There are worksheets for this. It's very difficult for most couples to point out SD, DJ, and AOs to each other on the fly and survive and not get into a fight.

YOU NEED TO AVOID A FIGHT AT ALL COSTS. AT ALL COSTS.

Use the worksheets. Is your wife open to receiving them from you?

Are ya'll scheduling 8 hours of sleep per night?

Your wife's Taker is talking. Marriage Builders is about you learning to please your wife's Taker, so please start listening. Even if you feel she is talking with SDs, DJs, and/or AOs, if you don't find a way to boil down the information that you are getting from her and act on it, your marriage is going to die. This is serious.

I hate to tell someone they are wrong when they said their spouse made a demand, was disrespectful, or had an angry outburst. Usually there is some reason why they felt it was disrespectful or demanding. But I feel like MelodyLane is quite right here: it is not demanding to ask your spouse NOT to do something. It is only demanding to insist that your spouse DO something. There is a really serious difference. The difference is that you can always brainstorm alternatives that will make you both happy. Put in some more time to do that.

It is not demanding to expect your spouse to follow the POJA. Your wife isn't enthusiastic about staying up so late, so don't do it. She's asking you to do nothing and negotiate with her to find something that will make you both happy. You are behind this program, so follow it and get busy doing just that.

Sounds like a good way to word a thoughtful request, but your follow-through turned it into a demand, Hilltopper!!!!!!

Remember the key part of a thoughtful request is to be willing to accept "no" for an answer. You are showing some reluctance to take "no" for an answer.


Screech to a halt right there, Hill! Please don't ever let your wife hear you say "reasonable request" again. Marriage Builders doesn't teach anything at all about reasonable requests. It's not in there.

It doesn't matter what your wife's reasons are or if they are reasonable or make sense. What matters is how she feels. It doesn't matter why she's too tired, what matters is she feels tired!

By commenting on whether her request is "reasonable" or not, you are setting yourself up as the judge of whether your wife is being rational or not. Did you catch that word, "judge"? You are committing a disrespectful judgment. You blew it, guy, I'm sorry to tell you. She's withdrawn now because of your disrespectful judgment. The faster you admit this mistake and own up to it, the faster you guys can get back on track.


Frankly, Hill, I think you SHOULD consider yourself lucky. You have a real problem being disrespectful, and your wife is STILL striving hard to meet your emotional needs. You are a pretty lucky guy with a real winner of a wife, and you should TELL her that.


Of course she can't stand you when you are disrespectful.


Very disrespectful wording. It's just a little thing to you, she's just being irrational, and you just need it to "blow over."

Go face your disrespectful screwups. It'll help.

Yes it can, actually, but you have more work to do to get there. It can't be peachy the way you are going about it.


I suggest you go get a babysitter and invite your wife out to do something you both enjoy at a time when she is not tired.



Ouch. You just strongly implied you are big and she is little.

I agree that you're impatient. Things are going well and because of 1 night now you're up in arms about how to handle this or that.

It would have been better if instead of 'wheeling and dealing' by "If I put the kids down..." How about just be nice realizing she's tired. "Honey, go relax in the bath while I get the kids in bed. I know you've had a long day and you're tired."

If you're expecting SF every day you're going to be disappointed. That is unreasonable. So you had SF the night before, do the bath thing/kids down and let her get some rested sleep, then try and set up for some quality SF tomorrow or hte next day.

Hill, I know you are disappointed. But you are going to need to let your logical and rational side take control and keep you following a proven plan to reestablish intimacy in your relationship. If you let your emotions take charge you will bog down in your own personal disappointment and you guys will stay this way and get worse.

Hill, have you ever heard that women tend to be more emotional and men tend to be more logical? There's some truth to that, to the point that many women are rightly annoyed at their husbands over it. But that's based on looking at "typical" men and "typical" women. Nobody is truly "typical."

Some men tend to be more emotional than other men. More things bother them. You know, in a good relationship, a woman can still usually list a lot of things that bother her, while a typical man isn't bothered by anything! All the things that bother him disappear when the relationship is good, because his mind simply blocks it out. While a woman's mind usually doesn't work that way.

But some of us men are more easily bothered than others.

It is hard for a typical logical man to learn to "put up with" his emotional wife.

But it is far, far more difficult for a typical emotional woman to learn to PUT UP WITH an atypical emotional man.

