely and calmly if he wanted to go with me. After a positive response from him, I bought both of our tickets. Five days before the reunion, he opened up to me and said that he did not feel comfortable attending the reunion. I felt embarrassed and abandoned at the reunion. I am tired of making up excuses explaining his absences to our friends and family.

In addition, I am a SAHM of a two-year-old and desperately desire to have some "mommy and daddy" time out of the house. Babysitting money is amply available. We both are amateur radio operators; he and I both love this activity. I suggest making amateur radio events "dates" for us, but he insists upon bringing our two-year-old with us every time. He wants the events to serve as a family outing. The last time I expressed my frustration, he opened his laptop and stopped responding to me.

As an additional note, we have taken both Love Busters and His Needs, Her Needs classes through our church. He hated the experience, did not like sharing with the group, and tried none of the strategies because he felt I was "beating up on him" and not trying the strategies myself. Through the books, we discovered my H's #1 EN is recreational companionship. My #1 EN is sexual fulfillment; I thought that fulfilling his EN with amateur radio would lead to SF. Unfortunately, it has not. He is aware of my EN, but I honestly believe he ignores it out of convenience.

The question is, "Should I continue to give up social activities and sexual fulfillment and to meet his every need while I feel if as my soul is dying? What advice can anyone give me?" Crying in the bathroom while my child watches PBS for hours is not healthy for any one involved.

jn, how long have you been married?

I want to mention that my husband is anti-social and hates most of the events you mention. WE rarely go because he doesn't enjoy them. I don't feel in the least deprived, though, because we have a very active, integrated romantic relationship. In truth, we somewhat resent the intrusion and are very choosy about the few we do attend.

My point is that if you create an integrated, romantic relationship, you won't be as eager to go to those events because you will not like giving up your alone time with him.


This is very cocerning and indicates that you are more concerned about the feelings of family and freinds than your husbands feelings. I decline many events that my H and I don't enthusiastically agree to attend and none of my family think it is "rude." If they did, I would conclude they don't care much about my feelings.

I suspect that your indepednet behavior has caused a huge wedge in your marriage, so that is where I would start. Your husband will be more likely to work with you if you stop the lovebusters.


Your husband did the right thing in telling you his feelings and declining. It would have been much worse if he would gone given his negative feelings. The problem is that you went without his agreement. I would have skipped the reunion and done something fun with my husband, telling my family and friends that we decided not to go.

The worst thing you can do is wrest reluctant agreements from your husband. It creates enormous resentment on both sides and creates incompatibility. I can tell that you and your husband have created a very incompatible marriage by failing to reach enthusiastic agreements and practicing independent behavior. WE can help you turn this around.

Are you lovebusting when you express this frustration? Lovebusting elimination is step one for everyone when they show here.

Social events are just parties. You can show support for a marriage without going to a wedding. Heck the people who went to my wedding (probably 'not to be rude') were useless when it really mattered.

Your reunion could easily have been skipped entirely. I don't think an unhappy husband in tow would have made it better.

Make fun romantic dates you both want to go on and you won't care less about other people or being rude. You'll be too in love to care.

Can you ask him what sort of things he might like? Are you willing to have an open mind, try new ideas and not insist on your 'favourite activities' and things he dislikes? It must be FUN and you both should be together at your happiest.

Completely agree with the previous poster. It seems like a lot of this rift is actually caused by you. I would suggest you go to a neutral third party friend who knows you both and can give you some objective feedback. You really need to see if you're doing these reasons for your own selfish agenda, or if you're really respecting what your husband is saying.

ajheart, they don't need a third party; they need to follow the policy of joint agreement. That would solve their incompatibility.

I can just picture it, being a SAHM so depressed that I spend hours crying daily, skipping most of the things that would provide the respite from being at home, then decide to skip my 10 year reunion to listen to amateur radio with a man upset that I wasn't enthusiastic enough about missing out on it and close his laptop again, and spend the evening in silence.

jn, hon, there is hope. The folks here can walk you through identifying and eliminating LBs, and especially getting some fun UA time on the schedule for this week and every week. It will be really obvious very quickly whether your H has what it takes to move from being a Renter, willing to gain at your expense, to a Buyer, willing to work with you to create a happy, fulfilling life. Better to know now while your baby is 2.

Do you have HNHN for Parents? It talks about how Joyce was a SAHM and they found the UA time even with young kids.

And I can picture this man, who is not very social, being badgered into attending events that make him very uncomfortable. That is a living hell for an unsocial person. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he goes he is miserable, if he doesn't, he is treated as the bad guy and gets to stay home alone. If she needs a "respite" from her marriage, the solution is to fix the marriage, rather than make the problem worse by going to a meaningless social event. That just creates more detachment and more incompatibility.

The solution is to stop making unilateral decisions and start creating compatibility. But the first step is to stop independent behavior and start focusing on the marriage.

Sometimes you can encourage an unsocial person to be a bit more social - small groups, conversations of interest etc - but this 'you're letting me down' attitude if you don't go must be overwhelmingly off putting. If you go to a party to escape censure that's no fun.

I love get-togethers but at the end of the day they are PARTIES. You don't need to be around a whole lot of people to have a romantic relationship or be in love.

I think there is a cultural myth that in order to have a healthy marriage, one has to have a busy social life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Along with that belief sometimes comes an entitlement attitude on the part of the social spouse while a great deal of pressure and guilt is imposed on the unsocial spouse.

I recently heard Dr Harley say on the radio that he and Joyce might seem unsocial to outside observers because most of their time is spent with each other. That is what they would rather do.

The key is to create a lifestyle that makes both spouses happy.

my apologies for the t/j

SOMEONE was absolutely right on the bullseye with suggesting the most lethal exposure target in a recent thread. I can't post there atm because the WS is watching, but it would be wonderful if you could post.

And NO, the BS does not know that she hit the exposure target head on, because I can't pass on wayward fog.

When you properly adjust your approach and view to protecting your marriage, this statement rings true for any Lovebank Balance, as well.

If I feel that my wife and I haven't had enough UA time, it is very upsetting to have UA opportunities invaded on by "outsiders."



And this isn't a unique observation! I really, really, really wish I had saved the article I read a few years ago by a husband/wife team who studied marriage around the world - the observations they made about lifelong, happy marriages were mirror images to the MB plan; couples in lifelong, happy marriages would rather spend ALL of their time together than with anyone else at all.

ML, I meant a respite from caring for their two year old during their UA time I think that's what jn said she has been trying and failing to get, the one-on-one UA time with him already. But so far he's only been interested in group amateur radio events with the baby in tow.

jn, how about sitting down with him tonight, it's Wednesday, and putting some fun, light UA time for the rest of the week and the weekend on the calendar? Let him plan the dates, since it seems like your UA need is much easier to meet, because at this point you're just trying to get out of the house without the baby! Include some time Sunday to sit down with the calendar and plan next week's UA time. Do you have a favorite babysitter? It may be easier for your H to get onboard if he sees the baby is having fun with the new arrangement too.

Have you read the articles on getting your need for SF met in the marriage? I am hoping taking the date nights together to reconnect will do it. And like the others said, his resentment should drop because you're making time on the calendar for the two of you so he can see your time isn't devoted to IB.