Well, I was told in no uncertain terms that giving my husband an ultimatum of 15 hours per week would not work. He did spend 15 hours per week with me for several months, but it became evident that Love Bank balances were not being built. For one thing, he viewed spending time with me as his way of meeting my needs, but his continued to go unmet. For another thing, he felt as though he was meeting my demand even if he was "mean".

I changed my name from Cherished to Respectful because my goal is not to be cherished -- that is his role. My role is to show respect towards him. Trying to cram Harley's rules down his throat using threats was not very respectful.

We attended the MarriageBuilders Weekend in June, and what came out of that weekend immediately was a change in my behavior. I no longer was willing to argue with him about anything. I figured that, if he didn't get the Harley approach to marriage from a weekend of listening to Harley, then he sure wasn't going to get it from my lecturing him.

What that left was a change in behavior, not beliefs. How could I change his behavior? If marriage is like a dance, then a change in my dance step may change his.

He has said over and over and over again that I don't care about him, that all I care about is getting my needs met.

Not true. I never went into marriage expecting that he would be my "slave", as he put it. I wanted our marriage to work for both of us -- I just thought I knew how to do it. Was that respectful? No.

He seems to have thought that respect meant respecting each other's differences and supporting each other in activities that the other person might find negative. I bought into that for years. The problem was that, when I objected, I thought he should stop. I objected very few times. I drove myself into the ground physically, ending up sick off and on for six months before being diagnosed with walking pneumonia, rather than ask him for help and curtailing his outside activities. Where I put my foot down was when he was still having lunch with a female co-worker who had propositioned him and now was telling him she felt passion for him.

Did it do any good to be upset and demand he not see her? No.

Did it do any good to expose his affair? No. It may have ended the affair, but his view was he made "one mistake" -- his view of himself changed, but not of marriage.

My view of marriage changed. I realized that a man will have an affair only if he is willing to be dishonest and to violate the POJA. Well, his view of respect was that I should support him in his violating the POJA.

What to do?

Well, I changed my dance steps.

I stopped complaining. Did that do any good? ("I just tune out your chirping" probably would be a good answer to that question.)

I stopped telling him what to do. (I gave up the ultimatum of 15 hours per week. I gave up demanding that he follow the POJA.)

I stopped telling him what not to do. (If he feels justified in violating the POJA, that's his business.)

I stopped participating in anything unpleasant with him. (If he wants to argue with me, I leave. If I can't leave, I become silent.)

What can I do?

I ask.

What would you like to do this weekend?
Is there anything I do that bothers you?
Is there anything you would like me to do this week?

If there is anything that bothers him, I told him I am willing to give it up, except maybe breathing. He wanted me to give up reading for a month, and I said I would. He then told me he was just trying to make a point, so I could read.

If there is anything he wants done, and I see it as beneficial for me as well, then I do it. He brought up painting the hall. Fine. It may not have been my first priority, but I see it as positive for me.

If he says "Do what you think is best", I tell him that I will follow his advice and what I think is best is this. Then he has the opportunity to let me know whether he likes that specific decision.

If he asks me how I feel, I answer honestly. I don't tell him what to do or what not to do, but I do tell him how I feel. It is not controlling to answer "Yes" to the question "Would it bother you if I...?" It is his choice to ask and mine to be honest in my reply. I don't tell him how I feel unless he asks. I don't give him my opinion unless he asks.

There it is. There is a term called Phyrric Victory which means that you win but at a cost that is so high that it doesn't really matter that you win. That's what I've been pursuing. Now I am trying to get to a point where our marriage is positive for both of us.

That's my part. That's my dance step.

What has come of it? Well, I stopped complaining in June. I started asking just a few weeks ago. It's early. The front hall is painted.

Respectful

WOW!

That is not what I took away from my Weekend at the Harley's!

Did you do the EN Questionaire? And some of the other questionaires that would help get to the lack of communication in your M?

IMHO

Dear Respectful,
a song comes to mind when I read your post:
"Where is the love?"

And this fits into POJA how - ?

Are you enthusiastic about not reading for a month? If not, then why would you break POJA yourself and go along with this?

