Hilltopper - I've seen this question asked many times throughout this thread. What SPECIFICALLY has your wife asked of you to meet her needs? I'm not getting the impression all the gifts you're giving her are what she wants.

Still listening to the radio program? Friday had a great segment about the difference between complaints and criticism that you might want to hear.

I don't know that individual counseling and delving into childhood issues is really a positive way forward. Dr. Harley says that doing so makes the problems of the past into problems of the present.

In this context, I think Hilltopper could find counseling useful. There is so much blame between him and his wife, and he doesn't seem truly willing to look at himself in all of this. He's essentially says over and over "I'm putting in the work to meet her EN's but she's not doing good enough in response." And while he recognizes when he AO or DJ's, he's not making much in the way of changes, just apologizing and doing the same thing 3 days later and then blames his wife for it. I think counseling could really help with anger management as well.

Hill, aBetterMe is right in that you need to do more about your abusive love busters. An apology alone isn't sufficient. You have been involved in these for years, and it's going to take your wife some time to recover from that, and of course she can't do that if they are ongoing.

Have you read the opening chapters of Dr. Harley's book Love Busters, recently? There's a conversation in there that frightens me in which a man has it out with his wife and finally tells her what's bothering him. It frightens me because I identify with it so much. It sounds just like how I've treated Prisca. The scary thing is that at the end of the conversation he feels much better! His wife, on the other hand, does not. She is traumatized. She may agree to what he wants, but because he used love busters along the path to getting it, giving him what he wants results in debits in his account in her love bank, destroying their marriage.

Grace isn't here giving us her perception on the weekend, and so we have no way of knowing how she feels about it. I assure you that if she does not feel as optimistic as you do right now, then that is important information. She may feel terrible as a result of your love busters, even though you apologized!

No tolerance for SDs, DJs, and AOs in marriage means exactly what it says: NO tolerance, at all. These behaviors are like nuclear weapons. They will not give you what you want; they only set up a situation like the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War: mutually assured destruction. The only way to win that game is not to play it.

You guys have got to avoid fights at all costs. AT ALL COSTS. That literally means you should leave conflicts unresolved temporarily if that is what it takes for you to avoid fights. You should leave your needs unmet temporarily if that is what it takes for you to avoid fights. You can refuse to fight no matter what she does or does not do. You can refuse to use SDs, DJs, and AOs no matter what she does or does not do.

Your conversations have got to become pleasant. Conversation is almost certainly a top emotional need for one or both of you. If it is not one now, it almost certainly will move into the top once other problems are taken care of and the two of you move toward intimacy. Probably solving conversations are usually not enjoyable and don't meet the emotional need for conversation at all. Even less so when they go into love busters! As long as you engage in love busters, you will be creating a situation where you cannot meet your wife's need for intimate conversation. A better idea on your drive might have been, after your bad behavior, to DROP the subject and save it for later and engage in some ENJOYABLE conversation if your wife was willing. Conversation is just about the make-or-break EN for many women. At all costs you must avoid the enemies of conversation that Dr. Harley lists in His Needs, Her Needs.

I hope this doesn't sound too rough, but you have got to learn to hold yourself to an absolutely high standard of NO tolerance. Be on your best behavior for the woman whose heart you are trying to win. It is better for you and us here to get into a tussle and rough you up holding you to a higher standard than for your wife to feel like she's having to drag you up to that standard. But of course it's best not to have such a tussle at all.

I don't know that individual counseling and delving into childhood issues is really a positive way forward. Dr. Harley says that doing so makes the problems of the past into problems of the present. But we all already have enough problems of the present! Learn to keep a lid on your behavior in the present, and meet your wife's emotional needs, and your marriage will recover and thrive, probably in fairly short order! But until it is thriving, if you are still engaging in love busters, don't fall into the trap of looking at anything else as being the cause of the problem.

One thing that really concerns me: there's a lot of posting here about your unmet needs. What's going on right now to meet your wife's needs? I assume you are doing something ... is it what she wants? I'm not sure how your wife is, but a typical woman would like a lot of small, regular, frequent affectionate acts rather than a couple of large, big, expensive ones. The key phrase is: "environment of affection."

Great, keep listening! Try to catch Friday's show if the iPhone app lets you go back.

Did Grace say why she wanted a break from Marriage Builders?

I know for certain my wife hated this weekend. I also know that my multiple apologies will not be enough to get over it that fast because I've disappointed her before. If I could just say one more time that my inability to speak up when I feel my wife DJ'd me, or neglected to meet my needs, is a massive breakthrough. I really don't want any of you to overlook this because it is so key in every issue we ever have. After wine tasting when she stared out the window my feelings told me that she was mad at me. No good real reason other than I thought we had a pretty good time and that the conversation would likely continue. Truth is she had a slight buzz after some wine and eating and just wanted to enjoy the scenery! :)I don't have to "assume" things anymore and that is so exciting for me and hopefully will be for my wife as she sees my behavior. Sometimes with people as emotionally dense as I am, you have to tell them the same things in ten different ways until it makes sense. I feel that about this discovery of mine. I also can feel your frustration you likely share with my wife about me not getting it.

