***Cherised: "What I am trying to do is force a choice on my husband so that he is not violent when he decides I'm not worth his time."***

So, in other words: You are scared to death of his reaction if you just pack up the kids and leave. I can't blame you for that. So, you want HIM to be the one to leave or to order you out. You want HIM to end the marriage and force the physical separation so that he will not become enraged and violent if YOU do it.

Cherished, you need far more help than this website can give you. This is no longer a problem for Marriage Building. You need to call a specialist in domestic violence who knows how to help women in exactly your situation. Marriage Builders can do nothing to help you now.

Please get your phone book and look up the number of the nearest women's shelter and/or domestic violence hotline. Look it up online if you have to. Then come back and tell us who you called and what they said.

We'll be waiting.
Mulan

Mulan,

I am emailing Harley, and he has had a lot of experience in dealing with domestic violence situations. He told me upfront two years ago that the combination of infidelity and abuse is very, very tough, but abuse is the more difficult problem.

I've already met with the people at the shelter -- and was not impressed. I attended the wives meeting for the men in my husband's anger management group. We went to therapy to the therapist who has done a lot of counseling to men in the anger management group. (His view: "The Policy of Joint Agremeent is la la land.")

I think Harley is 100% correct about how to have a good marriage. This past month, I just came to the conclusion that I would not/could not continue in a marriage of emotional divorce. That's why the ultimatum.

Harley thinks there is danger in separation but also in continuing to live together. By giving Tom the choice, based on behavior he chooses, I am trying to minimize the possibility of abuse at the time of a separation.

Cherished

Ok, Cherished, I can understand your logic wanting HIM to be the one to make the choice in leaving, so you can avoid a dangerous reaction if it is YOU that leaves. Like I said before, I know this strategy.

BUT, Cherished, I don't think he'll choose to leave, because he's got it pretty good the way it is. He is accountable for NOTHING!! He can go on and on this way for as long as he wishes and he KNOWS it! His life is FREE! Yours and the childrens are NOT! The 15 hrs. in the sand, is NOTHING compared to the time you're doing now, or could be doing for the rest of your life if you keep waiting for him to be the one to leave!

You mentioned your parents a while back, indicating you have them to go to. And you have an education to take with you. These or two GREAT doors that are open to you! Start there! Just call your parents! Please! Let us know what they say! I'm with Mulan, I dread the day you don't respond here, leaving us wondering with what ever happened! Call your parents, now!!!

Jennifer68

Cherished,

I'm planning on filling for legal separation now. Dr. Harley has said that he supports building marriages but not at all costs. You are more resolved now and have tried harder on your marriage than you had two years ago when you talked to the three attorneys. Maybe the attorneys sensed your lack of resolve before and so were unresponsive because of that. Also, were you just picking from the phone book or were you going to the best divorce lawyer in town. You will find a big difference in compitence out there and you need a good lawyer who will fight for you. You live in the Minneapolis area don't you. I'm sure there are a ton of lawyers to choose from. Does anyone out there know how to get the best other than just asking friends? When you are in a conservative setting you are likely to not know many people who are divorced.

My brother is one of the top lawyers in the state. He referred me to a law office, but I preferred another lawyer I found in the "Top Lawyers" issue of Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine. I think Dr. Harley believes in ending bad marriages. It takes two to make a bad marriage great, and he recognizes that one person who won't follow the program can make it impossible to turn around a bad marriage.

In the end, it won't be abuse or infidelity that ends our marriage. It will be simple neglect. I've probably heard "F... you" thousands of times, but the words that hurt most were "Leave me alone" and "I don't care."

He has had it pretty good. He's been accountable for nothing. He's told me that this 15 hours is just a game and he won't play. Fine. He can choose. I'm serious.
I will ask him to leave if the rolling average falls below 0. It's at 9.5 as of Monday, and we've spent 2.75 hours together since then. If you add 9.5 to 2.75, you get 13.25. Each week, on Monday morning, I subtract 15. We only need to spend 1.75 hours together until Sunday night to avoid my asking for separation on Monday. On Tuesday, he goes to San Francisco until Friday. We can talk on the phone. It's just time together alone I am looking for, not anything specific. Heck, yesterday, we watched Dr. Phil together, and I counted that. If we can't spend 15 hours together, I'll ask him to leave. If he won't leave, I'll file for legal separation.