However, it WOULD make you look like a total victim and him look like a controlling monster if "he wants you to give up reading for a month." If that's your goal, then you've gotten it.
Mulan

Well, I think the responses above make me less hopeful about this approach.

I used to ask my husband what he wanted, and he'd say "Leave me alone."

When he asked, "Do you mind if I...?", I would then ask myself silently "Can I tolerate this?" and if I could I would say I didn't mind.

That is not the POJA. I would agree but wouldn't even express my reluctance.

We went to the MBW in a different place from other couples. The affair was simply the most egregious violation of the POJA, but it wasn't the only.

How does the POJA fit in? Well, I am now saying I do mind -- IF HE ASKS. How can he object to that? He can. He has told me that care, to him, means that I support him in what he wants to do. Oh, I did that, to an absurd degree. He learned not to consider my feelings when he made decisions.

Now I have a mountain of memories that are just terrible. Not just his breaking my arm when I threatened to call this woman. How about going a year without a bathtub when we had a toddler and a baby, and he'd get to it? Or going to his family's house eight times in one spring, when that meant 200 miles each way and I was working full time and trying to care for two children and the house? How about telling him something about Lynn, his saying "Who's Lynn?", and my saying she'd been my boss for the last two years?

On and on and on.

I must turn away from those memories and try to build experiences that are positive for both of us. In part, that means that I don't participate in experiences that are negative for me. He can ask if I mind if he does something, and I will be honest. It's up to him how he uses the feedback I give him. It's also up to him to decide if he wants to ask, to consider my feelings. I remember his telling me last summer, "Your opinion is irrelevant."

What I want to assure him is that his opinion is always relevant. That's where the discussion about reading comes in. After he said he wanted me to give up reading for a month, I asked if he wanted me to stop the Wall Street Journal because I'm the only one who reads it. No, he didn't. He wanted me to not go on the computer before the kids go to school. Well, I'm in the habit of weighing myself in the morning and recording my weight while the bathtub runs. He said it delayed me. I said that it doesn't. He said I'd get in the bathtub and get out sooner if I didn't get on the computer. Not true, but why argue? He doesn't like it. I now record my weight after the kids leave for school, and while the bath runs I load up the washing machine. My willingness to change my behavior in a way that works for me is my way to show care.

The MBW isn't a miracle cure-all. It's a path.

What I think I see now is that my willingness to say I didn't mind was my part of the problem. Now I don't go along with what I consider to be negative for me. This morning, 15 minutes before we were to get out of bed, he became very affectionate. Rarely do I enjoy sex when it means getting out of bed in 15 minutes. I didn't respond. He didn't ask why. But I didn't go ahead and have sex.

I think I participated in teaching him to be selfish. As people have pointed out to me innumerable times, I have some problems myself. He may have broken my arm five years ago, but I've stayed with him. Why? And what can I do about it?

That's why I have tried so many different approaches, and that's why I'm trying this new approach.

I'll check back in a month and let you know how it is going. I appreciate the perspectives. It gives me insights that help me as I try out this dance step. At least I've learned that I cannot control his behavior and cannot convince him to change his beliefs. Whatever changes I can influence will come from my changing my behavior, and that is what I am doing.

Respectful

My God, how do you live with such abuse? What is it about you that you stay with such a cruel, selfish person? I'd have been long gone....

Regards,

BB

And on the other hand - your husband seems equally miserable. If he were posting here, why would HE say that he stays?
Mulan

Mulan,
I think I know the answer to that question. On the day that this woman propositioned him, 5/3/01, he came home and told me what had happened and said he told her no because of "Duty. Honor. Commitment."

During the affair, he told me that he would never leave me when we have four kids.

His definition of commitment was that he would stay married no matter what. He wouldn't leave me, but he would do what makes him happy even if it didn't make me happy. With the affair, he had to be dishonest because I wouldn't accept his choice of having a sexual and emotionally intimate relationship with another woman. When the husband informed me of the affair, my husband's first words were: "I think Sophia is trying to destroy our marriage." Apparently, to him, the real threat to our marriage was Sophia telling the truth and not the truth of an affair itself.

