Dear AFS,

Some posters have noted the many of the responding posts to this thread have pointed out issues about which I am was wrong in some way or another. Some posts have given general statements that I must be wrong, because they cannot imagine a woman, with the problems that I claim my wife has. Some posts have listed questions, seeming to look for ideas of how I might be more wrong. I read the questions, and reflect on the questions, and if they don't lead anywhere, I try to return my focus to habit improvment.

So, in a way, I am happy no one can identify with my struggles, becasue that means that other husbands don't have to go through what I am subejcted to.

I am trying to stay focused on my NLP coaching skill improvement. I lstened to the several chapters of the Hall DVD yesterday. I discussed paths to the whole with my telphone coach. I have ordered two new 2005 books from the Hall website on habit improving coaching.

ODD expers Sutton recommended Gerald Patterson's concepts of the coercive family. I have studied the two volume set of Patterson on the Difficult Adolescent, but I don't recall the Coercive Family ideas. I need to check furhter.

I have not come home as early as I could have the last two nights. I am identifying a feeling of avoiding a risk of feeling foolish, by not having to deal with the fact that my wife might not be home yet if I get home earlier. Also W has been better about her make-wrong statments, but she often had periods of being pleasant in the past, and then unloading on me out of the blue, with no warning.

I am preparing some phrases to discuss my feelings of being anxious about coming home earlier.

There have not been many posts where readers sharee their challenges with roomate's or spouse's habits. Readers have not shared their expereinces of trying to assist someone stop smoking or correct any other habitual behavior.

Other possible underlying anxieties of W or Colege Son?
Other paths to getting W to look at the whole picture?

Ideas?
951

BB,
You are dead on. This thread is like watching a train wreck, you just get sucked into it through disbelief.

The scary thing is I spent untold years allowing myself to be manipulated by my X: if I wasn’t thinking, acting, feeling, voting the way he thought correct; if I didn’t keep the house cleaned or the clothes folded in the way he thought correct; if I didn’t hold my silverware the “right” way. He LOGIC’d everything to death. There was no emotion or feeling allowed. He used the most underhanded, controlling, manipulative ways to try and convince me I was wrong and his way was the right way. It absolutely sucked the life out of me.

Now I find that there are more out there cut from the same cloth. And here it is, I get to read about it in black and white. Had I not lived with it, I would read you senator and think this was some sick hoax. Only now I can read it and laugh at just how oblivious you are to reality - major flashbacks.

Since you have no interest in focusing internally as is evidenced by your refusal to answer any of the questions posed to you previously, my only advice would be to your wife and son – that they run as far and as fast away from you as possible. You have your ego to keep you company.

Dear Shaka,

Thank you for posting your feelings.

You have used the term manipulation, but without qualifying what you mean.

I am seeking to understand the insecurities that drive the habits for my Wife and College son. If I am able to learn some of the feelings of anxiety that relate to the habits that concern me, I intend to help them, with POJA, to work on those feeling of inadeqacy, that are part of the habit cycle thought sequence, per NLP and Matrix Analysis, by Michael Hall.

In what ways did your husband manipulate you? By making you feel inadequate about your habits he did not like?

Well my approach is the opposite. I intend to make W and Son feel better about themselves, in order to help them have better habits

My current revison of my list of targeted habits:

W:
1. Phrasing requests in a Make-Wrong framework.
2. Micro-focusing on a particular problem to the exclsuion of the big pictrue.
3. Moving my stuff around, other than on the first floor, without POJA.
4. Habitually refusing to discuss palnning for habit imporvement for Son, or Moving Son out.


For College Son:
A. Rinse his dishes, and put silverware in the soaking bowl.
B. Follow the laundry system, with no clothes on the floor, except dirty clothes in his room.
C. Assist with the washin/waxin/upkeep of the car he is designated to drive.
D. Habitually pick up all his items from the first floor.
E. Fold newspapers after reading, keeping sections from the same day together.
F. Clear the table after he eats of all his items, and clean the table to at least its previous level of cleanliness.

