My 13-year wife has recently become wayward. We're working to get back on track, I've written elsewhere on the board. WW says her A was just selfish and not that related to problems in our marriage. Whether that's the case or not, we definitely need to work to fix the problems.

Here's the biggest problem: I've posted it elsewhere, sorry to be redundant but I would really be extremely grateful for your insights. Based on a few previous posts I've come to expect and hope they will be remarkably helpful.

From before our marriage 13 years ago I wanted a working spouse. We had agreed on that before marrying. Would we have married if we hadn't been in agreement on that point? I don't know, but for me it was a major compatibility issue.

In year 3 - after kids came - she was miserable working. That must be a very common story. She became a SAHM for 9 years. For us, it was the first major problem in our marriage. MC said "marriage isnt about contracts, it's about making each other happy. You dont want her to be miserable, let her change the agreed-upon terms and stay at home so you can both be happy". And that's what we did. But - according to wife - I've been nursing resentments ever since. Sad to say, she's probably right.

Question #1: This is an example of perhaps one of the biggest possible conflicts in marriage - really a change in the terms of our agreement to marry. How should we have approached that kind of situation so as to avoid later resentments? POJA seems awfully difficult to apply to such a basic fundamental issue. I don't think I could ever 'enthusiastically agree' to her being a SAHM, but it seemed necessary for me to agree, to alleviate her misery.

Q#2: If terms of fundamental marital agreements can be changed more or less unilaterally, what good are agreements? There have been a few similar - if less substantial- examples over the years.


Another example of resentments arising from earlier conflict: A year ago she needed a new car, but my income was way down. Our compromise was that she would go back to work in order to afford the more expensive car she wanted. I thought we had reached a good compromise after much wrangling. Really I always knew there was a possibility of some resentment on Wife's part.

This week she shocked me with the phrase 'you forced me to go back to work'. Obviously feeling some resentment, although it took a year to surface.

Q#3: How can we handle such things to prevent later resentment?

Again, sorry to be redundant. Desperately seeking knowledge from the many very very smart, caring and helpful people reading these boards. Thank you.

As to Q1 I would ask you if you really, really, really, really believed that over the course of 40-50 years of marriage, you spouse was going to be *exactly* the same person that she was when you got married. Or that you are the *exact* same person. DO you spend as much time wiht your W now as you did when courting her? Do you still write all the little love notes, the 3 hours phone calls in the middle of the night, the regular dates, the affirmations of your love for her, *exactly* as you did back when you were courting? Do you spend as much time daydreaming about your W as you did back when you were dating before marriage? Do you feel *exactly* the same way about your W that you did when you stood up in front of everybody and took your vows, and you looked at her and knew she was the one?

I'm suspecting not. You changed, why can't she?

If you did expect no change, then your expectation was pretty unrealistic. People change. They grow, they learn, they "find themselves", they discover wants and needs that they didn't have, find things out about themselves that they don't like and watn to do change, etc. Nobody, except for maybe a narcissist or a misogynist is the same forever.

If your mutual desire isn't for the others happiness, then WTH did you get married? For what you could get out of it?

As to Q2, in a healthy relationship, they wouldn't be unilateral, because each partner would be sensitive to making sure the other partner had their EN's met, and was overflowing in the lovebank, there wouldn't even be incentive to be unilateral. But IB (Independent Behavior) and "unilateralism" is the direct product of controlling relationships, of poor-communication relationships, and relationships where the lovebank is runnign near empty, and the person who's running on empty finally decides tha tthey've had enough. They can't trust the other person to do right by them, they'll do right for themselves, and what the other person thinks be damned.

As to Q3, see the answers to Q1 and Q2, and address those problems. Most likely, Q3 will rarely if ever arise.

Ouch. Well I'm a big boy and can take it. Actually I really need to hear this kind of talk; it's really helpful to recalibrate and get my bearings. Your comments seem about right Jaye Mathison, and I'm grateful for your response.

Some of this will read as though its sarcastic, but really I'm talking straight. Sorry to be philosophical, but I'm kind of built that way, and I'm trying to understand this if I can.

I understand that people are dynamic, and that change is to be expected and has to be accomodated.

