tst, I don't think you have answered what I was really asking. You are sticking with your point about the length of time being reasonable and not exceptional.

I asked you whether the fact that the BS is committed, like your wife, makes any difference to your advice. Are you saying that a BS who says "our time is done" should be Plan A'd for much longer than L4 has been doing? Should L4 not accept that he really feels this?

tst, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around SMB lovebusting in the abusive ways L4's H has been.
Maybe you're aren't aware of the extent of the AO's and DJ's , or maybe you are, IDK.

Would it not be best for both spouses, not just L4, to have some resolution to stopping an abusive cycle, whatever that may be, to preserve both LB$?

What if L4 is at a point where she can no longer avoid LB's, her bank is empty, her frustration is now resentment, (I can't speak her but L4 has posted such things here, numerous times) how can this be helpful to healing her BH?

I don't feel that anyone is encouraging a separation, but this may be the end result.

I understand what you are saying about the house, it being a trigger. I don't know the reasons for the interest in this different house.
With the M on shaky ground, I still think it is a risky financial move, and one that may deter Mr. L4 from spending $$$ on MC.
L4 feels that FS is one of his top EN's.

Using my wife's computer again. Sorry.

SMB only became committed because I didn't lovebust her AT ALL! Any hint of LB's and my marriage would have likely ended. SMB says she was way more done than L4's H appears to be. She says one AO or DJ from me and she would have had my bags packed.

To answer your question, no it doesn't change my advice here.

If L4's H wanted a D, he would have filed for it already. She wouldn't be able to stop him.

As far as Plan A, if she has lovebusted (which it's obvious she has again and again), then it hasn't been Plan A. I would consider what she's been doing Plan C. C for confusion. I even posted on Mark's thread a discussion about meeting intimate ENs; and L4 came back and said she had an ah-ha moment. If she had been meeting intimate ENs and avoiding all LBs for this length of time, my advice MIGHT be different.

That's okay, just lay off her high heels!

SMB had several AOs in early recovery. If I had reacted with an AO or a DJ myself, we probably would not be married today. Instead, I kept working MY side of the MB program...meeting her ENs and never LBing.




Vittoria,

I'm very aware of L4's thread. I've been following it from the beginning.

The only side of the equation L4 can control is hers. She must stop all of HER abusive LBs and work to follow all the other principles outlined by Dr. H such as POJA, PORH, UA, ENs, etc. Constantly being reactive to H is not working the MB program.

tst, I learn from your words as I do from others, so I'm not challenging you, just tryin' to understand.

You still knew that SMB wanted R, she Plan A'd and she fought for her M.
I can't help but think that this contributed to your commitment of R.
Also, both SMB and yourself were practicing MB.
SMB understood lovebusters and the impact they have on R. She would have been coached here how to restore her M, she would have understood
the importance of UA, and using POJA. Your LB$ would have had some deposits.


So, where have you been, along with so many others your input would have been valuable.

I agree with this.
So what happens when this cannot be achieved fast enough, when a FWS has a lovebank in the minus or close to it, and is emotionally done.
I don't mean wanting to end the M, since I don't get that from L4's post, what I do get is that she is asking for help from her H to carry on.
What if L4 is unable to protect her lovebank from anymore withdrawls, what if she needs to preserve what is left to fight for her M ....

I've got a headache.
I should stick to reading and not posting.

The ah-ha was finally understanding why, despite H meeting some of my ENs, I still wasn't feeling in love with him. On Marks' "Grumpy" thread I wrote:

I wasn't talking about me not meeting my H's intimate ENs. I previously hadn't understood how I could possibly not be in romantic love with H. Despite having read about intimate ENs in Love Busters, for whatever reason, it finally made sense to me when I read your post about it.

Wow. You folks really rally. Thank you very much for being here. I am very lucky to have your attention and will continue to thank God for your presence in my life.

So much to read and digest. And I will re-read when I get a chance to better take it all in and respond where I can.

To update, another very dear and trusted MB friend (a BW) emailed me last night upon reading my post and helped me not do anything rash last night. No letter was delivered. No talk of D or house-buying was had. H and I ended up having another conversation that was like many are between him and me. I detailed that convo to the MB friend and she's helping me with things.

There is much that I choose not to post because when I've given a lot of detail in the past, it seems to divide folks and I'm not up for stirring any controversy -- not today anyway. Perhaps that might change tomorrow but... I can't say. (I can hear some of you saying, "Not those monster posts again! Please! Nothing but those!") I need to stick to learnin�.

Right now H is in his office so I�m going to go through these again now and maybe I can get to some of you tonight.

(((((((All Of You)))))))

((((L4))))

JT � I also wish we lived closer. We must coordinate me dropping by sometime when I�m up seeing my folks.

