I had horrible IB going on�throwing twice a week, indoor and outdoor soccer during times that took away from family, martial arts 4-6 hours a week, I barely knew my kids names, I had inappropriate flirty conversations with other women on occasion, never helped around the house (well rarely and that was begrudgingly�I thought mowing the lawn on Saturday was good enough), I would agree to do things I knew my wife wouldn�t like and then lie about it, I had a drinking problem, etc. Basically I was just a huge jerk, a terrible husband, and really not a good dad. And my wife was the queen of AOs and DJs.

My wife and I decided we were going to split up. When I told my son that Dad and Mom were going to be living separately, it tore him up. I mean he broke down fiercely. I had already been divorced (and so had she) and my two daughters from my previous marriage were still (years later) upset that their parents weren�t together. I decided right then that I didn�t want to do any more damage to my kids. So I said, �no we�re not going to get a divorce, we�re going to make this work.� She was hesitant but agreed for the sake of the kids. I can�t remember if our 4 year old had been born yet or she was pregnant with our 4 year old or not at this point. I had no marriage skills. I asked what she needed from me as a husband and we went from there. And it was really rocky but I started doing the things she asked from me. Granted I screwed up a lot but things were getting better. I started googling stuff. I came across The 5 Love Languages first. I took the book to her and said something like, �hey�I want to have an awesome marriage. Can we take this test and try and meet these needs the book talks about?� She agreed and we went from there. Then I found Marriage Builders and we started with the ENs questionnaire. Then we started reading the Love Busters book together as UA time.

Granted we�re not MB poster children. I don�t think Dr. Harley would approve of me playing on a co-ed soccer team. And I don�t think he�d approve of my wife going on the bus with drinking. Occasionally (rarely)we sacrifice and do activities that we really don�t want to do (like me agreeing to going camping). We get in 10-20 hours of UA time together, we meet each others ENs (on a consistent basis anyway�we might have a down week here and there), and we rarely LB each other.

That�s it in a nutshell.