I would like to receive more Admiration or recognition of worth for my efforts in the household. Aslo for my beliefs and ethics involving the outside world.

Part of this is also so the my Son-In-Law could receive more Admiration from his wife, my daughter.

My wife derives a boost in synergy from our marriage, by finding ways to one-up against me. I have good self-coficdence, so my wife's put-downs have not really been a problem for me, in the past.

A more ideal arrangement would be that both my wife and I derive synergy from the relationship, without the emotional cost of putting each other down.

I am a naturally oppositonal person, and enjoy making others appear wrong. I recognize this enjoyment has an expensive price, and I try to discipline myself from putting down other people, when the temptation arises. I rarely make the mistake of unconstructive criticism.

My wife does not recognize her randomly criticizing me as a fault of hers, but rather believes that the fault of her criticizing me in an unconstrutive manner, is my fault, for having faults.

Since my Daughter's marriage is in trouble, and my daughter has had the role model of my wife, deriving pleaure from the marriage, by putting down the husband, my daughter has found catharsis in criticizing her husband.

So I had tried to address this issue to some extent in the past, but I am renewing my efforts, as a means of attempting to encourage my wife to coach our daughter on the small efforts involved in giving Admiration.

Here is a link to a prior thread on Respect from my wife.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1901847&fpart=1

Hello Senator. This, as you well know, isn't the way MB works. It isn't a "test" to see what she can come up with to try to meet your needs. If you want something specific, you ask. Then she decides if she's willing to meet that need.

You have always tried to manipulate the concepts.

And you are still showing that unfailingly judgmental streak.

Round and round we've gone. Oh well. Actually I just wanted to say hi.

Hi Senator, welcome back. I remember speaking with you in the past. Sometimes folks just need better tools. Do you have the book Love Busters Or even the article here on the site. It explains how to replace Disrespectful Judgements with Respectful Persuasion. Would you be open to that? Have you two discussed that? Maybe you could bring it up in a conversation.

What love busters have you identified to work on yourself? What does she complain about the most?

How much UA time do you two spend together a week, with the kids older now? What do you enjoy doing for RC together?

Welcome back Senator. I found this statement interesting:


I take this to mean that you think you are always right, and you take great pleasure in always being right and telling people how right you are, regardless of how that makes others feel. Nice.


Wait a minute. Do you have faults or not? If she criticizes you for some fault, how can that be considered "random?" However, if you are indeed perfect, then you could say her critizcisms are random and unconstructive.

The problem is that you never provide us with specifics, so it's kind of hard to give you any advice.


Sure, mothers are role models for their daughters, and I'm sure that comes into play here. But also consider that many daughters end up marrying a guy just like daddy. Does your SIL display the same characteristics as you do?

Your prior threads and this one lead me to believe that, in a nutshell, both you and your wife derive pleasure from criticizing one another. And you are demanding your wife show you respect and admiration.

You talk about "coaching." I think I have tried to make this point before, and it fell on deaf ears. But I'll try again.

It is not up to you to "Coach" your wife. Explain your needs to her, yes, but "coaching" is better left to trained, objective professionals. No one should attempt to "coach" his/her spouse in anything, be it showing respect/admiration, driving a stick shift, or playing golf. It is a recipe for disaster, period. Trust me, I know this, been there, done that.

My advice (worth about two cents): Behave admirablly and respectfully, and you just might get admiration and respect in return. This means both of you must first eliminate LBs, which, in your case, sound like your taking pleasure in pointing out others' faults, your own long-standing superior attitude, and your own IB (remember the laptop? I do). Then work on meeting ENs. It's all on the site, Senator. I'm puzzled that a reasonably intelligent guy like you won't even try to embrace and live by these very common-sense concepts instead of manipulate them to your personal advantage.

I can relate to this somewhat, as my husband can sometimes be self righteous. It bothers me more around family and friends, and in the past I've often found myself trying to 'clean up after him' in a verbal sense, and it probably feels to him that I'm putting him down when, in fact, I'm trying to temper the situation and ease my own embarrassment.

Bottom line is people find it offensive, and I'll bet it embarrasses your wife to the point of withdrawal. Unless I miss my mark, I'd wager this affects your SF and many other aspects of your emotional needs.

I think in the end, you're going to have to weigh your own enjoyment of what you're doing against what it's doing to your marriage and your relationship with your wife.

