maybe i don't understand it yet, but I don't know how it works practically. real examples: (1) I don't want to carpool to work, wife does, so do we not go to work til one of us becomes enthusiatic about it or not? I don't think we are enthusiatic about that either (one of us not going to work). (2) wife wants to sell the house, move elsewhere and lease, I do not want to sell, or move, or lease. since I am not enthusiatic about selling and she is not enthusiatic about staying, what do you do? Neither of us will ever be enthusiatic about the others perspective.

So the only thing I think we are both semi-enthusiatic about is divorcing as the solution.

the concept of the poilicy is nice, but I don't see how it works in reality, unless God changes a heart miraculously.

You have way more issues than revealed. Enthusiastic agreement means communication of all the relevant information and a willingness to see the other side. If you communicate with each other like the example you gave, you obviously are not really communicating.

Larry

You don't CHANGE anything until and unless the other enthusiastically agrees. For example, if you both drive to work seperately now, you would continue to do so until an agreement to change is reached. Nothing changes until there is an agreement.

However, the key to this is learning to negotiate a mutually agreeable outcome. Dr. Harley recommends learning to negotiate on smaller stuff first, such as items in the grocery store. You go grocery shopping together and don't put anything in your cart until you have both reached an enthusiastic agreement. After awhile this becomes second nature, but you have to PRACTICE.

Hi MS,

Welcome to MB. Without knowing your full situation, I can only ask a few questions which will also be suggetions from my own experience.

Have you read "His Needs, Her Needs", or "Fall In Love, Stay in Love"? Both are by Dr. Harley (the owner of these forums) and they give many insights in addition to the articles on this site.

Have you written down your marriage timeline so you can attach it to your signature? That would be helpful. Most on this forum have been dealing with infidelity, but if you have not, you'll be ahead of the game, so to speak.

From my experience (which is all I know since I'm relatively new, too), my husband and I were detached so far that we never agreed on anything so we did not speak beyond household functioning occasional statements....for 30 years.

After he betrayed me and many false recoveries, I did NOT want to work on the marriage but he did. I wanted to sell the house and take my share of the equity and start over, alone. He wanted to take our 10 day vacation as planned and try to prove to me that he would and could change.

We started there. A little thing we could be a little enthusiastic about. 10 day vacation. We had different reasons, but I could agree to take the vacation.

Eventually, other things began developing as our Love Banks (another concept you'll need to understand) began to fill. (I started to say 're-fill', but that would not have been true, as you'll see if you read my story attached to my sig line.)

You said:


Eventually, after finding one thing to enthusiastically agree about and then many more, we did receive a miracle of God, at least I think so. After 33 years of only having a paper marriage license, we now have a real 'head-over-heals-in-love-with-each-other marriage'. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

But it starts with one baby step after another.

Seeking information and asking questions to clarify is a great way to start. Does your wife know about this site?

Hang around and others will help you understand better I'm sure.

Glad you're here asking questions on MB and if it's before you've experienced infidelity, I'm really glad you're here.

I wish I had sought out info to change in advance of my H's betrayals.

Best wishes,

Ace

The Policy of Joint Agreement - excerpts:

In marriage, your interests and your spouses interests should be considered simultaneously. One of you should not suffer for the benefit of the other, even willingly, because when either of you suffer, one is gaining at the other's expense. If you both care about each other, you will not let the other suffer so that you can have what you want. When you are willing to let the other sacrifice for you, you are momentarily lapsing into a state of selfishness that must somehow be corrected before damage is done. The Policy of Joint Agreement provides that correction.

<snip>

Successful negotiation in marriage creates a solution to every problem that benefits both spouses and doesn't hurt either of them. The Policy of Joint Agreement forces a couple to find those solutions. None of the states of mind in marriage encourage them to do that, so they need this rule to override their instincts that prevent successful negotiation.

The Policy of Joint Agreement encourages couples to consider each other's happiness as equally important. They are a team and both should try to help each other and avoid hurting each other. It just makes good sense. Why should one spouse consider their own interests so important that he or she can run roughshod over the interests of the other? It's a formula for marital disaster, and yet some of the most well-intentioned couples do it from their honeymoon on.

The concept of POJA is that both parties in the relationship should be happy and equally invested in the decisions of the relationship. I think the investment part should be talked about more because it seems that when one of the parties lacks investment then that party is often vulnerable to affairs or other destructive behavior. And, note, that the least invested party might also be the party getting everything s/he wants.

What I think you're missing about POJA is that it is your job to ensure that you find some way to negotiate a satisfactory (enthusiastic) agreement with your wife on these topics.

Specifically: the carpoolling.

Ok, so you are not enthusiastic about carpooling. You can look at it from two perspectives:

1.) Is there anything that would make you enthusiastic about carpooling?

2.) Is there anything that would make her enthusiastic about not carpooling (ie. maybe a shorter commute which might require moving).

Or, the moving:

1.) is there anything that would make you enthusiastic about moving?

2.) is there anything that would make her enthusiastic about NOT moving? Maybe planning a move in 5 years down the line or more vacations or whatever?

The bottom line is that you should find it absolutely intolerable that your wife is unhappy/suffering because of these decisions and bring every resource you have to bear on fixing that unhappiness. Remember, this is your wife, your lover, your partner in life. How is it acceptable for her to be unhappy?

What people tend to ignore is that even if they "get their way" it is contingent upon them finding some way for their spouse to feel compensated or enthusiastic about giving that up.

At the same time, that doesn't mean making a martyr of yourself. No one likes martyrs.

So, find a way to be enthusiastic about carpoolling or find a way for her to be enthusiastic about ~NOT~ carpoolling. Either way, don't stop until you find SOMETHING that brings you back together so that you're both happy, satisfied, enthusiastic, etc.

That is how you build a sustainable marriage that you don't have to throw away because of transportation problems.

Mys

You're right - you don't understand it yet! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

On finding out the two of don't agree on something, you don't just throw up your hands and quit - or even worse, find some way for you to WIN and your partner to LOSE and expect them to feel good about that.

The Win/Lose method leads straight to misery, resentment and divorce court.

No, the next step is for each of you to explain why you do/do not want to carpool. What are the obstacles? What are the problems that you see? Once you BOTH know what they are, you can BOTH address them and very possibly solve them.

So:
Why do you *not* want to carpool to work?
Why does your wife *want* to carpool to work?
Mulan

P.S. By "carpool", do you mean you and your wife riding together or do you mean each of you riding with other people?

The, us carpooling together, one is little, but is an example of a past, unresolved really, non-agreement.

The house is BIG. This is M2 for us and I have 2 minor K's from M1. She has none. We are a few blocks from the K's and 95% of their activities. I have about a 40/60 custody split with mom, but want to push it to 50/50.

The marriage was based on these premises 4 years ago.

Needless to say we have issues to resolve that I think are the ones creating this issue and it is a symptom.

Granted I have been an imperfect H in an imperfect M, but have not done anything that is grounds for divorce.

I believe that she did not really understand what it would be like with the 2K's as the priority, and with her/us as a close second. She uses many other things as "reasons" (read excuses) but I just think she doesn't want to admit the fact that she doesn't like the K's 1st plan.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> & <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> in Orange.

I'm not sure I would like the kids first plan, either. That is not how a marriage should work, imho. Your spouse should come first. Not at the expense of kids, but you and your wife should be top priority. Not that you should move becasue of it, but it seems that kids first is a backwards way to be married.

Again, imvho.

I agree with How2.

Your M and your W should be your first priority, then your kids. I say this from the perspective of someone that has 2 children myself.

The kids were the priority in our lives for a long time. Guess what? Our M was a mess. Now, my H and the M comes first, kids second and everything works so much better.

IMO- you need to do some reading and learn a bit more about MB principles.

???????????

The kids, unless they are grown to adulthood, should come first in Oldflame's life. That is his responsibility as a parent; what he committed to in conceiving them.

The fact that his second wife is not open to this uncomfortable truth - despite the fact that she married a man with children and existing commitments to these children - suggests that she needs to grow up and learn to face the consequences of her own decisions.

Taking on a stepmother role means accepting that you are in second place in many areas of your husband's life.

A marriage which nurtures the children at the expense of nurturing the parents' relationship, is not healthy. However, a second marriage which neglects the children of the first marriage in favour of the second wife is much more unhealthy.

Oldflame is right to want to stay close to his children - for the sake of his children. They are FAR MORE IMPORTANT than this second marriage.

Oldflame's mistake was to marry someone who did not understand the importance of his children. If she were to have children with him, and split up with him, I suspect she would not be keen to have him move away from them.

I would take the children above the selfish childless stepmother any day.

Oldflame, did this relationship start before your first marriage ended?

TA

I too am curious given your screen name if this R started before your previous M finished?

In a second marriage with existing kids, the children DO have to come first and the M second. You do have that correct and yes, I think your W was expecting that to change once you signed on the dotted line.

Thank you all for your kind, helpful, and humble responses.

I can agree with, and appreciate a W/H/M 1st attitude in a 1st M.

Once you are in a 2nd M all bets are off for such order, unfortunately. Probably one good reason for the admonition to NOT divorce, and for Gods hatred of it.

Now I have a prior committment to the kids right? (ie it precedes the second M, and the 2nd M does not nullify the committment.

I don't think theres an easy answer to this situation.

I often wonder which is worse in the far off future. I wouldn't want to alienate the kids because I turned my back on them for the W#2. They were young for the D, and so mostly have their Mom's memories about it and think I did this already. So I don't want to give them another reason to believe it. It has been a long hard road to this level of custody and restoration of the P/C relationships. My W2 was a great champion for me in this, and so makes her change of heart more troubling and hard to understand and accept. On the other hand they see a 2nd M ending and look at me suspiciously anyway.

Probably a good reason to wait for a 2nd M until the kids are 18. They didn't ask for a divorce, or to be part of a divorced family. Why make it worse for them than it already is?
thank you again.

No, not before, 3 years after. She also has 6 nephews (aged 10 to 30) and I saw how she handled the younger ones, and my own kids, and so I thought she had the right heart to be a good step-mom. With a 30-40/60-70 split of custody, you'd think that would be enough time being "first". Oh well.
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/teary.gif" alt="" />

Exactly, and one of the things I fully am in agreement with Dr. Laura on.