Does marriage then consist - in part - of a series of short-term accomodations with no reliable longer-term 'constitution' or map to sort of define where the family wants to go through time?

It seems then that long-term agreements are doomed in a marriage and shouldn't be attempted?

And that married couples or couples considering getting married shouldn't even think about making agreements that aim at being long-term, and shouldn't expect their understanding of significant others' long-term views and philosophies to really bear out the test of time?

Can we even trust our significant others' values to last?

no problem.



You make it sound like such a bad thing. The journey, the stepping out into making this new thing together is one of the things that makes marriage so exciting!

There's nothing wrong wtih setting goals. Even lofty goals. There's nothign wrong wtih making plans. Long range plans. Things like how many kids. Having kids at all? Long term career goals. WHere you want to live.

But there's 2 key ingredients. 1 is that the agreements are mutual, the second is that the agreements are flexible. OH, there's a 3rd ingredient. The 3rd is making sure that both parties are getting what they need out of the relationship, so that they don't feel a need to "take control" of it, or start making their own plans. IF one party starts feeling like their goal isn't as important, or they don't see progress towards it, then, IB is the result.

If you start talking interpersonally, then as EN's aren't met (regardless of family goals), then things like affairs and divorce is the usual end result.
Or a lot of misery.


I think age and maturity both play a part here. Again, there's nothing wrong with statin gthe things you'd like to see. And I would hope to see agreement on those things. But if having them ironclad, locked down, no escape clause is important, then you needed to get a prenuptial agreement squared away that spelled it all out.

If you have to have things locked down, then where's the love? Where's the grace? Where's the compassion? IN short, why bother getting married? You could pay somebody to be your "companion" for business functions, and in the meantime, just do your thing. (The TV show ned and stacey comes to mind...)

I think you can expect that couples that get married in really early ages, say teens through 20's will see a fair amount in change of philosophy. They're still establishing themselves in the world. Finding out what they want to do career wise, getting the playtime out of their system.

I would suspect as couples married in their 30's, you'd see less changes in philosphy. By the 30's, people are established in their careers, they're probably well into starting their families, etc. And those are commitments that take a long time to change.

But not always that way, case in point myself. Before my W and I got married, I can see the evening as clear as a movie, we were in her kitchen talking about where we wanted to be, and the fact that we absolutely didn't want kids. No way, no how, we wanted freedom, we wanted flexibility, she was going to go to standford and finish her MBA, I was doing my computer thing, and life was good.
Plan was set, we'd signed on the dotted lines.

8 years later, we're sitting in our house, and she turns to me and says "What do you think about having a kid?" And I said I thought iwas a good idea, and 3 days later, she was pregnant.

Yeah, we dorked up our plan. But we didn't know better. at 24, we thought we knew what we wanted for the rest of our lives. At 33, we discovered how little we knew. Now the plan is changed for a minimum of 18 years, we had to change careers, all kinds of stuff changed.

Now recently, another change has taken place, and we're both tossing both of our careers, and taking off on brand new ones in completely different directions than before. Oops, there goes that darn MBA... Oh well.

Do I resent the plan changing? Not at all. No way I'd trade the joy of kids for the old plan. Do I sometimes think about what might've been? Sure. But that's life. Everchanging, always throwing you the curveball, and just when you think you got it all figured out, something happens.

Can you count on core values staying the same? I suspect it depends on definition. career and such isnt' really a core value, so it's hard to say.

I would never want it carved on my tombstone "I stuck to the plan. Cost me my family, but by gum, I stuck to the plan".

I suppose you may consider the possibility too, of priorities. If family is the top priority, then pretty much any plan that involves careers is subject to change. If careers are the top priority, then plans that involve families are subject to change. If you and your W don't agree on the priority, well, that's a whole big can of worms...

That make any sense?

Jaye: Thanks again. I hope you'll forgive if I turn the thread in a new direction somewhat? I think you've addressed this in another thread, but I hope you don't mind if I bring it up again.

We've always had trouble negotiating. There's not that much I want - other than the wonderful family we have and some financial security. So negotiations are problematic. She thinks the conversation should go 'yes Hubby you can have that thing you want if I can have that whatever'. But the discussion can't go that way since there aren't many things I want. Status quo on the material front, ever-widening opportunities for the future as our financial security grows, you get the picture.