If I file for legal separation, the money is pretty set at 39% of his income for child support (he pays the taxes, so it's actually about 50%) and then some amount for a short period of time for alimony. Other than that, what I most want is no contact whatsoever with him. Because of past abuse, we won't be required to go through mediation. I understand what is ahead. I just had to be willing to choose legal separation over a marriage of neglect.

With our 11 year old daughter in tears on Christmas Day and our 9 year old boy in tears earlier this month, I simply cannot wait for him to decide. I've had to force a decision or make one myself. To be honest, Harley thinks I should just go ahead with a separation. Tom has told me he thinks he should just move out. I've told him to go ahead. I'm willing to live with him if he is willing to spend 15 hours per week with me.

Also, we have never actually been to a MBW, and Tom agreed to go to the one in Minneapolis this summer. What I am hoping is that we can adjust to just spending time together until then and after the MBW we can start to concentrate on meeting each other's ENs.

Cherished

Cherished, I wonder if you could write your H a letter telling him what you said above. Would you feel safe doing that? And ask him not to use those curse words in front of the children, or to you. There is life and death in the power of the tongue. Tell him you would like a healthy environment for your children to live in, where love lives, not hatred.

Blessings,
Lady

Lady,
He rarely swears anymore -- maybe a few times a month. He's not one to swear around others. Can you imagine that I was so used to his swearing only around us that I was actually amused when our son (age 2 or 3) was in my in-law's living room, wagging his finger and saying, "F... you!" My in-laws never saw that. I wish they had.

Last night, we went to Home Depot and bought a toilet and cabinet with sink to put in the bathroom that has not been usable since the basement flooded on April 25, 2001. We watched part of a movie.

It may not exactly be romantic time together, but it is time together. In the final analysis, what has been worse for me has been neglect, not infidelity and not abuse. How can a man have any empathy for or care for his wife if the only time he spends with her is when he comes home from work and snarls "Leave me alone" before he heads to the living room to read the paper?

I was wrong to put up with neglect. My conservative Catholic upbringing taught me that love means a willingness to sacrifice and there is virtue in suffering. We are attending a marriage enrichment seminar put on by the archdiocese next month. I will be interested to hear what they have to say and compare it to what Harley says about sacrifice and what John Paul II has said about the need for "mutual submission" in marriage and that the result of sin is the man's domination of the woman.

Cherished

It's Monday. I track hours Monday through Sunday.

Last week, we spent 15.25 hours together. All six of us were sick. Tom was home all week. Tomorrow he goes to San Francisco for his job.

Our rolling average is now at 9.75 hours.

He said he'd be willing to go to the MB seminar this summer in the Twin Cities if I lose 30 pounds. I've gained 40 pounds since he broke my arm four years ago, and my weight was up 20 pounds then from when we were dating. I feel like Aunt Marge in the Harry Potter movie.

On Saturday, he brought up how I am not dealing with my problems and taking responsibility for how bad our marriage is. He said I never told him how miserable I was and he would just lay in the bed and laugh when he heard me out on the living room couch crying. I told him that I was scared to say anything after he cracked my skull. He also said that I show no appreciation for being able to stay home and for having four healthy and smart children. I told him that the cost was too high because the cost was my dignity, my safety, and the emotional health of our children. At another time, he told me that he wanted to discuss discipline of our four year old in a "reasonable" way. I said that I think talking about what is or is not reasonable becomes a disrespectful judgement of me because I'm not reasonable. I said that I think we should find a way that we both can agree on. Those conversations didn't go so well. I finally said I see no benefit to talking about the past -- until, perhaps, we manage to get to the honesty and openess lesson of Harley's program. I also concluded that I should just keep my mouth shut and listen rather than try to defend my actions or respond to what I think might be a provocation.

Yesterday, he told me that he had no hope because there's too much blame and he can't get over the past. I asked him what he wanted to do. He said he doesn't want to fight so he'll just agree with me on everything. I said nothing.

Cherished

God grant you the strength you need this year.

Cherished,

Here's my opinion and take it for what it is, then you decide when u r ready.

Your H isn't ready to work on the M. He is still all about blaming others. The deep seated issues in his soul has been taken out on you and your family. As long as he has you all to be his punching bag, he will never heal.

Let me know when you understand the direction this post is going. I can't see any type of true recovery happening no matter how many hours are spent. So far they don't sound like quality time, sounds more like blaming time and it leaves you exhausted, frustrated and hurt. Why go back for more?

You are closer to getting relief than you think. Be willing to take the step to provide the much needed relief you and your family need. Let him deal with his issues himself. If you don't it may never go away and the blame will manifest itself again.