A lot of the problems in our marriage are rooted in Catholicism and teachings of marriage that come to us through the local Catholic paper and sermons:
- marriage is permanent
- love is unconditional
- you must forgive no matter how often you are hurt
- love is disinterested: you don't look out for your own needs
- care means sacrifice: if I really care about him, I would be happy if he was happy doing what he wants even if it is negative for me
- everything happens for a reason: God wills that I be hurt and the vehicle through which I am hurt may be him
- there is redemptive value in suffering.

We attended a seminar in January at which there was a speaker who is a priest who is an something like assistant director at the seminary. What he said was that marriage is like the crucifixion. You need to show your love for each other like Christ shows his love by dying for us on the cross.

Happily, the pope who just died and is likely to be a saint, John Paul II, has written on love and marriage and it appears that he believes in the Policy of Joint Agreement. His writing is very difficult to get through, but the POJA is definitely there. The POJA is described in the idea of mutual submission and a commitment to care.

My sig line has the POJA from Chaucer's writings. Harley's approach isn't new. It's just put in a way that is very clear. Mature relationships in marriage only involve suffering due to circumstances -- the circumstances which cannot be avoided and would not have been chosen, such as health problems. God does not will us to suffer because of the free choice of the spouse to have an affair or beat us up or ignore our feelings and interests when he makes decisions.

I do agree, Mulan, that my husband is miserable because I am not "supportive" of choices he makes that I view as not in my best interest. He simply doesn't see the possibility of being happy where I am happy as well, and he has chosen to live out his vocation of marriage by doing, as my IC put it, "the minimum to appease me." He seems to think that his happiness is in inverse proportion to mine.

I don't want him to be unhappy. I am working to show him that I want both of us to be happy. I chose to follow the POJA myself.

And today I am painting the wall on one side of the stairs. Our youngest just entered all-day kindergarten, and suddenly I have lots of time. But I no longer buy into the idea that care means sacrifice. What I now understand care to mean is I value my husband's happiness as much as my own.

It would benefit both of us if that wall gets painted. Our youngest was quite the artist!

Respectful

I, too, am a devout Catholic - Catholic schools, Catholic college, many of mine and my family's friends are priests or nuns. The Catholic Church does not condone or encourage staying in a marriage where there is abuse or adultery. In fact, Canon Law specifically provides for annulment and the annulment process takes into account both of these issues as being grounds. The priest who married my XH and I, who is EXTREMELY conservative in his views, encouraged me to divorce my XH.

Regards,

BB

BB -
I have been encouraged by several priests to divorce him. The Catholic Church does provide for annulment. The Church obviously is not in favor of adultery or abuse.

What I am saying is that I see a fault line in the underlying teachings, listed above, which can lead abused women to think that they need to keep forgiving.

I pass along a story that is poignant, at least to me. I went to confession to our parish priest, month after month, about my anger and jealosy. Then I tell him that I had been told that he had been having an affair, and I also told him that my broken arm (I had been in a cast or splint for several months) was from a punch from him.

The priest told me "You have to forgive him."

Seven months later, I show up at church with that same arm all bandaged. You should have seen the look of horror on his face.

I left him a voice message to say that the arm was bandaged because I had just undergone the third and final surgery for the arm.

He meant well. He's a good priest. BUT, in the case of either adultery or abuse, it is not just a matter of the person who is offended being willing to forgive. The offender needs to change.

Respectful

I recently read a great book that might help you in creating some boundaries with your husband. "Love Must be Tough" by James Dobson. It is a great read that opened my eyes to the psychology of how relationships get out of balance. It also deals with how to shift your weight back on the "Teeter-Toter" to reclame some control in your marriage. Moving toward an individual often does nothing more than push them away causing you to be at the high end / vulnerable, but if you can learn to move the other direction (respectfully) the other participant will gradully move towards you. Much like a good Plan A & B. Thuss the analogy of the Teeter-Totter.
God Bless you in your efforts. Stick it out but establish some boundries.

Jonmc1,
I have tapes of the book "Love Must be Tough" that I have had since before I got married and loaned to a friend whose husband had an affair. It's been many years since I listened to them. I will pull them out and listen to them again, perhaps with better understanding now.