Because you tend to be this way, your wife has a much harder job to do than most wives. She is going to have to work a lot harder to learn how to meet your emotional needs effectively, negotiate with you, and avoid love busting you. You have a lower threshold for being bothered!

There's nothing wrong with that. I'm that way myself. But it does mean that your wife needs a big giant MEDAL, every day, just for being your wife. Awarded by you. She needs to hear from you that you know you are a difficult man to live with and that you appreciate what she is going through to live with you.

The good news is, emotional men can have really, really good and passionate marriages. But you won't get there if you aren't rational about planning to get there, and if you don't stick to the plan.

If you have ever trouble appreciating your wife, just look back to your most recent disrespectful judgments (which were moments ago), and realize what you are putting her through.

I'll go back and answer each of these points and posts but before I do I wanted to provide some perspective on both my wife and myself that is very relevant on how we both handle situations. Normally it wouldn't be a big issue, but I feel in this particular case that because we are so far on the other end of the spectrum, the insight will help give you some info that might make it easier to teach me.

I grew up with parents that made sure there were consequences, good and bad, for every action. If I lied, I got busted. If I did good in school I got rewarded, etc. I always knew where I stood with Mom and Dad and they were always on the same side of the fence. They were tough on me no doubt and by no means did they raise me perfectly, but never the less I'm a product of that parenting philosophy.

My wife grew up in a family of excuses. Its not a DJ, it is just how they do things. I've mentioned before that my wife, her brother, and her Mother make excuses and blame people for anything they want at any time. I won't get into why they do it, you can draw your own conclusions.

Although I was disappointed last night, I told you I had shifted into "thoughtful" mode so that my tired wife could go to bed early. I put the kids down, brushed their teeth, etc. I do just about every night. I held baby and tried to get her down until she got to the point of "I just want mommy", so my wife grabbed her just to get the job done faster. I put on a kettle and made her the sleepy tea. I suppose it was a DJ on my part to state that I wanted to make sure we didn't get complacent in our MB efforts to which she agreed. I could tell she didn't want to spend a bunch of time on that so I let it go and she went to bed.

This morning I was in the shower and said, "Hey I wanted to bring something up about last night." I could see in her face a look of, "Oh boy here we go Hubby is stewing again." I mentioned that I knew she was tired, but that the attempt to meet EN's yesterday was kind of absent. From this point forward and to this actual moment in time my wife didn't make any statements that weren't blaming me or circumstances for why she wasn't able to meet any EN's. After every blame I made a face which made it escalate obviously. I was wrong to make the face and it was not something I was able to control at that moment but will work extremely hard to avoid this at all costs. It got so bad at one point that my wife quite literally blamed her blaming on me.

As I was driving to the office it occurred to me just how much of a LB blaming is. She didn't blame me at all for anything in those last three blissful days we spent together and it was great. I pulled over and sent her one text that said "blaming + faces = fights." It was kind of a revelation. I react really poorly to blames and told you that I don't let my kids get away with it. I need help with this. It is a huge LB and I let her know this, but more than that how do I deal with it when it happens. I can't ignore it. I definitely could not make a face. What do I say? When I say something about it, it typically makes her do several blames in a row. Any advice here?

She can be tired, in fact I bought her sleepy tea because she was tired. I respect her right to be tired and to feel any way she wants. I press discussing things because if I don't initiate they just won't be discussed at all. I pressed her on MB and despite push back and conflict she is here. Pushing is wrong and its also right depending on circumstances and I have a hard time figuring out when and where I guess. Avoiding things just to keep it pleasant causes resentment and I know this. One more thing, when I mention things here to you all letting you know how I feel, it doesn't mean I said that exact thing to my wife. I'll try and do a better job of pointing out my feelings versus my actual comments to my wife.

It was a SD. She said if we don't stay up late for a week and drink wine, then she'll meet my needs, affection, SF, etc. She said that I have to behave a certain way and if I did she would then meet some of my EN's, that in my book is a textbook SD. The tone also was in line with the SD. After I told her that sounded like an SD, she then said, "how can I respectfully request that we not stay up so late." That part was great. Best part of the entire conversation this morning, in fact.

Hill, you said that she started with the "It's not my fault" stuff...did she actually say, "It's not my fault!" or is that something you inferred?

As far as the things about being tired because 1. stayed up too late the night before and 2. the kids have worn her out, those aren't blaming and they're not even excuses...they are EXPLANATIONS.