Why do I say this? Because in my case, I had to learn to let the WS go deal with his issues himself. Helping him was to NOT help him. I was smothering him with support when he needed to fall down and go boom. Yea, he wasn't smart in the EN dept so he had to learn the hard way. Almost lost us in the process and even now he could lose us because we already know how to live w/o him. That in itself is helping him see who is more valuable us or him. For him we are more valuable. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

Orchid,
Tom has been saying for several years that he isn't ready to work on our M. Meanwhile, time goes by, the kids grow up, I age...

This 15 hour per week demand could be his opening to divorce me. If so, fine. Fine.

I'm not sure with what to do with the incredibly hurtful things he is saying, so I am saying nothing. I am reading a book called Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic, and I gasped. He asked why, and I showed him a picture of a very obese mouse next to a normal weight mouse. He said it looks like a couple, I said nothing, and then he said he was like the mouse on the right (the normal weight one). Obvious implication: I am like the mouse on the left. Hurtful. Dreadfully hurtful. I weigh 190. When we were dating, I weighed about 132. When he broke my arm four years ago, I weighed about 155. If there is anything I am doing this year, it is taking off those pounds of pain. But I don't need him to rub in that I am fat. I already know it. I've already told him how I plan to lose it, and I've already committed to losing 30 pounds before the summer. In exchange, he promised to attend the MBW in Minneapolis.

Right now, I think I will just see what he does. If he chooses not to spend 15 hours per week with me, then he chooses to move out. If he chooses to move out, that is the safest way for us to end our marriage.

Cherished

Hey Cherished,

You have some of our resident "experts" confused about your "silly" little request of 15 hours per week. I find it quite simple and easy to understand what you are saying. You are saying you want 15 hours of together time a week as an average. That seems pretty cut and dried to me.

I think that many of these "experts" are so interested in getting YOU to see the error of your ways that they have completely missed how good of an idea it really is. You made a plan that works for YOU and you are following THAT plan. Good for you. I support your effort. It only has to make sense for YOU and work for you. Some of these people have a tough time supporting anything other than what THEY feel is the correct way. This is in spite of the fact of the things they said and did WHEN they were in their "marriage crisis".

You sound fine to me. You sound like you have a "need" of 15 hours per week. I get it. Simple... Very simple...

Good luck.

I think what I need is Tom in the marriage or out of the marriage rather than living with me but not being anything but someone who swoops in occasionally to critique my person, my parenting, or my housekeeping. The 15 hour demand does that. I'm either worth the effort of 15 hours per week, or I'm not.

Cherished

Cherished, your right.

Something my father always told me was, you always make time for the things you really want to do. If you really want to do it, it will get done. If you just wish you would do it ... that's what you have a wish, but nothing actually done.

Which brings me to another thing my father told me. If you have a wish in one hand and a pile of poop in the other ... What do you Have?

15 hours is not insurmountable. If it is worth it and you want to do it, you don't just find the time, you make the time. Some people look for the immediate gratification. The payoff in spending that time together, it is the closeness you will generate later. Work up front, reward at the end.

I tried to get my STBX to do the same. Made a schedule, tried to make it fun to do the schedule. It lasted two weeks, she kept cancelling plans. Then when I brought up scheduling time again months later she just said NO.

If someone won't schedule some time with you, it demonstrates to me that they only want to spend time with you at thier convenience or to meet thier needs, not to build the M.

That is probably why you feel like "just" a house keeper. I myself felt like a mule, the only time STBX ever called or spent time with me was when she wanted something, or we were doing what she wanted. And she didn't even give me a carrot of sugar cube. LOL

My prayers are with you Cherished.

Cherished,

I am stumped as to why you would want to remain married to this person.

I really am.

Your H sounds very much like my H before we had our d-day however my H never physically attacked me. My H knew that was the one line that could never be crossed. Had he ever physically attacked me I would have immediately left him. I could never live with that or even the fear of that. Personally for me that would be even worse than infidelity. I do consider infidelity a form of abuse as well but to a slightly lesser degree.

But your H`s attitude towards you and his lack of caring for you is what I experienced with my own H. For years. My H also had an issue with my weight. And he also used it as a excuse to treat me poorly.

There is a big difference between a "threat" and an ultimatum. You don`t really mean it when you threaten. When you give an ultimatum you do mean it. You are going to do exactly what you say you are going to do.

I used threats for years. Didn`t work. Only once I was ready to act on my words did it sink in to my H.