I've been on this board for 4 1/2 years and, as I said, am a slow learner. But I have benefited. Our 7 year old daughter, whose first memory may have been Dad spanking Mom and yelling "G.. d.. it", sometimes rushes up to me to say "Don't fight" when her father gets angry at her mother. I assure her, "Katie, it takes two to fight, and I'm not fighting."

Whether our marriage becomes a romantic relationship or not is very much in doubt, but that little girl no longer has to go hiding as her mother and father argue about anything, including the appropriateness of the POJA. I tell our children, when others are mean to them, don't argue -- just leave. And now I am following the advice I give to them.

Our children are 5 - 12 years old. I hope that, by the time they leave home, they have learned not only how bad marriages can be but also how enjoyable they can be. We are starting to create happy memories for them. Yesterday, in the kindergarten class, our daughter was "SuperStar" and got to pick an activity. She decided to "read" Dr. Seuss' ABC book to her class. We practiced. She read from memory, and -- oh -- she was so happy! I have just loved being a mother, enjoying these children, and I hope that my husband will find that golf and volleyball and marathons and some other husband's wife are just not as enjoyable as caring for your own wife and your own children. It is my hope. I can only follow the POJA myself. And right now that means painting the wall next to the stairs. While listening to "Love Must Be Tough."

Respectful

Respectful,

There are so many things I want to say, but little time today.

My religious background is similar to yours and, unfortunately, I also dealt with an abusive WH. I do think that my background contributed to my willingness to put up with it long after others would have walked. Eventually, I learned that I can forgive, while at the same time protecting myself from further hurt. By doing that, I changed only my behavior and my WH's behavior changed in response. Make sense?

Abuse can be a downward spiral, whether the abuse is verbal/emotional or physical. The more you remain in an abusive situation, the more it wears you down, so you unknowingly tolerate a greater degree of abuse, which erodes the abusers respect for you and escalates the abuse, which wears you down further, etc. It's like a frog in boiling water.

There are lots of people in life who get away with controlling, manipulating, or bullying others. They may be quite charming in public or to others. They lie and exaggerate things to justify their bullying & abuse, or they make you feel guilty or wrong to ask for basic things like respect and kindness. When I meet someone like that now, I (politely, but firmly) call them on their game and make it clear I'm not fooled and I won't put up with it. When it's a spouse and you're trying to save a marriage, the message is delivered in a more caring way (afterall, it's your spouse), but it's the same -- I'm not interested in dancing that dance with you -- I won't participate, but I will do other things that are good for our both of us/our marriage and you can choose to join me or not.

I think you are doing some things well, and I think there are some things that make me VERY concerned for you and your situation. I'll try to write more later and, if you're interested, suggest some books that may help ...

I am not Catholic so maybe I do not have the right to comment, but I will say that the above sounds like an excellent recipe for appeasement and conflict avoidance.

The only advice I myself can give you is to follow POJA whenever possible - and REALLY follow it. Agreeing to stuff like "I won't read for a month if you don't want me to" is flat-out ridiculous and has NOTHING to do with POJA. That's just more appeasement and sacrifice.

Try POJA for very small things. If he doesn't want to POJA something, just say "thanks for listening" and go do something else.

The rest of the time, just detach and take care of yourself and your children.

I don't know what else to tell you.
Mulan

All of the above is essentially true. In fact, it is true in the absolute. It is Christ-like.

But you left out a whole bunch of stuff.

For one, you are not to remain where harm comes to you. You are to protect yourself and those who depend on you. Christ Himself drove out the money lenders, right?

Examine at all of it, not just what seems difficult in a given situation

With prayers,

Aphelion,
Yes, I agree. The Catholic Church has three parts to repentence: being remorseful, avoiding the near temptation of sin, and providing compensation. It is not just about my forgiving him. He has to change -- to be a faithful husband who tries to build a lifestyle that works for both of us.

Mulan,
I welcome your comments. I feel very sympathetic with your situation. You are probably the poster whose situation seems closest to mine. There may have been no physical abuse in your marriage or any certainty of an affair, but the emotional abuse from disregard and dismissal of feelings is very familiar to me.