I personally see it as a possible case of inferiority complex, otherwise you wouldn't try so hard at it, kwim? Just something to think about. Were you blamed a lot as a child/adolescent for things you didn't do? Have you considered independent counseling for this characteristic since it's affecting your marriage? Your wife shouldn't have to make up for what was missing or wrong in your childhood. Just something to consider, and I'm honestly not trying to hurt you or alienate you, here, just giving you some things to consider, okay?

"Yet, ask just about anyone what they want out of life, and they will almost always say “happiness” (or some form of it). Rarely will anyone say, “What I want out of life is to be right.” So you can take this concept and run with it, especially at home, but also in your dealings at work and even with strangers, and instead of worrying about who is right, hold on to your need for inner peace."

Thank you for all the pertinent responses. Most every sentence of the repsonses deserves a paragraph of answer. Some sentences should probably be answered, "Yes I see how I should have thought of that before."

For now, I plan to contiue with my story for this post, and come back later, and backfill in some responses.

I presented the concept to my wife of working on admiration, and explained how I thoght it might help my daughter, to see Admiration in action, and maybe even to discuss some Admiration concepts with my daughter, in relation to her husband, our son in law.

I failed to predict a major objection to the idea. My wife felt I was criticizing our daughter. So My wife went into ultra defend daughter mode.

So my next indirect strategy, is to ask my daughter to discuss Admiration with her Mom. My daughter could discuss Admiration from the standpoint of her husband, or her mother's husband (me).

I have offered to take my wife out to dinner (to her favorite restauraunt) to discuss the concpets of Admiration, but my wife has not yet accepted.


To demonstrate Openess to change, I intend to answer each response with an actual possible examples of changes for ME to make, to demonstrarte a concrete un derstanding of the the responses.






..

How do you feel, instead, about introducing your daughter to MB? Perhaps, print off the basic concepts for her, along with the LB questionnaires for she and her husband. Suggest she spend more time with him.

I think you may get farther if you quit trying to educate your wife and daughter regarding admiration and let Dr. H facilitate the changes you're hoping your daughter will see as advantageous in her own marriage.

For instance, the emotional needs questionnaire available here on MB allows the actual person to fill in their own emotional needs. You, as the father in law, are assuming your sil needs admiration. Could be, could be. I hear it's a typical top EN for men. However, isn't it a bit presumptuous to assume this is a top need of his? Why not allow him to fill in his own questionnaires for your daughter so that she can see for herself what she is doing wrong.

You don't want to steer your daughter down a wrong path with regards to what your sil's primary needs are. This could cause her to spin her wheels and get frustrated with the whole process. It is better for her to find out from her husband.

And I think the last thing you need to do is pin your daughter's failing marriage on your wife's lack of admiration for you. I hope that isn't where this is heading.

This is from an E-mail I just sent to my daughter. I included Links to MB in my E-mail.

Questions for your Mom:

1. What words of recognition of strengths for Dad have you found meaningful to Dad?

2. What questions could I ask my Husband, to see what admiration I might be missing?

3. What phrase might you try out on Dad?

Questions for Husband:

4. What strengths do you have, that you feel I might be overlooking?

5. What weaknesses do you have, that I should be recognizing that you are making progress on improving?

You're missing my point. Those questions are good, but the questionnaires here will do the job more thoroughly. Dr. H has fine tuned the questionnaires to ask the married couple the most pertinent questions that plague marriages most commonly.

I hate to say this, but it seems as though you are almost using your daughter as a sort of conduit to your wife, to point out the issues with your wife that you should, in essence, be pointing out through your own set of questionnaires.

I can understand your frustration in that your wife, perhaps, hasn't adopted the MB concepts readily. However, your daughter has her own set of issues with her husband, and it's important not to lump her marriage problems in with yours or assume the problems you and your wife are having are the same as your daughter's and her husband's.

A question for you. Have you ever asked your wife to fill in the LB questionnaire for the wives, and if not, have you attempted to fill it out for her?

Senator, I am not an expert on MB, but there are a few points you raised that ring bells with me, I hope it's OK to explain what I think might be helpful.

First of all, have you any training in counselling? If you do, I *think* it's one of the basic principles of couselling that you are strongly discouraged from couselling family members. My FIL has done some couples counselling training, but there is no way in h*ll that I would ask him for help in our marriage, that's between his son and me. His role (as such) is to support his son. I love and respect my FIL very much, but I am not going to discuss intimate details of my marriage with him. And by intimate I mean details such as quarrals about who washed the floor last as well as details such as sex.

Have you considered marriage counselling? My experiance of it, YMMV, is that a counsellor is more of a facilitator for finding a way of managing your marriage that works. The principles here are BRILLIANT, but I don't know how to get this accros to DH, and in the end it isn't my place to teach him, IYKWIM.

