Markos, if you are not feeling too defensive, please answer:

1. What are your ages?
2. How long have you been married?

Not feeling defensive at the moment, Bubbles. Again, sorry I slammed into you with such a hard-hitting response earlier. It really wasn't meant for you, personally.


We are 31 and 27, and have been married 6 years.

I WILL TITLE THIS POST: "SEEING EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO WORK ON IT"

~In everything we do, everything we want to change or fix, we tend to look at how the thing is and how the thing functions before we know what changes need to be made.

My husband fixed our printer. First he had to look at it's basic functioning. He spent half his time doing this. Once he knew the basic functioning backwards and forwards, then he knew what he had to do to fix it. Also he then knew which part was broken.

Then he was able to fix it.

This is a process we can translate to human relationships. It is hard to see our spouses clearly, as they really are. But if we do that, we can usually learn to tweek our responses to them to benefit the marriage.



*I am glad you are trying to work this out EARLY in the marriage. I would observe her basic personality and how she looks at life. Look carefully at how she responds to issues and things and people.

Maybe you can come up with some clues on how to deal with her.

1. Observe her value system, is she honest?
2. Observe how she handles other people. What does she want with her other friends, what role does she take in the friendships, how nice is she, does she have true friends?

3. Observe the way she treats others.

4. Observe the things that seem to stress her out. Is she really stressed or does she pretend to be stressed to control the situation.

5. Observe how she is in control and out of control of situations.

6. Observe how she interacts with her family, look at family dynamics, etc.

7. Observe how hard she works for the marriage, how hard she works at a job, and how much effort and persistance she puts in everything she does.

8. Observe how she is with other men, does she flirt, does she demand attention, does she want admiration for how she looks?

9. Observe how self centered she is. Is she always caring or cold. Does she truly care for others or is it an act?

I would quietly observe her for a few weeks without responding to any garbage she spews out, without begging for her cold silent treatment to be over, without trying to engage her in any relationship talks, without giving her anything she wants, without trying to get her to healthily converse with you, and without asking her for anything... verbally or non verbally. See what you have here with her. Only then can you determine if you can live with it. And how you are going to live with it.

There are ways to handle the silent treatment and other interpersonal games a spouse spews out. You can learn to help extinguish these bad habits in her if you do some research on how to respond properly to these acts of hers.

I would be starting to GOOGLE things like:

1. How to deal with passive agressive spouse
2. How to deal with the silent treatment
3. How to deal with a selfish spouse
4. How to help my spouse communicate in a healthy way
5. How to get a basis for good communicaiton with my spouse
6. How to respond to a narcissistic spouse

And more. You need a lot of education and information to deal with this spouse. She is causing you enough pain that you have to nip her behaviors (the behaviors which will destroy your marriage) in the bud if you can. If she cares for you she will change into better ways once she learns how to. (from you or a counselor)

If she has no motivation to make the marriage better or if she is simply non caring as a person, then you will not be able to change her behaviors into good healthy behaviors.

For the record, she says it's because it feels like it would be a step backward.

I think I am going to tell her that I am going to call marriage builders and start telephone counseling. I'll be open to not going through with it if she has a serious objection. I want to write her a letter and explain why this is really a step forward, not backwards, and how my goal is to achieve her happiness and create the feeling of romantic love in her, and how I believe this is worth it and believe she will be happy. I would like to include in it a small, non-pushy request for her to serve me in the same way (i.e., by getting coaching to help her be a better wife, just as I'm seeking coaching to help me be a better husband), but I should probably leave that out if I can't say it right.

Anyone spot any potential Love Busters in this plan, so far?

Anyone spot any potential Love Busters in this plan, so far?

YES.

The better husband, better wife thing. Do not let those words pass your lips! Your goal is a happy fulfilling marriage together.

And don't educate her on how this isn't what she thinks it is.

Say something like: I've found this program that I think can help us achieve a happy fulfilling marriage. They offer phone coaching that is highly recommended by those who have used it, and I'd like to give it a shot to work for us as well.