For Senator_H:

a. Come home earlier from work. Feeling: Foolish for coming home early when W is out carousing. Request to W: Let me know by putting 2's on my pager when you get home.

B. Keeping basement, utility room and bedroom better organized.

If you feel there is a particular question that I missed that you feel is important, plase repeat the question, or re-phrase it so I might better understnd its application. One of my faults is that I do not always understand the relevance of an idea, the first time it is mentioned to me. Sometimes it takes repeating, for me to catch on.

Conventional style habit control addresses the habit. NLP/Matrix analysis, seeks to identify any underlying/driving fears/anxieties.

Is there a habit you would like to work on improving?

Ideas?
962

Senator,



Where we really differ is that you see changing her behavior as a resolution to your M issues and I see YOU changing YOU as a resolution to your M issues as well as the only real solution. I think you are barking up the wrong tree, as they say.

It feels as though we are having two different conversations. Your goal is to change your W and I can't be of help to you.

Best of luck to you. You have chosen a hard road and you will need it.

Symphony

I'm with you, Shaka! My exH was more worried about how the table was set than anything about me, personally. It's those MBTI xSxJ's... they can be real control freaks, and often miss the best parts of life worring about how the laundry is folded. Cold and robotic. That's the feeling I get from SenH. As endearing as a stapler. Or, should I say, 'cold as a razor blade, tight as a turnacate, dry as a funeral drum'.

SenH, I've got a book on NLP, I hadnt gotten around to yet, flipped through last night. I see not a word on using these techniques on ANYONE other than oneself. YOU are not a qualified NLP Coach, yet you are inflicting these half-cocked techniques on your W NOT as an objective therapist, but as an intereseted party intent on changing your W for your benefit. If you cant understant how THAT is manipulation, then you've got a LOT of work to do on yourself... forget your wife.

Or how will you tell your brother,'Let me remove the speck from your eye;' and behold, the beam is in your own eye?

UPDATE:

Senator: (By Cell Phone to W on her Cell Phone) Our College Son was disrepctful to me today (Yesterday). We don't have a very good plan for coordinating when Son is desrespectful to me.

Senator's Wife: I have been nurturing to our son, and bought him some of his favorite, expensive foods this evening. Where are you?

Senator: I wish you were with me. Where can we meet?

Senator's Wife: Why don't your come home!

Senator: I am not feeling comfrotable in our home right now, after our Son was disrespectful to me. I feel we need to create a manageable crisis.

Senator's Wife: I will call our Son and make him appoligize to you.

Senator: How do you plan to do that?

Senator's wife: I will yell at eim and threaten him and tell him how angry I am.

Senator: Well, that does not sound like a positive way to change a person's habit. I am sorry I told you about Son being disrepctful.

Senator's wife. OK. Why don't we stay at my mother's house tonight?

Senator: Where shall I park?

Senator's Wife: On the street.

Senator: OK

Note on the Refrigerator: Dear Son, Your dad and I are spending the night at my mother's apartment. Please find your favorite food in the Refrigerator. Love Mom.

I spent about an hour at the family house, getting some things packed up to stay at W's mother's for a while. Didn't see College Son.

How Long?

Dear Drucilla,

The coaching strategies I am studying were developed in 2002 by Michael Hall. I have some training in coaching and counseling, and I feel comfortable with knowing the pitfalls of counseling errors.

I have posted some NLP web references under the Other Website Section of MB:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubb...=UBB10&page=0&PHPSESSID=

I have listened to, and understand Hall's 2002 Lecture on the Matix Analysis. I have bought two, 2005 coaching books by Hall, and I have a two DVD set on coaching. Currently the 2 DVD coaching set is free, on special, except for $6.00 shipping, if you are interested.

What Self-Improvement strategies have you utilized?

Blessings
1015

Ranting, Imaginary conversation with W:

Senator's Wife: Since our College son was disrespectful to you several days ago, you have gotten behind in the household repairs, and you are spending almost no time at home. The TV stopped working, and you need to fix it or switch the cable to the other TV.