To say "That's ridiculous" or "That's not reasonable" to a request to not read for a month is a play out of HIS playbook. If I argue it isn't reasonable for me to not read for a month, why shouldn't my husband argue that it's not reasonable for him to watch football on TV on Sunday afternoons? Who is the judge of what is "ridiculous" or "unreasonable"?

That's where Catholicism can come in. There is a certain rigid view of right and wrong that an abusive person can use to their benefit.

I won't play that game anymore.

What I told my husband is "I don't want to do anything that you view as negative," and I mean it.

Last summer, my father underwent emergency surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I live in the Twin Cities about 90 miles north. One brother was on a business trip in China and was not reached. My other brother flew in from London to be with my parents from the Monday when my parents got to the Mayo Clinic (and was immediately brought to the emergency room) until the Friday when they went ahead with surgery. My sister was flying in from S. California on Sunday. With my husband's agreement, I was to stay with my parents from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon when my sister arrived. The Mayo Clinic had told my brother that my father's risk of death was high because they didn't know if his heart could take the surgery -- they just knew he was certain to die without the surgery. As you can imagine, I was very concerned. My husband's response to my concern: "People die. What can I do about it?" I didn't tell him when I got the news that my father had made it through the surgery. My husband got home that afternoon, when I was packed and ready to leave, and told me that he was sacrificing for me to go spend the weekend in Rochester, so he should be able to run. I said, "I won't go." He then told me he wanted me to go, and I went.

The surgery had been so serious because my father had been told 15 years before he should have heart bypass surgery, but he said he wouldn't because he'd lived with his heart defect all his life and it didn't bother him. In the summer, the Mayo Clinic determined that he had colon cancer but wasn't sure he would survive the surgery because his faulty heart valve had corrupted a second valve. They went ahead with the surgery because his cancer was obstructing his colon and he'd die without the surgery. (Free advertising for the Mayo Clinic! What an amazing performance, to get an 80 year old man with two faulty heart valves through surgery for colon cancer.)

Six months after the colon cancer surgery, my father was scheduled for heart bypass surgery. This time around, my brother from Oregon was flying in, my sister from California was coming in, and my brother from London was coming in. I told my siblings I couldn't be counted on to go to Rochester to be with them. (My sister's response: "You're useless.") My parents came to the Twin Cities and asked if I could bring the kids (we have four of their ten grandchildren) to have pizza with them at a pizza place about two miles from our house. My husband agreed to this. He wasn't coming because my parents haven't seen him since they found out he broke my arm.

A few days before the pizza dinner, my husband asked, "Why is it fair that you can see your family without me and I can't see my family without you?" In exchange for my taking our kids to see their grandparents three days before my father's heart bypass surgery, he wanted to take the kids 200 miles away to visit his family for several days over Christmas break -- without me, since I wasn't keen about seeing them again after my sister in law spanked our 6 year old during a Thanksgiving visit.

It was then that I stopped trying to follow the POJA and demanded he spend 15 hours per week alone with me or we divorce. I took the kids to see their grandparents.

I guess I'm back to the POJA. The difference between what I'm doing now and what I was doing last year is that last year I demanded that he follow the POJA or face immediate divorce. Now I'm leaving to him what he does, and I'm following the POJA.

If he doesn't believe that we can create a marriage in which we both are happy, then I expect he will leave or -- there will be a lot of rope and he'll hang himself. A friend of mine said, "Don't run interference for his conscience." By trying to convince, by demanding with threat of immediate divorce, I have done just that -- I have run interference for his conscience.

Time will tell. He'll start to ask how I feel. Or he won't ask and will just do what he pleases. By being willing to stop what he views as negative and by not telling him how I feel unless he asks, I give him the opportunity to try to create a marriage in which we are both happy.

Was the MarriageBuilders Weekend worth it? Yes. To my surprise, the person it changed was me. He still is of the opinion that "The POJA denies individuality."

