How did your DH break the AO habit? That is definitely one of my husband's issues, especially with the kids, which is painful to watch. He also has issues with this at work. He's been in counseling in the past, but it didn't help long-term. It goes in spurts. He may go for a few weeks being very copacetic, then have several weeks of major irritablity that he isn't even aware of, even when it's pointed out (gently of course!)

I seem to recall your DH going to anger management classes after all. Is that correct? If so, was it just fear of divorce that motivated him, or something else? Did he even recognize he had an anger problem?

My DH is very good at justifying his anger. I actually attempted to address the issue this evening because it was going on. He was upset at the way one of the kids at school is treating our son, and the angry tone of voice was actually VERY intimidating to our son (6) who thought dad was berating HIM. I told him that I didn't think there was anything wrong with him feeling angry, and that he has good reason, but that when he expresses that anger in the way he was reacting, that I react by feeling very fearful. I told him that I accept that my fear (just like his anger) is out of my control and do my best not to act on the feeling, just let it pass. But that I just wanted him to know what goes on inside me when I see him get angry that way. He told me to "drop it," so I did, sort of.

Later in the evening, I willingly listened to him vent about frustrations at work, didn't comment or offer advice, but said that it sounded like he had a very frustrating day. A little while later, I remembered that I'm expecting AF in a few days and that perhaps this evening we could spend a little "one on one" time together in bed after kids were down, thinking he might enjoy the stress relief. He said he wasn't in the mood. I admit, I'm a little disappointed, because I don't often initiate, and I was feeling very good about making the offer. But I also wasn't surprised either, given the tone of the evening. So I have decided to offer at a time when he's in a better mood and see if that makes a difference.

What do you mean by protecting yourself? CAn you be more specific? What I focused on mainly, was protecting my husband from MY lovebusters.

My husband has not had an ANGRY OUTBURST since the day Dr Harley wrote that post to him. Dr Harley basically told him to KNOCK IT OFF! End of story. End of angry outbursts.

Having an argument in public is one thing, acting disrespectful and childish during said argument is another. That's pretty neat that he stopped though.

My H wrote this to Dr Harley that day:

I definitely see the value of protecting my husband from my LB. In fact, I think at this stage in the game that is way more important than protecting myself.

But let's talk about me for a moment.

My husband's LB drain MY Love Bank, right? Not only does that drain my Love Bank, it does so at a rate that is much faster than just meeting EN can replace. And he's not a pro at that either, as a withdrawn spouse.

If I'm waiting until he is less withdrawn to share my constructive criticism, how do I prevent his LB behaviors from draining my Love Bank while I am in Plan A trying to meet his EN and stopping my own LB behavior?

Does that make more sense?

do y'all see where my Independent Behavior and disrespectful judgments set him off? I used to actually call his interests "micky mouse." [he is so tight he squeaks when he walks! ] Talk about disrespectful! He is a compulsive saver and ratholer and about every other year I would go pick out a new car and call him from the dealership "hey honey, guess what I bought!" He would go crazy and I would always be so puzzled about that.

Your posts confirm for me the great power behind "making a decision."

I recently listened to a CD about anger that I got from my church that was fantastic. And the main point was, if you want to control "sinful anger," make a decision to NOT GO THERE.

This year I too made a decision. To floss my teeth. It's a silly thing, but I was never able to make it a habit until I made the decision. Now, I sometimes skip. But most days I floss. All because I made a decision. Making small decisions like these are HUGE practice for me in learning how to make big decisions. Again, I hope I can lead by example . . . one of my DH's LB is his breath I have no idea how to approach this without embarrasing him.

ok, I wouldn't wait at all! I would start talking about it now. Do it in a respectful manner making sure he understands your goal is to be in love with him. And be sure and stop your own lovebusters.

One way to do this is to tell him you are working on your own annoying behavior and ask him to take the LB questionaire. Take one for him and then exchange them.

See, this is something you could put on your lovebusters questionaire and he could READ it.

Again, feeling much better

Actually, I can relate to that though. Two months into marriage I was in a car accident that totalled my car. I had to buy a new one, and it was the first time I'd ever done that. My DH buys cars for the sticker price without doing research because he avoids conflict (unless he gets uncontrollably angry!). My dad is a pro at negotiating and loves buying cars. Guess who I took car shopping? Now to be fair, my DH wanted nothing to do with the whole thing, so it wasn't without his blessing. But it still did short term damage to my already shaky marriage. Looking back I see this as a very significant "turning point" in the wrong direction. On the other hand, I can also look back now and learn a LOT from what I did wrong.

