I am not trying to manipulate him with a 180, but I have gotten to the point where I am not willing to put much effort into the marriage. For years, he has said things like that he's not sure our marriage is going to work out and, until he's sure, he's not willing to do much. The other night, he asked, "Are you willing to work on our marriage or not?" I told him I was on the fence.

I told him of a joke I read, where a man won a lottery and came home to tell his wife. She told him to get packing. He said, "To go where? To the mountains or the beach?" Her reply was: "I don't care where you go."

I have practical financial reasons for staying with him. He's got until the fall. I'm working part-time in a job that could bring more money and would be very compatible with raising children.

It's occurred to me that a sense of commitment without a willingness to care is downright evil. I simply will not continue to live like this.

Cherished

Is this a quote from you, Cherished, or from your husband?

You do realize that it describes each of you exactly. You do realize that, don't you?

You, also, have this enormous martyr-like "sense of committment" but refuse to do anything that resembles care towards your husband. The two of you are behaving in EXACTLY the same way towards each other.

How's that workin' for ya?

I also think you are subjecting him to extreme passive/aggressive behaviour on YOUR part. Since your own "sense of committment" will not let you leave, this is your way of getting revenge on him for his affair.

Have you ever read *The Secret*? You might want to try it, just for laughs.
Mulan

Precisely, Mulan. We're both trapped in a marriage of commitment with no care. I have tried to and I do try to show care. He doesn't recognize it as such. In the private forum last year, Harley had asked me to ask Tom what he means by care. Here was what I reported to Dr. Harley as Tom's answer:

"1) I anticipate and meet his needs. If I do not anticipate his needs and he must complain, then I do not care about him. If I respond to a complaint, it doesn't matter -- because he never should have had to complain in the first place.

2) I drop the 15 hour ultimatum because I am making a demand and not considering what he thinks about spending that amount of time with me. As it is now, I am showing lack of care in making a unilateral decision about how much time we must spend together. I am not considering his feelings and whether he is in the emotional condition to spend so much time with me.

3) I support him in doing what he thinks is best. I change my mindset so that I do not consider it a sacrifice to support him in his doing something that is positive for him even if I think it is negative for me. If I care about him, I should be happy when he does what is positive for him.

4) I can tell him my concerns but should not have any expectations regarding how he addresses them. It is abusive to have expectations."

That view of care can't lead to a good marriage. I did try to follow Harley's definition of care -- following the POJA, asking opinions, and changing behavior to meet needs.

Now what I am doing is saying I cannot take this any more and am being very open about how we make behavior changes that are beneficial to both of us. What we discussed and agreed to was once per month agreeing to one additional behavior change each to work on to create as a habit.

Harley's program requires a lot -- 15 hours per week alone together, following the POJA... I went to the opposite extreme. I asked for some --- any -- agreement of a behavior change. For example, how about four hours a month of time alone together? We both came up with about ten ideas each of what we might have as behavior changes. What Tom suggested was snuggling in the morning, and he would take responsibility for making that happen. What I suggested, and would take responsibility for, was letting each other know one positive and one negative per day. We then agreed to have dinner once per month to reach agreement on additional behavior changes.

The month ends on Sunday, and he's not sure he'll be prepared to have dinner and discuss additional changes. I'm sad, Mulan, just sad.

A priest had suggested I pray to discern what is evil, and I came to understand it was the understanding of commitment. I told a friend of mine this, and she said that Satan clothes himself as an angel of light. What I thought was virtuous was, in fact, evil. And the reason why it was evil was because I thought I could change him. The virtuous thing for me to do, I now believe, is to separate -- to recognize he has free will, to accept that he can make his own decisions about how he wants to live, and to make my decision not to continue in what is not and has never been a marriage.

What's really scary is that our 10 year old son said that he would just marry a woman who would go along with whatever he wants. When he said that, I told him that that's what I did -- I tried to accept whatever Dad did -- and that didn't make Dad or me happy.

I feel a sense of obligation to the woman our son might marry as well as to our daughters. It's taken a lot, but a core belief of mine has changed. I no longer believe that commitment to marriage no matter what is virtuous. Instead, I believe it is evil.

Cherished

OK, it's definitely early, but giving each other a positive and a negative each day seems to be improving our marriage. Harley has told me about a psychological theory called "cognitive dissonance", which means that if beliefs and behaviors conflict, the beliefs tend to change rather that the behaviors. That's why a person who believes that adultery is wrong can end up in an affair because of behaviors that lead to intimacy.

What we have done, since the end of March, is tell each other one positive and one negative for the day. We've also agreed to work on one habit change per month. The behaviors of telling each other a positive and negative per day and the agreement to change one habit per month to improve the situation for our spouse conflict with the belief that "I am what I am. You should love me no matter what I do."

Last month, he said he'd try to say "I feel X when you do Y." This is a complaint. It's not the criticism I've received -- you don't care about me, you think I'm the worst person to walk the face of the earth, etc. For my part, I'm keeping up laundry sorting by not putting a new load in the dryer unless I've sorted the previous load. It's definitely baby steps, but at least they are in the right direction.

I've spent five years on MB with nothing but bad news (except for a three week period of time in July of one of those years), and now it appears we may be headed in a good direction.

I think what had to happen was I had to realize:
1. He made a vow of fidelity to me. I shouldn't have to compete with any other woman because his vow meant he would "forsake all others."
2. Being committed to your spouse is possible even if you separate and divorce. The real key to commitment is being open to reconciliation by not remarrying. I let Tom know I would separate from him if things did not improve. I couldn't force him to change. My only choice was to accept his choices or remove myself from him.

Cherished