Hey, you listened! Great! I was a little bit worried earlier that you were missing the clips BH is posting. BrainHurts is like our new Marriage Builders Radio encyclopedia. It's like having someone bring Dr. Harley into every single discussion on this website, which I've got to say has been a massive improvement.

Regarding blaming -- I have heard Dr. Harley say that he has very low success teaching wives not to blame their husbands. (I heard this in two clips from 2006 or 2007. Maybe BrainHurts can find them. ) In a way this is very discouraging to me, because you know, I HATE TO BE BLAMED! In fact, we all do. I've even heard that in cases of affairs, wives typically blame their husbands for the affair whether it was he or she who went wayward. BUT, and this is the encouraging part, Dr. Harley says that despite this blaming, he has succeeded in teaching these couples how to have good marriages. (i.e., in love)

I think he's saying that eventually, if the husband keeps making Love Bank deposits and "translating" her disrespectful, blaming criticism into respectful complaints, and actually coming through on addressing the complaints, she will come on board and quit being so disrespectful to her husband and at the least keep her disrespect to herself so that he can be happy and so that they can productively resolve problems instead of pointing fingers. But it sounds like it takes a lot from us husbands to stay calm and end the cycle of abuse every time it stops and not respond defensively or argue about who is to blame, etc.

That's tough for us emotional guys to learn how to do, but I think I'm a lot better at it than I was a year ago, and two years ago I know I could never have dreamed of doing that. It turns out I don't have to straighten my wife out if she's wrong, even if what she's wrong about is whether I'm to blame.

For the record, I don't hear Prisca blaming me for things nearly so often as I used to two years ago!!!! As a result, I am a much happier man! One thing that happened was that at Dr. Harley's suggestion, I had to jump in and become a partner for her in coping with and solving the problems in life that brought her down, even though this was often extremely emotional for me, often a minefield where I had to avoid DJs like the plague, and occasionally in the past was not something we could talk about without me being blamed.

(Okay, and honesty time: sometimes I WAS to blame!! )