The wall by the stairs is now painted. I want to create a relationship which is good for both. How I see I can do that is by following the POJA, asking him questions about what is positive and what is negative and changing my behavior accordingly, and only telling him how I feel when he asks but being sure to be honest when I answer.

Will this create a marriage that is romantic? I think I am doing my part and allowing him to do his. It's up to him to do his.

Respectful

"If marriage is to satisfy the demands of the personalistic norm it must embody reciprocal self-giving, a mutual bethrothed love. The acts of surrender reciprocate each other, that of the man and that of the woman, and though they are psychologically different in kind, ontologically they combine to produce a perfect whole, an act of mutual self-surrender. Hence, a special duty devolves upon the man: he must give to "conquest" or "possession" its appropriate form and content -- which means that he too must give himself, no less than she does."

- John Paul II, Love and Responsibility, p. 99

Neverthesame,
Somehow I missed your post. Yes, I would appreciate your perspective and suggestions of books.

This is not easy. I am no longer willing to dance that dance, as you put it. Last night was an example. I had gotten a movie that our son wanted to see. He ended up being invited home with a friend and didn't get back to our house until 9:10. My husband wanted him to be able to watch the movie, and I thought it might be better if he waited because he would be up until 11.

We sat down to talk. He had just finished talking to the ex-wife of one of his groomsmen, and he started off telling me that he was sad because she says the same things I say, which is that she spent 14 years with a man who treated her like sh*t, that she is very angry... I just listened. I don't tell him he treats me like sh*t, but why argue? He then said he wasn't sure he could stop. Then he brought up the movie.

You're riding him... Let him fall on his face. I then said I hadn't told him he could watch the movie tonight, that the movie was due back on Tuesday... I was giving facts. He then said: He can watch it tonight. Let him grow up and feel free to make his own mistakes. I then said I feel uncomfortable. He then said I was trying to control our son. I said I'm ending the conversation and went to bed.

He stayed in the living room. I went to sleep. He came to bed about 2 and was sick. This morning, the two older kids told me they were up until 11 and finished the movie.

Did it matter that they watched the movie? Not really. I wasn't dead set against it. It wasn't a matter of life and death. I just didn't think it was a good idea. I thought maybe they could watch part of it. What really is important, as I have come to realize over years of engaging in conversations like this, is that conversations like this are not ways to build up a marriage. If we get into a conversation that feels uncomfortable to me, I am not judging that he is being disrespectful or anything else. I am not saying anything. I am leaving. If I cannot leave, I am becoming silent. For years, I have argued. No more. Last night, the kids didn't even realize that there was a difference of opinion between us regarding their watching the movie.

Did I lose last night? No. It is a certain loss to argue. If there is a win-lose and you "win", you have lost. The only way for there to be a win-win is if there is no arguing. I didn't figure that out until the Marriage Builders Weekend.

I am hoping that my refusal to engage in arguments will put a mirror up to his face, but it is only a hope. I read in a book that parents of teens sometimes have a "God Almighty Syndrome" -- that their kids will turn out fine if they do everything right. The author's point was not even God Almighty had all children who turned out fine, so parents must accept the idea of "free will." I accept the idea of "free will" with my husband. The only way our marriage will work is if I completely stop running interference for his conscience.

What I expecting is that our marriage will go one of two ways in the formation of a habit that will replace arguing. Either my ending conversations like this will result in his making decisions without trying to find win-win solutions, or he'll decide that finding win-win solutions is part of our marital vocation that "the two shall become one." By eliminating arguing, I have eliminated what has happened -- a power struggle. Sometimes, he is doing what he did last night, and sometimes he is trying to reach agreement with me. There is no habit for either approach because the entrenched habit in our marriage has been arguing.

Suggestions of books very helpful. It turns out I can't find the tapes of "Love Must Be Tough," so I ordered the book from the library.

Respectful

((((((((((Respectful))))))))))))

You are showing an awesome way of being for yourself in the moment.

The very fact you have NOT been engaged in an argument since June is so wow factor gazillion given the 'dance' that was so well & easily repeated in your home over years.

Learning new steps must have been uncomfortable at times.