Okay, so that's a disrespectful judgment.

So how about "I want to make you feel happy and fulfilled, and I believe that this coaching can help me do a better job of that"?

That's all I meant by "better husband."

Canwemakeit has some wonderful insight there... Earlier you said that your wife feels like you "Puts my feelings down and acts as if they're not important or are stupid". So do you think you can craft a letter that won't envoke those feelings? She's told you that she FEELS like MC is a step-backwards correct? That is her thought, her feeling, and it's valid to her. And while I like CWMI's suggestion, if you're serious about counceling with the Harley's, then I'd be more apt to start counceling with them solo and lean on their countless years of expertiese on how to introduce your wife to the idea. In the mean time look at it as you getting help to be the best husband you can be.

How about "I want us to be in love again, and I believe..."

Because she may come back with, "You can make me happy and fulfilled by shutting the heck up and leaving me alone already!" lol.

I agree...a solo call with Steve is probably a good idea. I would hesitate to arrange it without telling your wife...I told my H I wanted to talk with Steve, and it would be great if he joined me, but if he didn't want to, that was okay. He joined.

I'm confused ... are you suggesting I skip the letter, and just call the Harley's?

Yes, not skipping talking to your wife about it but talking to her more like CWMI did with her H.

Under the Basic Concepts, have you read about the 3 States of Mind in a Marriage? IMVHO, it would appear that your wife is in Withdrawl while you are in Conflict and while neither of you are in Intimacy, agreements such as counceling will likely not be reconned. I would think that her response to a REQUEST for counceling would be "what's the point" or "it doesn't really matter" or something else you'll take as hurtful.

In other words, make the counceling about YOU, cause again that's the only person you can control and give her an option to join in. If she chooses to that's great, if she chooses not to that's fine as well. Make sure she feels no pressure.

Well, I have now told her I am going, and she has politely encouraged me to feel welcome to do so. I think she knows her extremely negative reaction to counseling in the past has been a major love buster for me, and is trying to avoid that, for which I am grateful.

She just now added, to my request that she join me, the response: "I'm not going to talk to some guy on the phone about sex." I find that cute. But I really don't think she understands how helpful counseling could be, for her.


Yes, many times.

You are right that my wife is in withdrawal. Unfortunately she has spent a large portion of our marriage there. For my part, I entered marriage with the judgmental idea that if you do that, you aren't really committed to your spouse. It took me a long time to get over that. I go into withdrawal at times, myself, but she is much quicker to get there than me, and it's taken a long time for me to accept that.

Like I'm telling you, she sees no hope. She's not going to divorce me, she's not going to have an affair, and after the progress we've made so far, she is going to make an attempt to try not to hurt me and to try to meet my emotional needs. But the energy for her to do that is just not there, because she's not getting her needs met and is on the receiving end of so many love busters. And she just honestly doesn't understand how things could get better, or how counseling could help. She knows about the marriage builders principles, and says she believes in them, but just really doesn't understand or believe that it will work.

She's down at the bottom of a very dark pit, from which she sees no possibility of escape.

[quote\I would think that her response to a REQUEST for counceling would be "what's the point" or "it doesn't really matter" or something else you'll take as hurtful. [/quote]

Yes, that has happened in the past.

I'm still very hurt over the fact that after our first counseling a couple of years ago, when we exited counseling with the agreement that we would start again if either of us wanted it, she refused to grant my request that we go back. And then as time went on, when we'd have fights and I would say "Let's go to counseling," she would get angry and feel like I was attacking her.

Of course, wouldn't you know there was one week two years ago she felt like going to counseling and talked to her parents for help, and I got a letter from her dad, who didn't have the whole picture, basically telling me I needed to be a man and do what needed to be done and take my wife to counseling. It was thanks to their help that we entered counseling the second time last year and worked some things out ... and exited again with the feeling that we could always go back if we needed, and that there were some difficult things we needed to work out that we could now work out. (Here we are; they aren't worked out. She's upset about that, and I'm disappointed about that, but she's not willing to go through the one process that has everhelped: counseling.)