Senator: Well I stopped by to fix the TV. but our son's car was there, so I drove on. I left you two messages about that and heard nothing back. It is not really surprising that College Son is deisrespectful to me, because you have delibertately created an atmosphere of disrespect toward me in the home by:
1. Contradicting my efforts at household chore systems through disparaging comments about my systems.

2. Contradicting my efforts at household chore systems by deliberately diverging from my systems in a zig-zag, unpredictable and impulsive manner.

3. By not being sure that marital arguements were not overheard by College Son, such as when you threaten divorce and philandering.

4. By not letting me know what you are doing after work, and up till 10, 11, 12 and 1 oclock in the night. Not anwering your cellphone, and nopt checking your messages when you are out late. You have repeatedly, for years made me look foolish to outr son and your relatives.

5. Failing to coordinat a reasonably concerted effort to assist son to develop anything better than wretched roomate habits.

6. Finding ways to express make-wrong beliefs about my concepts of Religion, Morals approaches to counseling help, self-improvement options, etc, in the home, outside of assured privacy.

7. You are continuing to undercut my postition by going to the family house, when most everything yo want to do can be done at your mother's apartment, at lest until she returns in two weeks.

Ideas?
1033

Here comes a 2X4 with no soft edges.....

Stop all your coaching, mumble jumble, goals, lists, itinerary's, plans, reasons, and basic bullsh*t..............

You have no control over others
You only have control over yourself

You CANNOT change others
You can ONLY change yourself - get it?

By focusing on changing the behaviors of others - you are being manipulative

as long as you continue down this path you WILL NOT succeed in rebuilding your marriage.

....you are being controlling

All of YOUR BEHAVIOR is preventing you from working on you and ultimately saving what you want most.

Rachel

OH....and by the way....why are you having your wife tell your son to apologize? You need to deal directly with your son on that one.

Dear Whistles 75,

Why is it important for your belief system to accept that you cannot change anone else?

Does anyone you know have any annoying habits? Ever thought about asking an individual about improving a bad habit?

Did you ever give someone a compliment, and see them smile? Did you ever give a lover a massage, and see them relax? Did you ever receive a massage, and feel better? I realize that I am particularly resistant to change, so I make an extra effort to be ready to change, when someone has a good suggestion.

I did suggest indirectly that my wife should have my son appologize to me. I did not directly ask her to have son appologize. But you are correct in your idea that, to some degree, I asked W to ask Son to apologize.

In the past, I have dealt with College son more directly. I have agreed with son, that W was a little passive-agressive, and difficult to deal with, in an even handed manner.

My thinking today, is more to have W more involved with managing son.

W is nurtuing to son, whether son is performing well, or poorly. Simple behavioural parenting indicates withholding rewards at times when performance is slumping, as one way to encourage better performance.

But Matirix NLP coaching means finding areas to boost self-esteem, that might be blocking progress on improving a habit. W is boosting self-esteem, without thinking about which part of self esteem could be boosted, to build better habits.

W is not spending any substantial time improving her coaching skills, and undermines my attempts at improving Son's habits.

I am not particulary concerned about a verbal apology. I am interested in son to have improved household chore habits. I have been rinsing Son's dishes, and picking up things he leaves on the kitchen table, and helping with his laundry. So, for the last few days, I have not helped, as I have only been home a short time to pick up a few things. I think it may be time for W to improve her habit-building coaching skills. I have books, DVD's and some knowledge myself, to offer her.

You may be correct, that Son will not change. My reasoning is that W should be more on board with habit improving coaching. So my current approach is to minimize my time at the home, and let W figure out ways to improve son's habits. Since I am not home, it is clear that any mess W does not make herslf, was made by Son.

I am intersted in enjoying my life. The cycle of Son having sloppy habits, and Wife blaming me for his sloppy habits, and simultaneously, Wife undercutting my systems of household chores, is not productive, nor pleasant for me.

I have my own challenges with my own laziness/motivation.

Maybe one way to put it is that I am not fitting into their motivational structures, and they are not fitting into mine. Maybe I should just go get an apartment someplace? They can figure out how to make the house payment and utilities by themselves?