Ottert � Thank you. Despite your pain, you�ve for-whatever-reason tolerated me and followed my path and have thankfully stuck your nose in here and there. I understand what you wrote and why. Thank you.

Queenie � I am breathing. God is hearing much from me. I loves ya back.

Sere � I agree that the house idea could be a distraction. Or a wish. I don�t know. He�s gathering information on it and talking with the realtor. One moment he seems interested in it then another he�s finding something wrong with it. He hasn�t said, �Let�s buy it,� so I haven�t had to really think about it.

Regarding the house� It would add at least 30 minutes each way to my commute at my new job. It�s a different school district. It would mean uprooting the kids, going through the stress that a move brings, increasing our mortgage by almost 30% to 40%, and having even less time each weekday with the kids and for UA. If it would heal our marriage, I�d be loading up the sofa on my back right now to get it into the new place. But as recently as 6 days ago H said he thinks we should D so I�m wary. I�m keeping my mouth shut for now and simply listening.

Great song pull. And I like your angle to help H see how we want a loving M in our new home. I will certainly consider if needed.

Mark � Thank you for joining all the others. Even when you have no advice you still manage to write something that affects me.

E � I agree with your POV on where H may be and why I should be cautious about purchasing a new home right now.

As for the separation/ultimatum/condition/Plan B thing� I�m still thinking on that. I�m not rushing into anything. And that�s all the more that I�ll comment on this topic at this time. Thanks for being here.

B_R � You don�t need to add anything and please keep sending those prayers.

Lu � It was peaceful day and H and I got along nicely. Got some great news about my mom�s health which we�ve been worried about now for months and we got to celebrate with DS8 who received recognition tonight at a school-wide art contest. Despite finding lice on both of our kids and spending the evening going through hair and doing loads of laundry, it was a good day.

Chrys � Thank you.

V � I agree that H�s AOs are not only because of the A. They have been a part of H�s behavior for a very long time.

Your thoughts that H might use the financing of the house as a reason to avoid any kind of professional help I hadn�t thought of before.

ST � Being your inspiration is, well� Wow. I feel very unworthy of that recognition but am glad my story has helped you. I am so happy that you and J are in recovery. You have worked hard to get there and many are learning from your experiences too.

TST � Thank you for the letter re-write. Your presentation is so much better. It's safely tucked away.

During the Wednesday argument itself, I did apologize. I apologized for the A (H brought it up). I apologized for not taking his direction regarding a phone call I had made. (I saw it as him trying to control me. I thought this but didn't say it to him and apologized anyway.) I apologized for not understanding what it was that he wanted from me as he got more and more frustrated with my answers. I was getting things wrong and felt badly that the fight kept escalating. (The MB friend whom I reached out to that night is a BW who has helped me a lot in dissecting the evening's mess, helping me to see it from H's possible POV.)

The next morning when he said he couldn�t think of why he should apologize, I was thinking that I, too, couldn�t think of what else to apologize for since I had done so the night before. I did end up apologizing for my role in the ugliness of what happened and I apologized for failing him and our family.

Yes, the fight was stupid. It was utterly ridiculous how it spiraled, covered random topics, and leveled everything in its path. I tried to leave once I felt myself getting angry. I told H I had to go and even made it to the doorway, but ended up not leaving upon H's strong request. I REALLY wish I would have.

I have re-read the articles. Thank you for providing the link.

More another time.

G' night.

{{{{{{{L4}}}}}}}}

Nothing to add but hugs, and please be sure that BB and I are thinking of you.

I have total faith that you will make the right choices for your family.

As much as I keep looking for something else this still sounds so much to me like Giver/Taker issues...

Empty Love Bank means our Taker seeking to gain an advantage or in some way leveraging things for our own benefit and protection.

We vent, we rant, we hammer our spouse, we resort to all of those tools that our Taker carries in his tool box. We pull out the SDs, DJs, AOs and eventually IB.

I read of days that are nice, peaceful, even romantic. I read about days or weeks of activities surrounding kids, work, trips for work and trips for fun without each other. I read of family stress building up and all sorts of things that require so much time and effort and putting each other second then third then fourth then in a place where whatever is left in the day is what you're gonna get and if you don't like it, then I'm way too tired to deal with it...

Then I read nothing for a few days...

Then I hear about this huge fight where true feelings are brought to bear...Feelings that have been shoved back in the corner for a while, ignored, held in check, pushed aside, made to be unimportant because of all the business of life and family...

And then we learn just how ugly those feelings really are and are shocked by what we found...

So we stick all away, back into the gunny sack that we carry around again until the next time the load becomes so much we can't bear it any more and dump it all out at each others feet...

Now L4, you might get a lot of stuff that looks like conflict when you post details of your life that you seem to think means that folks around here can't handle the reality of how you feel and interact...

Sort of a way to keep conflict from effecting us is to avoid having it...

Keep the peace...

Stop making each other uncomfortable...