So 90% of the time my beautiful wife has initiated the requests, and 90% of the time I agree, no problem. But (Taker has the floor now) when it comes to those rare requests involving big $ - the ones that may conflict with my EN for financial security - I've often expected that she will accomodate my Taker. Not so; ergo much conflict. You'll have a big snort here I'm sure - but anyway my Taker's math has the flavor 'you got 100 littles so please let me have this one big'.

I know I've not met her ENs in several respects, and I haven't really had much success filling her Love Bank, sorry to say. So there's not much balance to draw on in times like this. I try not to subtract from it much, but I know that's nowhere near the goal.

Her #2 EN has to do with Financial Support, and ditto with my #2 EN. It's a key area for both of us. From her view, she needs $ now, and sometimes I've not agreed. From my view, I need her to back me up with respect to Financial security, and (Taker still has the floor sorry) she is often unable to do that.

Recently she's made me see that out of frustration I've occasionally coerced/controlled. So I guess it was about Power on a few occasions. That was wrong. I've
admitted it to her, promised to do better, and asked for forgiveness. She says 'you cant change its the way you are'. Double ouch.

Too long; I'll stop now. Really I think I'm the one most at fault in our M, and I could really use some help. Best wishes & thanks.

There's nothing wrong fundamentally with the idea that you've given a lot of little things in order to get your way with a big thing.

I'm not sure that your W sees that part of the picture, or more importantly, when agreeing to the little things, understood the big thing.

$'s are a big stumbling block in relationships. No question about it, seem to recall it's the #2 reason for divorce. And there's *nothing* wrong with wanting what you want.

You have to decide what you're willing to accept.

Your W's view of negotation is... well, I don't like this word, but I can't think of another one, so ignore the connotation, it's "juvenile". Or maybe naive is better word.

What about financial planning in the macro sense? Sitting down, taking out the regular expenses, set aside a little mad money, and out of the rest, divide up the "retirement" vs "spend it now", and see what you can negotiate? And then, arrange for your paycheck (maybe direct deposit) to be distributed that way *before* it comes home. Not "hiding" th emoney, but working within both of your parameters.

Simple put, if you want to put say, 10% away of every check for retirement, maybe righ tnow (especially with kids), you need to put away 5% automatically, 2.5% in "reserve, but want to go into the retirement", and 2.% goes to extra stuff needed now. And then POJA the agreement that you won't touch the middle 2.5% w/o mutually agreeing on it. IN a good year, that gets you 7.5%, a minimum of 5. She gets what she wants, but *after* a portion is set aside to meet your need.

This is just brainstorming. And perhaps you agree that after your kids are out of the house, that 10% becomes 20%. to make up for lost time. Somethign like that.

Entirely possible. But your W's judgement of you that you can't change is a DJ, and complete baloney. I can tell you stories of the years of emotional and verbal abuse that I heaped on her. I changed. Radically. Old friends don't even recognize me.

I won't kid you, it's not easy, but it's doable.

And of course, keep in mind, the whole premise of MB is that the *only* person you can change is yourself. If a person can't change (At whatever age they become mystically "blocked from change"), then MB doesn't have an reason for exist.

Thanks again Jaye. Very helpful to have this discussion, It's like having a cold one with a friend, except more goal-oriented. I really appreciate your time and thoughts.

If I can pry a little, would you be willing to share how you made such a radical change in yourself? Was it driven by adding a few more years and grey hairs? Or something more introspective? What are the steps to making such a change - I would really like to see that in me. Not easy; W is definitely a difficult woman. But I should be a big enough man to rise above the personality issues and carry on with an model marriage. But how to get from here to there?

By comparison with your prior state, I don't think I've been generally emotionally or verbally abusive; but there have been those half dozen screamers sorry to say, where I haven't conducted myself well. But never touched her and never will.

I have been occasionally coercive. Maybe the worst kind; I'm guilty of saying things like 'its going to be this way if you want to remain married to me' 3 or 4 times in 13 years. Now I'm not too in the know on MB lore, but I'd guess that's somewhere near the worst of the Love Busters. And my occasionally-coercive nature seems to be her biggest issue with me, as she is presently deciding whether to remain in the marriage.