Maybe W and I can just sleep together at her mother's apartment for a while? How will that movie end? W and Son figure out they don't need Dad? W decides to try to help son with his habits, then understands the difficulties, and agrees to help Dad more cooperatively and with less undercutting? Everybody just stays stuck on Stupid?

I get the impression that W will go along with sleeping with me at her mother's house, at least occasionally, for a while. Will this have any meaning for Son?

Ideas
1054

Update: Conversation At Lunch today, Monday.

Senator: I want to thank you for making progress on changing your habit of make-wrong statements to me in the house.

Senator's Wife: Yes I have deliberately avoided the temptation to make comments about lights being left on too often, in the house. I have also tried to avoid discussing religion.

Senator: I am feeling you could help to improve Son's self image. Son has been acting like a bully, and has poor houehold/roomate habits.

Senator's wife: Well I feel that it is your job to correct our son's bad habits. Apparently you have ideas how to correct our son's bad habits. Therefore I should move out of the house, getmy own apartment, and let you deal with son's bad habits.

Senator: Your moving out will not improve our college son's self-image and habits. You will still be his mother. I am asking you to use your influence with our son to improve his self-image and personal habits.

Senator's Wife: So you think I am important for helping our son? I did not relaize that you thought I could help our son. Our son thinks that you want him to move out. I told him that he was ruining my marriage by being disrepsctful to you. He said your were not sufficiently polite to him.

Senator: I left a message for Son saying I needed some space and time. I will leave him a message letting him know I want him to work with you on his self-image and personal habits.

Senator's Wife: You have been sleeping at my mother's apartment for several days, and I think that is a bad idea. You should be coming home. I feel you are being unfathful to me and unfaithful to the family.

Senator: I would like to give you a feeling of fidelity. You rarely let me know what you are doing after work, and you rarely go straight home. You have been doing better letting me know when you are out past 10. But I still have a temptation to retaliate by not letting you know where I am, because you often don't let m,e know where you are.

Senator's Wife: Ok, I will try to give you more information.

Senator: And I would feel better if you showed less cleavage for going to work. You show more cleavage going to work than when you come to bed.

Senator's wife: That is just the style!

Senator: I amnot talking about the style, I am talking about how much cleavage you display.

Senator's wife: OK, I'll try to do dress more conservatively.

(Kiss good bye)



Ideas?
1098

UPDATE, SLIPS IN FOCUS:

Yestrerday night, I allowed my focus to be diverted, from my main issue, which is asking W to change some of her habits, and assisting her to coach my college Son to improve some of his habits.

Senator's Wife: I feel you should move back home, because I should not be sleeping with you at my mother's house, while she is away for one more week. You are deserting the family home.

Senator: I don't feel that I am deserting you.

Senator's Wife. Why won't you come home? Write me out the reasons.

Senator: I feel that there could be a more pleasant atmosphere in the house without the expenditure of much more effort.

Senator's Wife: Well that is how each of us feel. I feel that you could give me the basement, and I feel the house is unpleasant because of your refusal, and slow progress. College son feels you are making hte houme unpleasnat becasue yo refuse to come home. You should come home to make th house more pleasant, which is the goal you just agreed to.

Senator: Well, I think we should focus on trying to help College Son develop habits for success..

Senator's Wife: Why don't you come home and start working with College Son?

Senator: I feel that my power is small compared to your power, becaue you give contradictory signals, and shange up on the follow through.

Senator's wife: Oppositional Responses.

Senator: I think you can help son improve his habits for better chances of success.

Senator's wife: Progressively becoming less oppositional.


ANALYSIS: My responding with a statment that the family home could be more pleasant, slipped from the focus, for asking W to help College Son imprvoe his habits.


Ideas?
1124

UPDATE ON FOCUS:

Michael Hall has expanded traditional NLP, as some posters have pointed out, so I have refined the Title of the Thread to NLP/Matrix coaching. I have been watching the two set free DVD's on Coaching, and gotten many ideas.


Senator's Wife: You are a failure.