Walk on eggshells...

Unless one of the things you are hiding from us around here is hours and hours of UA time that is just so enjoyable that you feel a need to keep it a secret from us so we aren't jealous I suggest that the problem is still the same as it has been all along...

Empty Love Banks caused by too many Love Busters and not enough time together to actually make progress toward filling them up...

And I KNOW that at first UA is so very hard to accomplish. It is so difficult BECAUSE our Love Banks are empty. We don LIKE each other, let alone love each other. We don't want to be with each other. We LIKE being on our own to do what we want and get what we want out of life (can you say Independent Behavior?)

Since the line from Withdrawal through Conflict to Intimacy is a line and not just three separate points along that line, as we move along that line because of what happens in the relationship our Taker and Giver have varying amounts of influence over our dealings with our spouse. When we are moving toward Intimacy in Conflict, our Giver is hopeful and our Taker is willing to let it out to encourage the movement along the line we are traveling. That is, our Taker is willing to let our Giver give enough to get more of what we are getting from our spouse.

But as soon as anything happens that bumps us in the opposite direction, our Taker pushes our Giver aside and demands that we be satisfied. Any resistance to our achieving that satisfaction is met with disrespectful statements and the other instinctive parts of us that are there to see to it that we are taken care of.

Our Taker vents, demands, shouts, rants and raves, rages against the injustice not just in our life but in the whole miserable world...

Sorry...I feel much better now...

And then our Taker sits back exhausted and we feel better and logic pokes it's head out and says...That wasn't very good, was it?...and our Giver does something to try to reestablish control and our spouse feels hopeful and lets his/her Giver take a shot and thing get better and we feel better and the world seems like it is going the right way...

And then the phone rings and we have to run off to work and the kids need something and the boss needs something and Mom needs something and the guy down the block needs to borrow something...

Oh, by the way, what are we doing this weekend?

And the client needs this by Tuesday and we're out of milk and the kids will be home in a few minutes and this one has soccer practice and that one has baseball and then they both have science projects that need materials from the store on the other side of town...

I think my Love Bank account just bounced another check...

L4, what do you two actually do together that is fun, not related to kids or family that you both enjoy and actually look forward to doing again? Anything even come to mind?

MB is in four parts...

Care - Meeting ENs
Protection - Avoiding Love Busters
Honesty - Because the best thing we can give is our real self
Time - Without time together to enjoy being together the other three matter not a jot...

And you can't do the Care part when you don't interact with each other.

And so avoiding Love Busters becomes avoiding each other...

And the Radical Honestly becomes BRUTAL Honesty because honestly, we don't much like each other any more...

Picture a box and call it Time together. Inside are three more boxes called Care, Protection and Honesty. Without the box of Time, the other three are not a unified thing and are three separate entities. It isn't until they get put together in the box called Time Together that they amount to much at all.

Time to try to get to work in the snow storm...

Mark

Hey L4,

I just can't get you out of my mind these days. Over Christmas I tried to remember back to that first year or so after D-dsy for us, but for some reason much of it is vague now. I wanted to say, we went through this, this, nad this, and it turned out fine. It did turn out fine, but I can't remember everything about what happened before it did. I guess the positive from that is that a couple of years from now you might not even remember all the details of your present pain.

I have read through everything and all the responses, and so many feelings and words are jumbled in my head and heart. I can't even imagine how YOU must feel. I won't give you any kind of anser, per se, because honestly, I don't have one. There are some things that could help, that might help, that would most probably help. But I think the most fruestrating but honest part of all this is that you aren't baking a cake or doing a math problem. When you add 2 and 2 it always equals 4. I wish human beings were that easy.

I talked with my students this week about new years and new starts, and I shared with them a line from one of my favorite book series, "Anne of Green Gables." Anne was often known to say, "Tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it." I think that was how I tried to live some of that early recovery. I tried to be what I needed to be each day, and if I got all human and blew it, I just thought...tomorrow. Every day seemed 100 hours long at first. Then time began to pass. I don't remember exactly when I realized that it was afternoon and I hadn't thought about my A yet that day. Then when H said he didn't think about it every day, I was amazed. Now, 3 1/2 years later, the A is no longer an issue. That doesn't mean either of us forgot I had one. It just means that there is no profit in factoring it into our daily lives anymore.

Like I said, I feel so jumbled about all the different nuances of your sitch, I don't really have profound words of wisdom. All I know is that just like I am lurioosi2 andmy H is Mr. lurioosi2, you are L4 and your H is Mr. L4. Follow the guidelines that research has proved are most helpful, but also understand that you and your husband are just that - you and your husband. God will get you there in His time.

This is what I don't understand, why is it tucked away?




I'm glad you have a BS helping you to see your H's POV. It makes a big difference.