And I'm guilty of letting her get my goat. She's difficult and often tactless, and I have a thin skin and a big EN to be respected. Not a good combination. Too often she says something, the bile rises, and within two sentences (really amazing how fast it happens) we're well into 2 days of mutual disrespect and a chilly and silent house.

These are the kind of behaviors I need to change if I want to keep my wonderful wife; and I need to convince her as soon as possible of my ability to change.

I should say I've been doing well at being a model husband in the 6 weeks since her A came to light; trying to demonstrate my love in various tangible ways. I hope she is able to see through her fog to appreciate that I've been supportive at a time when it would have been easier and more natural to be hateful towards her.

Thanks as ever for your generous and helpful thoughts. And have a great weekend.

Well, I'll hit the high points, (I used to have my original posts in my .sig, but for some reason don't anymore). Married 9 years, most of them ranging from miserable to very miserable. WOrked too much, wasn' thome, treated my W poorly, got some very bad advice from our church, went to a lot of crappy MC. Eventually moved, and was going to a new MC that I kind of liked, and my W kicked me out of the house. Spent appx. 7 months out of the house, finally fixed enough things for her to let me back in, spent another 2.5 years in recovery, now things are awesome.

As to the specific incident that changed? I was sitting in my hotel room and decided that I was too darn good to divorce. (I wasn't, but I was going to make myself too good to divorce). If she wanted a divorce, then by gum, she was going to have to do the work to divorce me, it wasn't going to be me handing it to her.

But that was me.


However, I will confess, I had forgotten about the A. And whiel some of our discussion is remotely applicable to life after an A, there are a few things you need to be doing. You need to thoroughly review the process on this site for recovering from an A. Including NC, and all that stuff. Read up on plan A and plan B, which are tools. You need to look into exposure of the affair to bring accountability. Keep in mind, that *nothing* you did, made your W have an affair. And to think that way is *very* counterproductive to bringing healing.

You need to review the material on this site about how to restore trust and such in a marriage, because w/o trust, very little of MB (w/the exception of lovebank/lovebusters) will "take root". POJA and PORH and stuff are built on trust.

So while it is interesting to look at the money situation, and EN's and such, first stop is addressing the A.

I'm happy to talk to you here, but I'll be frank, the guys and gals over in JFO (Just Found Out) or GQ are much more capable than I at helping you handle the affair. Vastly more experience. So I would encourage you to post your story there wrt the affair, and what you've done, and what she's done, and get some advice from people that deal with it. They will treat you with complete candor and be quite frank, they're good people. Helped tons of others.

In the meantime, while that's taking place, we can talk about the future after the two of you are on the road to healing.


As to the coercion and stuff, tha twould fall under the lovebuster of selfish demands, and while 3-4 times aren't a lot, if it was something big that was very painful, it may have had a lot of impact. But really, it's a small thing, compared to recoery from the A.

Thanks Jaye. I've got two threads going; one mostly about the A called "i dont think i should travel now") and the other (this one) about underlying marital problems.

I've read maybe every word on the MB website, also HNHN, and recently got SAA. Doing a LOT of homework in that direction. The enormous amount of material in the MB world, and the really terrific help I've gotten on the other thread and this one have really helped me see how to proceed and what's happening between WW, OM, myself, the families, MC etc.

Why pursue both threads at once? Because wife is considering whether to leave me NOT because of her A, but just because of overall dissatisfaction. Even if he weren't there and the A hadn't happened, she would still be having those thoughts. The OM just brought it to a head.

- - - -
I hope I won't overstep if I ask again; I really need to understand the change topic. With your change, did you just determine to change and just do it? Or did you have a step-by-step program, or a support group, or what? What help did you have in making sure your changes took root and that you didn't regress to your old adverse behavior?

Many thanks.

It was pride. To be honest, it was change for not the purest of motivations. It was I made a promise to be married and I wanted to be able to look back (with pride), and say that my marriage failing was *her* doing. (By failing, I mean, divorce). I used to sneer at other couples who got divorced, figuring it was their lack of character, lack of commitment, etc. Little did I know how hard being married was. But pride and an overinflated sense of self-worth kept me from just tossing in the towel. THen it took a few more years of God working on me to break down the boneheadedness...