Senator: We can focus on helping College Son. Maybe you can fix him dinner at the house, and have him talk to you about Trust and Risk in Friendship, Family and Love. Have you thouoght of any ways to improve the atomosphre in the family Home?

Senator's wife: You are the one who ruined the atmosphere. You have too much of your research stuff in the basement, and in our bedroom. Since you left home two weeks ago, College Son is unhappy, and you have further ruined the atmosphere in the home.


Ideas?
1159

Senator, I've come back to this thread a number of times over the last couple of weeks, wondering whether there was any point in responding. In all honesty, I'm doubtful, but I'm going to give it a try anyhow.

The word that came to my mind as I read your posts was ""intellectualization." It's a coping mechanism, and not all bad - as long as we don't get stuck in it forever.

There are a few things that bother me about you and your situation. The first is that you are putting all your energies into significant but non-primary matters. Analogy: you are attempting to maintain an unwavering focus on fixing the leaky faucet while the house is burning down. It is as if you are concentrating intently on observing and pruning one tree so that you can avoid noticing or thinking about the forest.

The second thing that bothers me is that what you are focusing on is mostly about how you can change other people. You may argue that you are working on changing yourself as well, but it appears to me that the changes you are trying to accomplish even there are merely (or primarily) vehicles to the changing of others. And the problem there is that as long as your behavioral changes derive from that motivation, they will be perceived as insincere, and will have limited effect. Attitude is at least as important as behavior.

The third thing that bothers me is that you seem to be refusing to take up your own mantle of responsibility until your wife has fully gotten with your program. It is certainly true that your efforts will be impeded if your wife is undermining them, but I'm not sure that that is a sufficient excuse to bow out entirely. At some point it can become merely a rationalization for your own failure to act.

I realize that I may be off-base on some of this, but my reactions can only be based on what I read here. And if nothing else is clear, it is that your posts are run through a very heavy filter. That in itself should give pause for thought.

Dear Gnome De Plume,

I am working from a laptop, so my typos may be even more to begin with.

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful response.

RECENT CONVERESATIONS:

SENATOR'S 28 YEAR OLD COLLEGE SON: Are you asking me to improve my roomate skills?

SENATOR: No. I AM getting tired of hearing about your less than perfect roomate skills from your mother, my wife. I am staying out of the house, in part, so that your mother can take full reponsibility for any improvements she desires in your household chore participation. There are some other conflicts I would like to resolve with your mother, such as how we are going to make the living room more functional, and how we are going to utilize the basement. I am an oppositonal type person, so when someone tries to force me to do something, I ordinarily dig in my heels.

SENATOR'S SON: You moved out of the house after I was disrespectful to you. I was in a bad mood, and I feel you were making unreasonable requests, in an unreasonable manner.

SENATOR: There were more things going on, at that time, with your mother, of which you might not be aware. I, myself, may not have been at my best. Ordinarily I do not talk to you in an assertive, pushy manner. If you would like an appology, for my part, I appologize.

SENATOR'S SON: (Seemed more calmed down. Son felt that I over-reacted to his disrespectful remarks to me. He just din not realize he was putting the straw on the camel's back)


BREAK TO SENATOR'S WIFE: Your qualities as a husband and a roomate are so poor that I am sure that no other woman would want anything to do with you.

SENATOR: JUST LISTENED.

What I think I should tell W is that the idea of my unatractiveness, needs furhter review, because if W has someplace else to go, and is only staying with me, out of pity, then that pity should be examined.

I feel W has poor roomate and personal habits and attitudes that make her a poor wife, to many men. Maybe if she found a rich guy who was a swinger, she might be great. But for at least 80% of the men interested in marriage, or a long term relationship, W does not measure up. That is why I want to bring this to a head now, rather than later.

W is constantly, since a year after we were married, drops hints about having affairs. She needs to realize, that I am overlooking the concept of affairs, as a courtesy to her impulsivity. But if I get confornted with the issue, I may well either end up in jail, or become so unforgiving that the marriage will be over. So I am asking W to decide now, while she has sufficient mobility to interest another man.