Leading on from this, why are you interfering in you daughters marriage? I would be very insulted if my own father (who I also love and respect dearly) tried to get involved in my marriage. Again, this is your daughter, your role is to love and guide her, not to coach her. If she's old enough to be married, she's old enough to manage her own marriage. If she asks for specific help, then I would still say stay out of it, it isn't any of your business.

I may be waaaaaaaay off base here. I hope something I've said has been useful to you, but if not, so be it. I wish you well in your marriage.

That seems to be an unhealthy dynamic. First, you've judged your husband wrong or lacking here, and then you need to clean up, not for him, but for yourself. Look at your last phrase, to "ease my own embarrassment."

He doesn't "just" feel put down, he IS being put down.

It seems to me like a DJ. He doesn't behave the "right" way, so I have to clean up after him.

How is that much different from what the Senator is doing?

Not saying I agree with the Senator's approach. But I'm asking how this particular approach is any different?


While I think there are many good points the Senator could take away, I'm wondering how folks justify the DJ's against him? I agree, it appears he is trying to manipulate the concepts as was said before.

However, I'm concerned about what is being said here that appear to at the least justify DJ's in situations similar to his.


I agree with this in essence. However, when being "wrong" has brought the opposite of happiness, there is much satisfaction, much happiness to be found in being right.

Happiness is different things to different folks. As an engineer, I get insane amounts of happiness in finding clever solutions to difficult problems. In many ways, it's satisfying when my solution is chosen.

So one cannot ignore the reality that for some folks, happiness IS in being right.

That doesn't mean that it has to be at the expense of another person.

I'm just asking that we are careful that we don't take the same approach we find distasteful in the senator. That we don't have an attitude that our approach to relationships is right, and his is wrong, while bashing him over the head for wanting to be right.

The right approach is one that works for BOTH him and his wife.

However, the only one who we can effectively address is his approach to her. If his being right all the time is a love buster, then he would be well served to be right in a more loving way. If he wants admiration, then I think he would be well served to ask for it.

My theory is that he wants to be right because he is STARVING for admiration. If he were to get some admiration on a recurrent basis, he desire to "be right" might be diminished.

Perhaps what he could do is ask her what she is starving for in the relationship and ask if each of them could take the next 30 days to make sure they are providing each other with what they are craving, but not currently getting, and then see how things are going after that time period.

The approach where you are willing to listen and give, not just ask and receive.

Senator, you've made the thoughtful request, and done the respectful persuasion. What do you think about moving your focus away from getting this EN met through your wife, today, and look at LBs?

I like Soolee's suggestion to ask your W to fill out the Love Busters survey, to describe what she feels your biggest LBs are today. I think you will be suprised how much admiration you feel for yourself when you make real progress in this.

I know that you're here because of your EN not being met. Have you read the article, Can One Spouse Save A Marriage? Are you willing to follow the basic concepts yourself, and be patient with your wife's response?

If you are willing, I encourage you to read the Friends of Good Conversation article, and to look at the RC inventory for ideas. Your W so far is not enthusiastic about dinner to talk about admiration. What other activities do you two enjoy doing together, or would like to try?

Hi.
Well, what I was trying to do was show Senator the viewpoint from another woman who has gone through something similar to what his wife seems to be going through.

That seems to be an unhealthy dynamic. First, you've judged your husband wrong or lacking here, and then you need to clean up, not for him, but for yourself. Look at your last phrase, to "ease my own embarrassment."

He doesn't "just" feel put down, he IS being put down.

It seems to me like a DJ. He doesn't behave the "right" way, so I have to clean up after him.

I totally agree. It WAS an unhealthy dynamic. I don't do this anymore, as I've learned a lot by being a member here. This was in the past. Again, my reasoning was to illustrate for him how it feels as a partner of someone who always has to be right.

While I think there are many good points the Senator could take away, I'm wondering how folks justify the DJ's against him? I agree, it appears he is trying to manipulate the concepts as was said before.

However, I'm concerned about what is being said here that appear to at the least justify DJ's in situations similar to his.


I guess I should have validated his viewpoint a bit, and in missing that I may have come across as insensitive. I, in no way, meant to downplay her behavior (or mine for that matter), but he seems to have a personality that would prefer less frills, so I was concentrating on him facilitating Dr. H's concepts and questionnaires since he is the one who is here and not his wife. What his wife is doing isn't right, but neither is his approach. I can understand the vicious cycle they're in, because I've lived it. It isn't pleasant, and it makes living with each other difficult at times.