My IC had me doing a bunch of exercises, starting with figuring out how I felt. The first time, I was supposed to sit in a quiet room and spend an hour writing how I felt. Th efirst day, I finished with "I felt hungry" as the only thing on the page. I got better over time as I was able to really figure out what I felt about stuff, and this allowed me to empathize better with my wife.

Ultimately, after we moved back in, things were still pretty rocky, but a bit better, but I still didn't have the change in communication skills and still that true change of heart.

We read two books, the patricia evans book, and one on misogyny by Rinck, and those two scared me so bad that I was finally able to put diligent effort (with a lot of help) into "reprogramming" my thinking. That process took a couple years. My W implemented Evans which got me all shook up as my anger and abuse became unproductive, then I read it, which explained to me what was happening, and with knowledge I was able to implement some changes...

There is another book that may be useful, 6 steps to positive change, it had some good stuff on breaking bad habits and taking more positive steps.

Thanks Jaye. Pride is part of my story as well; in my case it's probably one of the bigger explanations for what got me here. But I can understand that pride and bullheaded pursuit of the marriage could help get us out of this mess as well.

Thanks for the refs. I'll probably look at all of these.

Is the Evans book "Controlling People: How to recognize, Understand and Deal With People who Try to Control You"? Or is it "The Verbally Abusive Relationship; How to Recognize it and How to Respond"?

Rinck is maybe "Avoiding Mr. Wrong (and What To Do If you Didn't) Ten Men Who Will Ruin Your Life"? I see a couple others by her as well but I didn't see any with the word 'misogyny' in the title.

I'm not finding 'Six Steps to Positive Change' but there are several with similar titles. Do you happen to recall the author?

Best Wishes and thanks again!

It's the verbally abusive relationship, although either would probably be fine.

Rinck was "Christian Men who Hate Women".

I can't remember the six steps authors at all, except that it was like 4 people in the title, and it was yellow.

Thanks Jaye. I'm really happy you've made your transition and made it stick. A good example for me; that's what I aspire to more than anything right now.

I can see that misogyny and verbal abuse can be big problems in a marriage; our problems are rooted elsewhere. I'll try to find the '6 steps' book; sounds good.

Relationship seems to be improving, but I haven't been able to get her to think about how to improve the marriage going forward. WW seems to be stuck in the past. We've at least agreed that we need (i) a much better way to resolve the major conflicts we'll no doubt face in the future, and (ii) a way to turn the steering wheel from time to time to keep the marriage on course - rather than letting it drift until we end up in a ditch again.

But we haven't made progress on either; too soon I guess as it's just 11 weeks after D-day and (WW says) 1 week since NC.

Thanks for the help. I'm very grateful as always for any ideas and suggestions from you or others on the discussion board.

Verbal abuse isn't about yelling and screaming. It's about control and power and the 2 different views of reality. Evans is a good read for just about any relationship, because it points out good warning signs of areas that yo umay have not anticipated.

I suspect teh fog lies heavy upon her still...

Jaye: Above I'd mentioned the 'you get this I get that' approach to negotiation. Actually that's how both WW and I think of negotiation. Your reaction was that that's naive.

So I think both WW and I could use some help there. Would you be able to elaborate a bit on a less naive view of negotiation in a marriage? How else is it done if not 'you get this I get that'?

Thanks ever.

I'll be frank, myschae is an *extremely* talented person at describing negotiation and how it works, she's much better at it than I most likely ever will be.

I'd call her out over on the EN forum (put "Myschae, help us understand negotiation better") or somesuch in the title, and ask her this same question. She has a real gift for it. Give her some specific examples and specific responses to work with...

Naive probably wasn't the best word. It's just bigger than just that 1 style.

Dr. H has material on it as well in the concepts and Q&A section as well. But 1 key element of negotiation is that it has to be "safe".

And with that, I will stop, and let mys take over.

Many thanks Jaye for taking the time and caring about a stranger. Best wishes!