Last year we bought a new minivan. This time, DH still delegated the task to me. But it was ME who took responsibility for the research, me who did the negotiating, me who planned the test drives. On one hand, part of me would have loved to be married to a "man's man" who could have done all those things. But I accept that my husband is who he is, and he is a "man's man" in other ways.On the other, I was VERY grateful for the opportunity to do those things for my family, but also for myself, because it was very empowering to fly solo, without my dad looking over my shoulder. And it definitely did not seem to step on DH's toes, because he is not a negotiating person at all. WAY out of his comfort zone.

Gotcha!

thinkin, thanks for sharing your story, wow! I had a hard time for quite a while finding a balance between my Alanon program and MB Concepts. It got easier as I understood them better. But in POJA I often mistakenly thought I needed to "do nothing," when that wasn't the case. I brought up as an example when my then 7 year old daughter had ringworm, and H told me I couldn't take her to the doctor, and I did anyway. I misunderstood POJA and thought I was harming my marriage, causing resentment, but I was mistaken. I no longer think that kind of thing is going against POJA. I am making the best decision I can for my family until a time when my H and I can discuss the options respectfully.

THANKS!!! You have no idea how affirming it is to hear this. I often feel as though the two programs are sometimes opposing, and right now my alanon takes precedence. But I keep coming back to both places, because I know how thick I can be.

I think the main thing alanon has given me right now is "permission" to screw up. My sponsor says that if I can't do "the next right thing" then just do the next wrong thing as long as it's something different. Well, MB is definitely different, and if I mess up at either program, there's always tomorrow to do better. I'm a perfectionist, so this is definitely new thinking for me, but it makes living a lot less scary

Full Article Here<<<

Touched on this on another thread and wanted to be sure you had read this.

Interesting article Mark. Thanks for sharing it with me, because I did miss it.

It seems that Harley addresses motivation in the case of both spouses attempting MB principles, rather than just one. I'm not sure how that would change the game. Doesn't matter though. That's discussing the problem and not the solution

Think,

I think that Dr Harley is merely discussing motivation in what I quoted. Whether one person is motivating the other or each is motivating his or her spouse to do what will lead to better marriage is not the point.

MR1, is the best motivation to change behavior that there is. The action itself becomes the reward for changing the behavior.(This is the most likely way to get a wife who is reluctant to have sex on board with having sex...Make it so she looks forward to it because she enjoys it so much and she is more likely to want to do it). This is why RC time is so important as part of UA time along with the other IENs. The time is so enjoyable that we want to do it all the time.

This was part of what I did in Plan A that I think so many (especially men) seem to miss the boat on. I didn't spend all of my time trying to convince my wife to stay. I didn't browbeat her about the affair and I didn't work at educating her about what a dolt OM was. Instead I made a nice dinner, finished her laundry for her, washed the dishes after she went to bed, took our granddaughter on walks in the park and invited my wife to join us.

Yeah, I was dying inside, wanting to scream at her, beat the hell out of her and go find OM and ensure that his death was slow and agonizing. But I didn't do any of those things; well, after I figured out that I was defeating my own objective by doing those kind of things my actions changed. That was after I found MB and began to read, got SAA from the library and read it in one night...Before then, I was convinced that I should find a way to explain to her why staying married was better than leaving me for some dirt bag who had just had his wife leave him because he was a serial adulterer. I was sure that if I could show her how wrong she was that she would fix herself.

When I started to make our time together the most enjoyable part of her day, even more enjoyable than talking on the phone to OM, that was when she began to consider me as being a better choice. The time she was with me became something she didn't want to be without because being with me was something that made her happy and feel good about herself. (It also allowed me to monopolize her time giving her less and less time to communicate with OM.)