Is she 'allowed' to explain why she feels a certain way without you getting angry?

It probably isn't effective and this is a huge challenge. My wife tries to please everyone so the social calendar is quite full. She has done a better job of politely saying no to some events of late and I love that, but during the week it is just sit down and hold on tight you know? It felt good for both of us to stay up late which is why we did it, in fact I mentioned it was a lot like we were dating. I can see its taken its toll however on her being very, very tired.

Hill .. I am glad your last few days have been Blissful ... however you need to keep up the good work and reward your wife for her attempt to MB. Giving her some space is also necessary especially when you have 3 small children like you have. She will get "touched out" far easier than you will since she is with them for a majority of the day. This WILL get easier as they grow .. so you will have to grin and bear it for a while.

HAve you looked into the Maca Root for your wifes low energy? Maca is not only a libido booster .. but its a hormone balancer and a great energy increaser! My wife was very skeptical about it .. but I kid you not .. it works like a charm! Takes about 5 days to fully take effect with the full dosage.

One average day after 3 good days? I would say thats pretty good Hilltopper .. I hope you let your wife now just how awesome she was for having those good days and the affection you did recieve?

MNG

Yes we have them and I'll ask her if she wants to implement starting tonight.

Hilltopper,

You are blaming her. Cut it out.

I'll start reading through some of this, but I can tell from your tone you are still busy defending your perspective and why you think your situation is unique here, etc. There have been dozens of PRACTICAL suggestions offered for you here this morning as well as a number of QUESTIONS.

What will help your marriage would be if you would:
* answer the questions
* implement the practical suggestions

It's great you are having insights into problems, but your insight sounds like a disrespectful judgment to me. You educated her on how each of you have a role in contributing to fights. That's what your arithmetic text comes across as.

Quit telling us why your wife is hard to deal with and start following the suggestions.

That sounds like an awesome and fair trade to me. It sounds like a proposal, not a demand.

She is letting you know under what circumstances she would be enthusiastic about the things you want. Following the FGSN, you will now need to come up with a solution that incorporates her perspective.

She is being open and honest about how she feels and telling you the map to getting what you want. You are one lucky man to have such a communicative wife. Don't screw this up now. Pay attention to what she is telling you.


You wrote the book? :P

I can't even figure out what she was demanding of you. What was she demanding that you DO?

Hill, we are here to help you, but you need to listen.

You are loaded with demands and disrespectful judgments.

Your wife is not demanding to say "I can't meet your EN if I don't get more sleep." She's being open and honest. If you ignore what she is telling you, you will not be able to have a good marriage.

Please do not try to rebut the points that were made to you. That will not do anyone any good, least of all you.

Are you looking for a happy marriage? Would you like to know why your wife is upset? Would you like to know what you could do to change things?

I didn't mention the bath ever again or imply that I was even disappointed about it actually. What demand did I make? My text back after the tired comment was exactly this, "Agreed. Totally understand. Are those rolls still left over for turkey sandwiches?" Then she mentioned, "Baby is a terror" in a reply. I sent back the following, "Its ok I got that little bugger tonight! Kids down at 730, wife drink sleepy tea I got, hubby do his thing while wife go upstairs and crash to recharge."

I didn't mention anything about a "reasonable request" to my wife at all. I was suggesting to you all that I felt her not wanting to take a bath because she was tired was a very reasonable request in my head which is why I went to the sleepy tea plan.

The comment she made about giving me SF the night before was her comment to me and it was intended, I believe but I could be wrong, to let me know that she gave me SF and therefore she can treat me any way she wants.

I'm asking you how long I should let us both chill out before speaking again. What am I missing here? You said give her space, I trust that is the right thing to do, so how long do I wait to communicate again to avoid the fight scenario?

Pushing NEVER make Love Bank deposits. It ALWAYS withdraws them.
Even in a GREAT marriage, complaints (which are a good thing) make withdrawals.
Your marriage cannot handle complaints right now. You are both too deep in the red.
Start filling that woman's Love Bank and QUIT THE COMPLAINTS for now. STOP PUSHING. Fill the Love Bank. That is your goal right now. Fill the Love Bank.

She can't concentrate on filling yours right now because she is too busy having to protect herself from you.


You may not say the DJs. But it still affects the way you treat your wife. The things you think turn into action. Stop dwelling on those negative thoughts. They are not productive. FILL HER LOVE BANK.