I am trying to stay focused on the positives, and avoid negative slips that accurately reflect my feelings, but fail to be positive.

Yesterday I got my laptop running, and by 2 AM this morning I had it hooked to the Internet. I have more options for easily staying outside the home lined up, for when my Mother In Law returns to her aparment in a few days. W knows where I am sleeping, and has the key. W refused my invitations to sleep over the last three nights. Yesterday I clarified some issues with my son, having lunch at a restaurant.

I agree that the house is burning down. I agree that I have made the focus on little issues. My next issue, comes up when the House Payment is due, and W usually makes a partial contribution.

SENATOR, FUTURE MAYBE: Well I pay the untilities nad the second morgage, do upkeep and buy supplies. This house now has no value to me. If you want more control, I feel you should pay more. You are spending a lot of money on things to which I do not agree. No POJA on a lot of your stuff. I try to use exclusively POJA.


Blessings

Tough Love Principle: Witdraw cooperation on an important, but not crucial, issue to create a basis for a negotiaton.

Matrix Principle: Find an underlying insecurity, for a targeted improvement, then bolster the particular insecurity as a path toward enhancing a goal.

Senator's Ideas on W's Approach to Marriage:

W deels he can get anything she wants by playing the threate of an infidelity card. H collapses. Even if W just plays the DEMANDING card, taht indicates the next card to be layed is the INFIDELITY card, so H capitulates.

Married Life is W making Selfish Demands, and Threats of Infidelity, and everything runs in favor of W.

SENATORS'S IDENTIFIED PIVOT POINT: W feels H is a loser, and cannot get any other woman interested in him.

Senator's remarks to W today: I Love you and I think you are enchanting, but I feel I am not getting much respect from you.

SENATOR'S WIFE: You don't really deserve respect from me because you basically do nothing for me.

SENATOR: Yes, that is the way you see it. You have good self esteem, and you do not focus on any of your faults, and that is healthy. However, I feel that I am the ideal husband for you, because I understand your strengths and weaknesses, and I make accommodations for your faults, and forgive inconsistencies. So negotiation is difficult with you, because you are not in touch with any of your faults or any of the accommodations that I make for you. When a problem comes up for me, I go on the internet, and look for solutions. I have spent a fair amount of time, working to solve problems in the marriage.

Senator's wife: Well I want your research boxes arranged more neatly, and taking up less pace in the house.

Senator: I would like more respect. You seem to feel that you are doing me a favor by staying married to me, because you feel that I could not get any other woman. Please don't hold yourself back. You are in good health, and you can get another man. I suggest we decide now, in the next few months, what we are doing with our future, because staying with me from pity, is not path to happiness.

If a jealousy situation arises, I may not handle that very well, and we need to figure out what we want.

Senator's Wife: Well if you want a divorce, don't expect me home tonight. Let's start our separation right now. [INFIDELITY CARD]

Senator: For divorce, we need to be separated for X months, then we can get a Divorce. I will be honoring the marriage during the X months, and I suggest it would be spritually important to honor the Law.

Senator's wife: few comments, long silences.

Finally, Sentor's wife: OK I will try to be more respectful to you. Why don't you come home tonight?

Senator: Why don't we compromise, and meet at your Mother's house?

Senator's Wife: OK.



Ideas?
1217

Some of my difficulties is when W plays the Infidelity card, and when W plays the Pushy, Selfishly, intensely Demanding card.

During this thread, I have developed some responses to these ploys by W, with an underpinning logic justifying divorce or separation, and then calling her cards, by offering a separation.

One justification for Divorce is that W feels she is trapped in the marriage, because of pity for me. My approach to W is to say, "I don't want you to feel trapped in a marriage, and you will not give me the respect or consideration I deserve/expect, so let us just separate now, so you are not trapped."

Another justification for Divorce is if W feels she would like to have the privilege of being single. Dating others, or staying out late with her realtives, friends or co-workers, without letting her husband know what she is doing, is part of the single life style. I might say, "I think you have a right to the single life style, and I don't want to stand in your way. So let us just separate for now. You have X months to change your mind.