So despite agreeing to go back to counseling with me any time if I was unhappy, she won't do it. And I feel robbed of the emotional security that I want: the feeling that my wife is committed to my happiness and will do what it takes (not sacrificing her own Taker, of course) to secure it. And I feel like any promises my wife makes me don't amount to anything, that I can never rely on her to keep her word. And I also lose the last sane "last resort" that I have for when things fall apart between us. It's totally normal to me, when things aren't working out, to say, "Let's go get help." To me, that's what you do for someone you love. She won't do that for me == I feel unloved. And without that sane, safe place to go to work out problems, I feel desperate and tempted to do non-sane things, like leave my family for the evening without telling her where I'm going or when I'm coming back. Or get angry and yell and make demands.

Great, sounds like she said/did exactly what you should have expected to say/do. I'm anxious to hear about how the counceling works for you......

She's obviously no longer enthusiastic about that prior agreement and dude, you need to drop it. Those resentments KILL love and lead to Love Busters. Again, it's useless to keep score just look for ways to move onward and upward. The Harleys will help you with that.

Intellectually, I see all that.

It's just that I still feel like I'm in freefall, with no support and no chance of things getting better, as long as she feels that way.

To me it's as if my wife told me she was going to divorce me, or wasn't ever going to have sex with me again.

I don't want to keep score, but I also want to be realistic about the fact that my wife failing to keep promises is a huge love buster.

Funny thing about feeling is that feelings change. As far as support and a chance for things to improve, did you not say you were calling the Harley's? Well that right there is support and a chance for improvement..... Maybe after a session or two those feelings will change to feelings of empowerment and it won't be due to your wife's action but rather yours......

Good point. Thank you for pointing that out. It is encouraging.

I am signed up to counsel with Steve Harley next week.

Trying to make it day to day until then.

I came home and made dinner and played with the kids last night. Put them to bed and discovered they needed supervision to fall asleep; and then I fell asleep watching them. Woke up at 2:30 and discovered I'd missed watching television with the wife. She is feeling very rejected.

She talked to me by email about sex all day yesterday, which I am grateful for. Asked me if we could agree to spend a month without sex working on rebuilding the romance in our marriage, and I agreed. I'm depressed and worried, though. Hoping that starting after my session next week I'll have some new ideas to make this month worthwhile.

I've got tolerance for going without sex, but it's not my preference. My main worry is I'm missing the chance to make things up to her. I need MORE time trying to learn to please her, not less. Everything has been completely wonderful in our relationship almost every day for the last three months until the last couple of weeks, but this sexual issue has been festering without her talking to me about what is going on. Things have been romantic. Seriously romantic. Other than getting sex totally, utterly wrong, I thought I was doing everything I needed to do to be depositing love units, and I thought I was making great strides on eliminating love busters (looking at her questionnaire from last year, I can see lots of things I believe I have eliminated, and the rest of them have reduced greatly and I've been better about apologizing and taking responsibility when I've failed).

I've also got a good source of emotional support, but I need to call him and talk to him today. He doesn't know about this present distress.

Um, did she propose how to build romance without sex? Seems kind of backwards to me, and frustrating for you. I don't remember the sex problem, are you not pleasing her? Seems a better proposal to address that would be to have For Her Pleasure sex sessions.

Not cut it out entirely!

I'm glad you're set up with Steve.

Markos, I can understand her feeling of rejection or whatever if she had spent a long period of time being vulnerable to you about sex. But hey, you're only human and sometimes sleep calls....lol...

So this sex issue seems HUGE for y'all.... Does her wanting the break to work on "romance" say anything to you? Is she implying that when y'all have sex that she doesn't feel loved? What is she communicating to you about sex?

PS.... Major KUDO's on setting up the appt.....