I agree that he's starving for admiration, and I think she wants to be proud of him, but it's a lot easier to demonstrate admiration for someone who is humble and modest in their accomplishments than in someone who has already tooted his own horn and pointed out his own achievements.

Editing to say that this is hard to do if there isn't proper communication of each other's LBs and ENs.

It's a catch 22, like you said. A vicious cycle. Women often try to guide their children in the way of virtues, and I think the virtue of humility, or viewing others just as important as oneself, is part of that. In seeing this reverse itself in her husband, she may be unconsciously DJing by trying to retrain him to be humble, as was I in my own situation.

In writing that, I can see how in her attempts to retrain him in this virtue and his trying to train her about admiration, they are being condescending to each other.

Sooly,

I'm glad that is past behavior. I missed that aspect of it.

You touched on something that lead me to think. I think we get into trouble when one feels they need to "parent" their spouse.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard a woman say she has 2 kids, no 3 counting her husband. It's disrespectful. Yet it seems to be a common way of thinking. That if I could train him to...

Men do it too, although I'd say I've heard it from women more than men.

So as you've said, it will spiral downward. One parenting, the other seeking affirmation, and down it goes.

Right. I think if he and his wife are not willing to try MB, they should shoot for traditional (real life versus cyber) counseling.

Way I look at it is this: In order to fix your daughter's problem you have to sweep up your own front stoop first.

You want your wife to admire you and set an example for your daughter. You want this to be genuine, right? Unless your wife is a great actress and willing to play the part, your daughter will pan your little show.

In order to be be admired and therefor receive admiration from your wife, you would need to be "admirable" from her point of view. I appreciate that you believe you are admirable enough and that your wife is either stingy with her praise or flawed in some way that she cannot praise you. But that attitude leads me to believe that you have an ego the size a Cleveland and that is probably why your wife holds back her praise. She hopes to keep that 'ol ego monster in his cage so he doesn't take over the entire state of Ohio.

I think you need to ask her for a "WOW LIST"...a list of things that you could do that would impress her enough to say "Wow"!
That ought to motivate her and give you some helpful feedback.

Hi Senator, you're getting awesome advice. I looked up this link for another poster, but I wanted to include it here for you, too, because it's great also for clearing your head when you find you're too focused on what you're not getting.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000476;p=0

DJ's, Disrepsectful Judgements can be cloaked in pleasant phrases. One of the hidden messages in my request for increased Admiration is that my wife and daughter are failing to give adequate Admiration to their husbands.

There may be a way to soften the blow, so I will try to keep the concept in mind, of a Disrespectful Judgement.

Care to share any of your attempts to deliver Admiration to your Husband? Any assessment strategies or clues to see what Admiration seems most helpful? Sincere? Watching for compromised sincerity?

I have a huge need for admiration myself, and didn't even realize it. I would love to give admiration to my husband all the time and this is what I would do:

Find something he mentions he likes in other people - if he knows he's a good dad, compliment him on that quite a bit. You can tell when you are doing it right, because they smile, and puff up like a pouter pigeon and strut a little bit.

I swear if you tell a man you love that he is eight feet tall long enough, with wide eyes and a catch in your voice, he'll start ducking thru doorways.

Some types of admiration are verbal, some are not.

Thank him for helping me around the house.
Tell him I love it when he takes care of me.
moan softly when he touches you and smile and stroke his arm when he is affectionate.
meet his eyes across a crowded room and blow him a kiss.
squeal and clap you hands like a school girl if he brings you flowers or little presents.
bring him fresh towels out of the dryer when he's in the shower and tell him how sexy he looks.
When he dresses up, tell him he smells wonderful. I love the smell of a campfire on a man's shirt and find it irresistible. Some things are unique to you, just find them and incorporate them into your everyday experience with your spouse.

One of the nicest things my H has said to me was "I see how hard you are working on our business and I just wanted you to know how much it means to me" I had been putting in 15+ hour days for weeks and was feeling really burnt out.

I think one of the most compelling types of admiration is when a spouse overhears you being complimentary and admiring of them to others. "Oh, I just love that about ****, he's always been so great at *****. I'm so lucky to have him!"

Just my two cents.

I can imagine that THIS is what she is finding fault with, and criticizing.

It's kind of sick to get enjoyment from making others appear wrong, if you ask me.

I would have to agree with her.

It wouldn't be disrespectful of her to point this out.

It is what the Harley's consider "Radical Honesty".

Sounds like you are a bit full of yourself.....STILL.

committed