But this all only came about when I decided I didn`t want to be married to my H anymore. When I stopped trying to "fix" him. When I stopped begging for attention and no longer expected/wanted to be treated lovingly. When I had my bags packed at the front door. I was done.

Then and only then did my H decide to change his ways.

But had he not I would have been just fine. I would have started over. I was mentally prepared for that. I would rather live alone than live with with someone who didn`t like me. And I define whether someone likses me or not by how they treat me on a day to day basis over a period of time. If I have to force someone to spend time with me I`d rather spend that time alone. I wanted my H to be my friend...and if he didn`t like to spend time with me then he was not my friend.

For your own safety I agree with some of the other posters, you will need to contact a woman`s shelter when you are ready to change your life. Your H is dangerous. I doubt your H will make any drastic changes until you are ready to make a drastic change. And maybe even then he will not want to change. But it won`t be your problem anymore. You can make a good life for yourself when you are ready.

The course of your life is in your own hands.

Daisy37,
I'm ready. If he's unwilling to spend 15 hours per week with me, that's fine.

As for why I would want to remain married, well, I never felt so great as the year we were engaged. I kept thinking that, if I changed this or that or if this or that circumstance changed, then I could feel that way again.

Harley says it's possible. He says that you need to spend 15 hours together meeting intimate emotional needs and follow the POJA in decision-making. I'm going with Harley's theory. Tom said he's willing to attend the MBW this summer if I lose 30 pounds. Fine. I'll do that. Until then, all I want is 15 hours per week. That's it. Watching Oprah. Picking out toilets. Whatever. Just time together alone.

Cherished

15 hours of what? DJ, disrespect and abuse? Why is 15 a magical number? Nope, if any amount of time isn't good quality time then that time is not well spent and the results would not be healthy.

Cherished, don't go by a number...... go by common sense. If you and your H can't give each other any quality time, then stop the charade.

L.

Cherished,

When I was engaged to my H things were terrific too. Had my H treated me during the engagement the way the way he treated me during the first eight years of marriage I would never have married him.

I think in my H`s case once the ring was on my finger he did not feel the need to "court" me anymore. During our engagement my H couldn`t get enough of me. He wanted to spend all of his free time with me. But all of that changed literally the day after our wedding when he opted to spend that entire day (and all of his freetime thereafter for eight years) with his idiot cousin.

I couldn`t understand it. I understood fairly quickly after the wedding that I was no longer his friend, his wife yes... but no longer his friend but I could not figure out why. What happeneed? Why did he dump me as his friend as soon as we married?

H and I had different ideas about the husband/wife roles. For my H a "good" husband was a man who went to work, made the money, kept the lawn mowed and didn`t lift his hand to his wife. That was all that was required. And yes he did say this many times over the years when I would complain about his lack of attention towards me. My H also became very critical and overbearing right after we married. I was dumbfounded by the drastic change. My H thought he was a great H and that I was the one with the problem because I had unrealistic expectations.

According to my H a "good" wife kept house, looked stunning all the time, had the babies and didn`t overspend. The only attention a good wife was to expect from her H was of a sexual nature. If a wife wanted conversation or to go out on the town she should expect to do that with her friends ...and not bother her H.

Honest to God this is how my H expected the M to work and he expected me to go along with it and keep a smile on my face and to be content.

It didn`t work for me. I kept hoping it would get better...I thought if I was his friend once before I could be again.

And in a way I was right. I am his friend again now. But only after making it crystal clear that I was unwilling to remain married according to his "rules". If H wants to be married to me he has to be my friend. That`s no longer negotiable.

Once my H decided to make a consistent effort because he didn`t wish to be divorced he remembered what it was he liked about me in the first place. I didn`t make his pay me more attention....you can`t make anyone do anything...but my H did choose it over getting divorced. You will only see consistent effort from your H when he decides that it`s in his OWN self interest.

I don`t get 15 hours a week with my H....but then again I don`t count picking out toilets or watching Oprah as "quality" time either....

I get maybe about 7 or 8 hours a week, but those hours are spent 4 wheeling, swimming, eating out, skidooing, nooky ect....We`re actually having FUN!!!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Orchid,
It takes a lot of effort to spend 15 hours alone with another person, even if you are being abusive. I'll see what happens here. Right now, we had "quality time" going over his expense statements, and now he's downstairs playing a video game with our son. He thinks it's important to spend time with him. Yes, indeed, it is. I think the 15 hours alone forces a decision for him, but we'll see.

Daisy37,
I'm not sure I want to have fun with him at this point. I'd rather just try to get along in a civil way.
Cherished