I'm working one-on-one with two FWH's and the number one reason they continue to struggle is LB's. They send their BS'es back to D-Day every time they Love Bust. I feel the same is happening in your own situation. Dunno for sure, but I'm not much of one to hold back pointing it out when I see it. If you were a FWH, most of the people would be ripping you apart on this thread. That is frustrating to me, because the process to bring a withdrawn spouse back in to the marriage is the same process for a FWH as it is for a FWW.


I'm sure you would love a do-over on many things. I'm just glad you see how ridiculous it all was. Now dust off and move forward.

You're welcome. Please re-read them daily for a few weeks. And NO, I'm not kidding. I have re-read HNHN, LB'ers, FILSIL each at least 10 times and plan to read them again....... I'm in the slow learners section most of the time, mainly because I absorb things rather slowly through my thick skull.

(I�m once again getting the UBB Message �For readability, you can only quote messages 4 levels deep. Please edit your message and try again.� So I�ve put quotes from other MB posters in italics.)

E, TST, ST, Sere, and V - I may present H with the letter. I will not, however, offer it with any conditions conditions attached. I will present it as informational, as suggestions for helping us.

I want H to want to go to MB, go to MC, go to IC, read Harley, join MB, or even just email Mark or another BH who has offered. I am confident any of these actions would be a step that would help him. However, I can't make H do anything. I will offer the MB info and he can do with it as he wishes. Thanks again for the re-write, TST.

TST - I have not talked recently with Steve. I very much want to.

I have to address something you wrote:

quote:tst -- Unless you are being physically abused in some way...

I read your words as implying that unless someone is being physically abused, it's not the worst it can be. That's my inference so if I misunderstood you, I apologize.

I want newbies who might be reading to know that Dr. Harley is very clear about what abuse is -- and it's not just physical. In Dr. H's book titled Love Busters, he writes:

Every person needs to know that physical abuse is not the only abuse that can harm or destroy a person or a relationship.

quote:tst -- I really don't care about your H's tough childhood or his being emotionally immature.... Personally I think these are DJ's that are being unfairly projected on to him and need to be removed from your thinking.

I think this was directed to me, TST, so I'll respond. I provided H's history a while back because I think knowing one's back-story lends context. Please explain how providing H's factual history is a DJ.

I have not called H emotionally immature.

quote:tst -- A little more than a year after you drop the bomb of your A's, expecting H to be in better shape is un-realistic and is a DJ as well.

I don't know where I stated I expect H to be in better shape now. What I hope and pray for (not expect) is that H will want to be happy and that he will want to do whatever it takes to make that happen. And I'd love it if his happiness included being married to me.

quote:tst -- I'm talking about a solid track record of NO LB's for a few years...

I do not do Dishonesty. And I cannot see how anyone can be absolutely and completely LB-free forever. Only because we are all human and we are flawed.

Maybe I'm being a stickler with the words and the absolute, but even bringing home chocolate ice cream without first asking when your spouse wanted to have vanilla... Could that not be thought of as an IB? I know we're not talking ice cream here. But if I'm trapped in a moving car with my H screaming at me and out of fear and anger I scream back, does the few-years-of-no-LBs-clock start over?

Re-reading the above, I might sound defensive. I am not. I am wanting to learn and grow and help H so please, TST or anyone, explain what I am missing. I want to improve.

I need to stop trying and start succeeding.

Ah... If I could go back in time... What I wouldn't give.

But not so that I could take back my confession. So that I could re-do and be truthful from the very beginning. Things are better now even if just because I am honest now and there are no more lies. I'm so sorry it has come at H's expense. So humbly sorry.

Yes.

Me too.

I think I realize. I just don't exercise my knowledge and do something about it in the moment. At least not in the last two altercations.

True. "Grabbing" consists of all focus on one of three places below the neck. But I love H and I love SF and since D-day the connection is something I long for. Therefore, I respond to him almost every time regardless of its origin.

I agree.

Thank you.

Please describe my constant DJs so I can identify and stop them immediately.

SC - Thank you for being here. For asking questions and giving your insight which I value.

TST - If our house is a trigger for H, he has never expressed this to me. We've been looking at moving for about 5 years, some spurts more aggressively then others. We've fantasized about having more property and being away from an annoying neighbor. Looking for homes has not been limited to post D-day.

I've told H that I am willing to move anywhere if he thinks it will help him heal. He has responded, "I know." I won't upend our family's life, however, without a plan in place that is meant to benefit our family.

SMB - Darn. I was hoping that was you.

I agree with this. Because POJA and UA require two participants, what ideas do you have when one of the spouses doesn't want to participate?

Are you regretting trying to help me yet, tst, with all of my questions? I hope not. I'm grateful you've decided to jump into this pool.

Can you tell I have a free day as I plow through all of your great feedback?

I don't know if V asked these rhetorically, but I'd love answers to her questions if anyone has any thoughts: