Please help me I have only been married for two years, this is the second marriage for both of us and every time we try to discuss something important especially our finances I start to cry...even at little things, I feel worthless and ugly to him and it is driving us apart.. we are both tired and depressed. Last night we almost split up. I know in my heart that God brought us together but I am begining to doubt everything please help me.

What has happened in the two years that make you now feel ugly and worthless? Is he different from when you were dating? Does he do anything specific to make you feel so? Can you give some examples? It might affect what we say.

Have you seen a doctor? Maybe you have real clinical depression that you may need counseling and/or meds for????

Thanks for the reply, no I haven't seen a doctor but did consider it yesterday...

Most of the time I feel ugly because I have gained 40 pounds after our marriage and had lost 72 before meeting him. I feel worthless because he tries to teach me or improve on everything that I try to do and if I cook he comes into the kitchen to what he calls enhance the food by adding what he thinks I forgot. He hardly reaches out to hold me or touch me but says he is not with anyone else. I know I need to worry about the big stuff and this seems small especially after seeing it in writing but I can't seem to find our happiness anymore...

I agree about seeing a doctor. Aside from that the first best thing I can suggest is learn about boundaries. When your husband 'helps' you, it is really criticism, though he won't see it that way. You have to learn to start saying - to him - something like 'I feel criticized when you fix my cooking and I would like you to stop doing it. If you don't want to stop fixing my cooking, we can trade chores and you can do the cooking from now on. Will that work for you?'

Or 'I get the feeling you think I'm not attractive. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I like myself. So I would appreciate it if you will try to rephrase your comments, or just try to like me as I am. Because I do.'

Or 'When you comment negatively on my clothes, I feel unloved. I would never criticize what you choose to wear, so I hope you will see that it is not fair for you to criticize my choices.'

Stuff like that. Things that very politely tell him you have your own mind and can decide for yourself. I know it's hard, but you need to try. Read my thread if you want to see what 30 years of what your husband is doing can do to a person. You need to stop him and set your boundaries now. You deserve to NOT be criticized or corrected.

thanks for the advice..this is really a dumb question but how do I get to your thread..I am new to this. I will try talking to him and letting him know how I feel

I'm not very good at this, but I'll try:
I can't talk, he has no problem

If this link doesn't work, you can find it over in the Emotional Needs thread; just look for my name in the poster column.

Just remember that, when you talk to him, it has to be about YOU, not him doing anything. Even then, he will likely be offended and try to defend himself, will probably even find things to blame you for, so he doesn't have to accept any blame himself. Just be prepared for that. If he does, just keep repeating, calmly, 'I'm sorry you feel that way, but this is how I feel.' Or something like that, that says you have the right to feel how you feel. If he starts yelling, calmly say 'if you keep yelling, I'm going to leave the room; we can talk again when you're calm' - and then leave for 20 minutes. If he yells again, leave again. This is called a consequence. Provide a consequence for rude behavior.

I would find a good pro-marriage marriage counselor and make an appointment...

Or call the MB coaching center.

Some things are do it yourself projects, but sometimes if you hire someone things go a lot faster....

In this case, I would hire an expert...

Call the coaching center (located on the tab on the navigation bar at the top of every page of this site) and make an appointment for phone counseling with Steve or Jennifer.

Barring that because of finances etc, order or find a copy of Fall In Love Stay In Love and read it together and do the exercises together.

Also get a copy of Boundaries In Marriage by Townsend and Cloud.

Evi, you do sound like you are depressed and meds might help, but you also need to learn to tell your husband when his actions are hurting you. When he fixes what you have done (adds things to the cooking etc) you feel inadequate because it is a disrespectful judgment, a love buster.

Assuming your H is like most men, he is used to just fixing what he sees as broken and supplementing what he considers inadequate. He doesn't think about it, he just does it. Us guys do that kind of thing pretty much from instinct. That's why team sports work, we pick up each other's slack without even having to be taught to do it. But in the words of Red Green, "Lord, I know I'm a man, but I can change if I halfta..."

If you can at all afford it, please get professional help with this before your Love Banks are totally empty.

If you actually learn and apply MB methods and ideas, it makes solving the other problems a lot easier too, BTW. If your LB$ are full, you can tackle things easier than if they are near empty.

If you haven't yet done so, read the basic concepts and some of the articles. Maybe read a few of the Q&A columns as well. This is actually a good place to be for anyone desiring to make their marriage better.

Mark

thanks for the excellent advice. What you said is very true it is not about finding the right person but being the right person

Really great advice..I agree that walking away is better then fighting. I just am really bad at that I usually want to finish or fix the problem. Anyways, we had a long talk and hopefully things will slowly improve.

Evi,

If you look at Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, you will see that one of the keys to sustaining the feeling of romantic love between husband and wife is spending time with each other doing recreational things.

By doing this you meet each other's most important emotional needs rather easily. This builds the love between you and you both begin to enjoy your time together even more. Because you are making each other so happy, many of the really difficult problems seem easier to tackle and some of the problems you face that under current circumstances seem insurmountable, actually turn into things that don't matter as much and so you find them hardly worth fighting over.

Also as you evaluate each others most important emotional needs, you will find that what you can do for him quite easily isn't what he really needs from you and the opposite is also true; what he can give you in meeting your emotional needs without even thinking about it leaves you wanting because it doesn't trip your trigger.

All of this can be determined, planned and learned and the result can be a marriage you will both be happy with, but the easiest way to learn about it is to read some of what Dr Harley has written.

Many here would suggest the book His Needs/Her Needs often in combination with his book, Love Busters. But having read his new Fall In Love/Stay In Love, I have found that it contains the premise of both of the books rolled into one as well as some practical application to improve your marriage. In fact, FIL/SIL contains many of the same resources available here on this website including the Emotional Needs Questionnaire, the Love Busters Questionnaire and other questionnaires and the like. But it also contains a "contract" of sorts that you each sign promising to meet each other's top emotional needs after first identifying what those top ENs are.

And the book is something you can do together that just happens to be a way to improve your marriage.

What have you read here, besides some of the posts on the forums?

Mark

Dear Mark, thanks for the advice, I am new to this site so I haven't read much at all. I will read the book and things that you recomend. I tried to get him to take a walk with me tonight but he is in a bad mood so I am going to leave him alone and do laundry. Leaving him alone when he is angry or upset is very hard for me to do. Any advice??

My advice would be to keep reminding yourself 'his choice, his choice.' He could be doing things with you, being a good partner, having fun with you. Instead, he chooses to withhold from you. If you look at it that way, that he loses out, not you, it can help you retain your dignity. It is your dignity that they try to whittle away - don't let him.

Evi,

Is your husband willing to work on your marriage at all? Would he resist doing things that might give you some insight like the Emotional Needs and Love Busters Questionnaires? If you got FAL/SIL, would he be willing to read it with you, do you think?

It would be easy for me to tell you to get him to fill out the questionnaires and you do the same and work through sharing what each of you has answered, but if he will be resistant to the point of anger, then we need to find another approach.

When you asked him to take a walk...What was he doping at the time? How long had he been home? How did you go about asking?

I'm just looking for something here that I can get a feel for. The real experts are the paid professionals in the coaching center, Steve and Jennifer. They can often accomplish in 45 minutes what other marriage counselors can't in months of sessions. If you can afford to contact them, they can save you a lot of trouble and time.

Other questions. How old are you two? How long have you been together? Any kids?

Do try to read through the Basic Concepts at least and ask any questions you might have. Understanding what Dr Harley teaches can save a lot of time having to explain why to every bit of advice. In addition, once you understand the basics, you can often find solutions yourself or at least understand why you are having a problem.

Mark

last night was awful again..he got home a few minutes after I did around 3p.m. and looked disgusted that I was home early. Told me that he was gonna go out for a ride on the motorcycle and now because I was home he couldn't. I told him to go but the evening just got worse after that. He gave up on going and a few hours later I tried to talk to him and asked if we could go out this weekend to a local comedy club. That discussion eneded up all about money again..and resulted in me crying and going for a walk alone. This is his first job in months and it's good pay so I thought alot of the financial struggles were over but I was wrong. He wants everything to be stress free and his way. Then he started telling me off because I am on here trying to get help so needless to say even though we were both in bed by 8p.m. I got no sleep and found myself up at 2 a.m. trying to work on our marriage in a workbook from a church we used to go to. Deciding to make him breakfast this morning was wrong also because he didn't like the hamburger meat(which is because he chose the cheapest of cheap meat to get and I buy a better grade) so he opted to take some prepared frozen stuff we had here to work....anyways here we go again another lovely way to start the day and now I am worried that this drama is effecting my job(I am a home health nurse for a handicapped child) because I go to work so sad...so to answer your question if he is willing to work at it???I don't know anymore

thanks again for the advice..please read what I replied to the other suggestions(hope that doesn't sound rude) I am very sad and tired today because of last night and find myself overwelmed and late for work for the third day in a row I just pray for a better weekend. How are things on your ened of the world???Gotta get going..will report later

I don't know. It seems like the best thing I can suggest right now is to just be honest with him. Surely he doesn't want to be married to someone who's afraid of him and miserable? Tell him how you feel; ask him how he feels. See if there is anything there to recover. You've only been married two years, so maybe it was just a bad choice.

Evi,

If you want the dance to end a different way, someone has to change the dance...

You guys are blaming each other for all sorts o things. He's mad at you, you are hurt and therefor mad at him...

So change something. You can't control or change him. You can't make choices for him. You can't make him do anything at all.

So that means that anything you are going to change will have to be something you have control over...

And that means you...You have to change something in order to get a different outcome.

I can sit here and tell you to do X, Y and Z, but unless you figure out a few things so that you don't have to ask before, during and after every interaction with your husband, you won't be able to actually live a normal life of interaction with him because you won't ever figure out what works and what doesn't.

You have hinted at a couple of things already. He might have as one of his top emotional needs(EN) having an attractive spouse and you don't feel like you are meeting that need. One of your top ENs might be financial support and he hasn't done a very good job meeting that need for you.

You both have dangerously low Love Banks and have slipped from a state of intimacy into a state of conflict and might actually now be in a state of withdrawal. It is possible to recover from this state, but you have to understand what is happening. And more to the point, you have to understand what the heck I am talking about...

And so the suggestion to read the Basic Concepts and ask questions about application or about what you don't understand. Until then, it's like you are in a foreign country and are lost. You ask for directions, but your guide speaks no English and you don't speek his language. Somebody has to learn the other's language and since all you need to learn the language of Marriage Builders, the terms, the concepts, the ideas the philosophy...they are all here, free for the taking.

The books, the Basic Concepts, the other things on this site can all give you answers to questions and help give you some ideas for your own life. But not until you actually begin to read them and understand what they mean...

In my first post to you I suggested that you need to contact a professional. I suggested that because I am not one and that still holds true as does my advice.

I can't just tell you how to solve this kind of problem because this sort of forum can only allow for so much interaction.

The basic premise of all of this is that the feeling of "love" is a response to stimulus. When someone meets your ENs in a way that you desire, they cause you to feel happy or even euphoric. Eventually, it reaches a point where their mere presence is enough to trigger this feeling of happiness and well being and that is know as the romantic threshold.

So when two people are falling out of love with each other, the solution is to stimulate this response in each other. And that is done by doing certain things that make the other person feel fulfilled, happy and loved. At the same time you have to avoid doing things that destroy or hinder those feelings. These are called Love Busters.

Now, here is my point. You probably have little idea what I just said...I know I didn't understand any of this until after I had read a few things. And one thing that is suggested before even logging in around here is to be sure to have read and understand the Basic Concepts.

Your situation is far from hopeless. In fact, what you can do easily will likely turn things around quickly unless some kind of addiction is present in one, the other or both of you...

But please read the Basic Concepts...because that is where everything else comes from around here. I really think that if you will read those concepts, you will have an Ah-ha moment and see many answers for yourself.

I'm not saying don't ask for help or seek advice. I'm just saying that you really need to read this stuff so I don't have to retype Dr Harley's entire body of work in order for you to understand it. The answer to what is happening in your marriage really is right there in the basic concepts. Understanding it will let you see what to do. I really believe that.

If you can get a handle on how to rebuild some of his feeling of love for you (make deposits into his Love Bank) you can likely lead him to a place where he will be willing to work with you on saving the marriage and then you two can begin working together. But you can have a head start on every bit of advice you will get around here if you will read the BCs.

And I really do think that between what is here and FIL/SIL you can have a happy, healthy and lasting marriage unless one of you is addicted to something or there is an affair involved...And if the latter, it will take more work, but even that isn't hopeless.

Mark

thanks to everyone who wrote to me I appreciate it more than you all will ever know!!!!!!!!!we are going out tonight for the first time in many months so I have to get ready....maybe things are changing..we'll see will report tomorrow