I know I 'bite' back occassionally & do regret it afterwards, like you said, those particular conversations serve no good purpose - they too readily become a power struggle, not a mutually respectful & supportive two-way discussion.

"Sometimes he is trying to reach agreement with me."

He is changing too.

Congratualtions on your inner resolve, & peace of mind.

You sound so calm & loving, I admire how you are being, realising that we can really truly only do as we individually choose, & especially deciding what impact or effect we will have by our course of actions & words is such a eyeopener to some.

Your actions & words are impacting & affecting his behaviour by his own choice.

His choice is to remain married, he is still learning how to be the husband & man he himself will admire & love.

Well done for showing the way, without educating, demanding or enforcing, what you are chosing is loving him anyway, something I hold dearly in my own values.

I know others will look at the past & judge. That is not what I nor I believe you wish to do. We are living in the present, enjoying the current & loving fully.

This does work.

I did have a tough time with forgiveness myself, as I too had read the vatican councils docs on it. The gist I got was the sinner had to compensate or at least show repentence or be genuinely remorseful. I held those notions for so long, that I began to actively look for that behaviour. Who am I to judge what is genuine remorse? My husband told me again & again how sorry he was, that he had made one of the most damaging stupidest decisions in his lifetime, that he felt sick when he consider how he behaved & 'who' he was at the time. I did not accept his words for almost 2years as being genuine.

I have learned like you changing my way of being 'the dance' almost always results in how we are thought of & treated.

Life is good when we allow ourselves shine for the fullness of who we are.

I love that you are honest in how feel - that to me is the basis of moving forward in any relationship, I would be inclined to be 'more' honest. Not arguing simply saying 'I think xyz is disrespectful towards me' leave it at that a statement of thought or feeling & move swiftly, clmly & pleasantly onto 'do you fancy a cuppa?'

L Kt X

Ktulu,

Thank you for your kind words. The "accountability" person from MarriageBuilders followed up with me this week to ask me how it was going and she asked if I felt on edge or felt relaxed. I told her I felt relaxed about this.

After Plan A, Plan B, and a few of my own (Plan U for ultimatum, for example), I am in a plan where I feel comfortable because this is how I would act if I were in love. It's Plan R for respect.

My daughter just came upstairs to get on the computer, and it reminded me that I was describing to her that, once she gets to a certain age, I cannot give her advice unless she asks. Her response was: "You give Dad lots of advice."

Out of the mouth of babes. There really is no point in telling my feelings or giving my opinion unless asked. I can show care by asking and changing my behavior to create win-win for us, but it is up to him to ask and change his behavior.

I've heard Harley on the radio say that radical honesty means you tell the spouse when something bothers you even if you aren't directly asked. In our case, I don't think that works. What I am doing, instead, is asking him if there is anything he wants me to do or if there is anything that bothers him. Those sorts of questions are designed to show openess to changing behavior in any sort of way -- casting a wide net, in other words. If he is interested in what bothers me or what he can change to create a more positive environment, he can ask me a broad question like that -- and I'll be honest.

As it is, just a few weeks ago, he asked me if it bothered him that he watched football, I told him yes, and he wanted to let me know it was uncaring of me not to want him to do what makes him happy. What I said then is that it may or may not be caring of me to support him in his watching football, but it was uncaring of him to watch football when I viewed it as negative for me that he watches football. I didn't tell him he couldn't watch football. I just told him that I felt bothered WHEN HE ASKED if it would bother me if he watched football.

His response then was that then he wouldn't ask and would just assume I'm OK with his watching football. I told him that is up to him.

That is why I think this marriage will go one of two ways, and it will be evident over time. He'll either develop the habit of trying to reach win-win with me through respectful discussion of differences, or he'll not ask me how I feel and do what he pleases. His choice. His "free will."

I've been somewhat reflective over the past few months and have gone back to some old posts of mine on Marriage Builders. In one, I describe how, two months before the affair began, I counted that he said "F*** you" to me forty-two times in one weekend. Can you imagine? Our son, now 10, when he was two went parading around my in-laws house wagging his finger and saying, "F*** you." That's all done.

I need to be not just respectful of him but also respectful of myself. Arguing is not a way to show respect.

Respectful