My wife likes to push everything to the limit. So unless I am ready to talk separation for Divorce, W is going to keep pushing her limits.

W has a right to be single, if that is her wish. But remaining married, and acting Single, or resenting the marriage, makes me feel stupid.


Revised Goals for Habit Changing:
My current revison of my list of targeted habits:

W:
1. Avoid phrasing ideas or requests in a Make-Wrong framework.
2. Respect requests for a shift from Micro-focusing on a particular problem, to the full, big picture.
3. Minimize moving my stuff around, other than on the first floor, without POJA.
4. Habitually refusing to discuss planning for habit imporvement for Son, or Moving Son out.
5. Contradicting a statement or belief of mine, without an emergency, or a considerate context.

For College Son:
A. Rinse his dishes, and put silverware in the soaking bowl.
B. Follow the laundry system, with no clothes on the floor, except dirty clothes in his room.
C. Assist with the washing/waxing/upkeep of the car he is designated to drive.
D. Habitually pick up all his items from the first floor.
E. Fold newspapers after reading, keeping sections from the same day together.
F. Clear the table after he eats of all his items, and clean the table to at least its previous level of cleanliness.
G. Talk repsectfully to parents.

For Senator_H:

a. Come home earlier from work. Work on Underpinning Feeling: Foolish for coming home early when W is out carousing. Request to W: Let me know by putting 2's on my pager when you get home.

b. Keeping basement, utility room and bedroom better organized. Work on Underpinning feeling of insuffient appreciation, consideration.

c. Focus more on Research/Writing. Work on Handling Competing Time Requests from Family.


Ideas?
1246

Senator,

Is this thread a joke? I think the problem here is you spend too much time analyzing your marriage and family, then spend even more time writing about it.

It's very difficult to decipher what you are trying to accomplish here and I think most would agree this online forum may not help you much.

Just my 2 cents for what it's worth. Probably just 2 cents.

Dear Husband Lost,

I find parts of my situation humorous, and I try not to take myself too seriously. I try to distinguish between actual conversations, and what I feel like saying. I think people who have posted to the thread have been more serious than joking. If you see some satire, you might elucidate upon that, so that I, and other readers, can see the humor you see. Sometimes learning happens from laughing.

The thread has meanderd to some extent. This morning, I had a good 45 Minute session with my wife, discussing phrases with which to approach our College Son with requests for Chores, and attempts to identify underpinning concepts that form a basis of Son's Oppositional Attitudes. So I am continuing on target for my goals, as indicated in the title of the thread. I try to make each of my posts self-explanatory, but Questions are fine, without having to read back to the start of the thread. Are there other forums you find hepful, or would recommend?

This is not the opnly forum to which I post. There are quite a few different individuals that read and post to Marriage Builders. Anyone with a fresh idea is sometimes a big help. Sharing experiences with similar feelings is sometimes helpful

My wife is mostly Right Brain, and createive and impulsive. So when I get one problem figured out she is fairly quick to figure out another approach to drive me nuts.

Your comment that I might be better off just to get on with my life, is a tempting concept for me. I have been allowing my wife and son to successfuly slip the mantra's of their struggles, onto my shoulders,taking up my time to find a loving way to put their burdens back on their shoulders.

If you are looking for jokes, there are a number of threads on MB in which people banter about theoretical or speculative issues. If you see a frivolous side to my stgruggles, I would appreciate your pointing out the humorous aspects, as there may be a lesson for me.

My wife said she would not sleep with me tonight at her mother's house. My landlord for my rented room was appreciateive to me today, as I helped him pin point a rain water leak in the foundation of the house, removed a broken lightbulb, and tied a string to a cloest light witch chain. I put some grass seed down on some bars pots of the lawn. I picked up some DVD cases, and a cable for my printer to work with my laptop. I think I will put my printer at my rented room, and I can take my laptop there anytime.

Anuthing you can share about your challenges?

Ideas?
1304

H- Are you an MBTI type ISTJ?