I'm totally blowing up this thread! LOL

Hi Markos,

I while I understand Dr. Harley's reasoning regarding individual counseling, I suggest it here because it has helped me so much with understanding more about my present behavior. I'm a very logical person and it's helpful to have a neutral third party to provide insight and to bounce feelings and ideas off of.

The purpose of counseling in my situation was not to have a place to wallow in my anxiety or sadness but rather a "class" to attend to learn more about my strengths and shortcomings. Counseling is not efffective if you are passive, but if you put in the work and take it seriously there is so much you can learn.

In this context, I think Hilltopper could find counseling useful. There is so much blame between him and his wife, and he doesn't seem truly willing to look at himself in all of this. He's essentially says over and over "I'm putting in the work to meet her EN's but she's not doing good enough in response." And while he recognizes when he AO or DJ's, he's not making much in the way of changes, just apologizing and doing the same thing 3 days later and then blames his wife for it. I think counseling could really help with anger management as well.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm a very logical person and it's helpful to have a neutral third party to provide insight and to bounce feelings and ideas off of.

The purpose of counseling in my situation was not to have a place to wallow in my anxiety or sadness but rather a "class" to attend to learn more about my strengths and shortcomings.

There is so much blame between him and his wife, and he doesn't seem truly willing to look at himself in all of this. He's essentially says over and over "I'm putting in the work to meet her EN's but she's not doing good enough in response." And while he recognizes when he AO or DJ's, he's not making much in the way of changes, just apologizing and doing the same thing 3 days later and then blames his wife for it.

A while back when we were just learning this stuff, my wife told me her #1 EN was romance. My exercise in giving thoughtful gifts was showing "effort". My wife is concerned that I just don't care about anything and has mentioned that the key element to much of her EN's, whether it be affection, DS, etc is "effort." On my end I felt that my efforts were either never received well or never led to my own EN's being met so I kind of "gave up."

To answer your question my wife wants "affection", "conversation", and most of all "honesty". She interprets much of my affection for her as being thoughtful. Conversation isn't her talking and me pretending to listen, it is me looking her in the eyes and taking a genuine interest in what is meaningful to her. Honesty(this is the biggy) is me not clamming up or making faces when something is bothering me, it is telling her immediately how I'm feeling, or asking her if something is wrong rather than coming to my own conclusions. I realized that despite being an honest person, I was not being honest by withholding my feelings and keeping it bottled up inside. Keep in mind this discovery occurred yesterday about noon so the implementation of this honesty is still new. I have yet since that time yesterday withheld anything from my wife and will continue to do so.

I don't think she put out a press release about it but my gut tells me it was a reaction to me pushing it so hard the previous two days?

Do you recognize those assumptions of yours as DJs? It's great that you see that you don't have to assume anything, but do you realize that when you DO make assumptions, you are DJing her?

I know for certain my wife hated this weekend.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but she really wasn't enthusiastic about the weekend originally, was she?

There's a number of problems with some counselors, and you have to know what approach you're getting. Some are so bad as to encourage you to end your marriage so that you can be happy! Others follow all kinds of ineffective approaches.

The anger management field is particularly bad about that. There are all kinds of failed approaches out there that are still going strong, like teaching people to "express their anger appropriately" or having them "vent" to try to "get it all out" by punching a pillow or screaming or raging or such (which just reinforces the habit of anger, intensifying the problem) or trying to resolve issues from their past or get in touch with their inner child. None of these work. At least, that's what my anger management therapist tells me! And Dr. Harley agrees with him, apparently.

If a counselor knows how to eliminate the problems of Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts, knows how to teach new habits to replace these, then that could be very helpful. If the counselor is told this is the goal up front, and actually has a past track record of effectiveness dealing with these, and doesn't go on a fishing expedition to try to get to the "real problem" behind the problem or whatever. On that note, I think Hilltopper could really benefit from calling up Steve Harley, alone, and saying "I have a problem with Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, and Angry Outbursts; can you help coach me through a plan to eliminate these?"

I'm not sure that any of us has enough insight to read Hilltopper and judge his motivations this deeply. He may simply not know how to do what you are saying, yet, so saying that he is unwilling to is a little bit more than I think anyone can say.

She planned the entire weekend months ago. I thought it sounded fun. She told me she didn't want to go on the trip because we were fighting and didn't want to have to "put on a smiley face" around family as if everything was ok. I was totally down with not going because I was feeling much the same about it. A day or two passed, they were fairly pleasant and we both decided together we definitely wanted to go. It wasn't all bad, there were many really fun times we had with the kids and each other for sure.

Put the problem of your own love busters on the front burner and solve it, fast! Put the problem of her meeting or not meeting your emotional needs on the back burner until this problem is dealt with.