MR2 is pretty powerful as well when it comes to motivation, but not quite as good. In MR2 we derive our reward AFTER we have performed the required action. It is like going to work and earning a living, maybe even a good living, but unless you really enjoy the work itself, then sometimes no amount of money is sufficient to keep you going day after day to a place you hate to be. I enjoy the things I do for free to help other people a lot more than I enjoy my job though I really only get the reward of knowing that I was able to help others from it. Believe me, there is no monetary reward in running a not-for-profit organization or trying to help couples make their marriage better or meeting for 4 hours to discuss how to tell a staff member at the church that he won't be getting a raise. Yet I would love to be able to spend all of my time doing those things instead of working for a paycheck. That is because the activity itself is the reward as opposed to the check I get in exchange for working.

MR3 is a pretty poor motivator unless you are holding someone captive while you attempt to break their ability to identify what is real. (brainwashing) It is especially poor at motivating a reluctant spouse to engage in improvement of the marriage. By making the marital relationship less comfortable it actually causes him or her to withdraw further instead of convincing them to make the changes you want to see happen. Yet this is the way our Taker tries to handle conflict. We demand change, then we try to coerce change (if you loved me you would___) and finally we punish our spouse with our angry outburst. If we really want to hurt them, we just do whatever we want and then chastise them for being so hurt by our thoughtlessness. If we make pain a way of life our spouse is likely to just walk away.

UA time works to create MR1 for both husband and wife. It lets both get specific ENs met consistently and soon the time spent together becomes the most enjoyable time in their lives. My wife and I would rather go shopping together than do almost anything alone these days, but not because I enjoy shopping so much, it is because we enjoy being together more than we enjoy being apart.

It didn't happen overnight though. We began, remember, with her wanting to get away from me to be with OM. At first she wanted to be almost anywhere but by my side. And to be honest, spending time with her made me feel sick most of the time. I fought guilt at first because I wanted to smash her face in a few times. Our life genuinely sucked at that point.

But as we started doing things that we both found enjoyable, at first maybe a half hour walk with our granddaughter or the dog, and added additional activities like taking our cameras along, and then added working on the pictures on the PC when we got home and printing them, matting them and hanging them on the wall...Before long we were both ready to takes a walk the minute we were both home. We talked, we held hands when she'd allow it, I held the car door for her if we drove somewhere to walk, I packed a picnic lunch and that would let us stay out longer...It was all pretty calculated and yet as we did it more and more and began to include more activities than just walking around the block, we both began to enjoy our time enough that spending time together was effortless.

MR2 works for long term goals that require short term sacrifice. I might skip lunch for example in order to spend money on something that I really want to buy. But it can also apply to putting my outside activities on hold in order to care for my wife if she gets sick. It is also how a BS can do a Plan A for a while and is also the way you have to approach Dr Harley's answer to the question "Can one spouse save a marriage?" You delay gratification and fulfillment of your own needs while attempting to provide the motivation to meet your needs by meeting your spouse's needs in the absence of getting your own needs met...I think I said that sideways, but I think you get what I mean.

The first motivation to attempt in getting someone to make a change they are reluctant to do is MR!. Try to find a way to make the change itself enjoyable. If that fails, the a reward for performance might do the trick, as in, you scratch my back and I'll scratch your...whatever needs scratching at the moment...

But once these two have failed, then consequences become the big motivator for some. If failure to change results in enough loss or just fear of significant loss, then sometimes the pain is enough to get me to change my behavior. This is why Plan A has to precede Plan B, BTW and why you have to meet his ENs for a while and avoid Love Busters for a while before swinging the stick of the process to take it all away unless he changes.

Step 1) Make yourself irresistible by meeting his IENs of RC and SF. (throw in a bit Admiration, DS, physical attractiveness)[MR1]
Step 2) Make yourself even more desirable by making only Love Bank deposits instead of withdrawals by eliminating Love Busters.[MR1]
Step 3) Reward him any time he does something you want him to do but avoid punishing him for doing things wrong.[MR2]
Step 4) [Only required if he isn't changing yet] Stop doing step 1 and 3 and explain that unless he gets with the program, he will lose the benefits of the new and improved you.[MR3]

If after you do this stuff he isn't willing to do what you need, then you might have to face the fact that he is not going to change and then you have to decide if staying is still an option.

But first try these four things, 1 and 2 for a couple months or even longer if you can. Throw in a bit of #3 at times for good measure. Use step 4 if he is showing no progress at all.


Mark

This is an EXCELLENT post on motivation, and on the nuts and bolts of the MB program. Again you explain it even better than Harley does! You should save it and copy it whenever there is a hardhead like me around

That said, I'm going to have to let this sink in. On one hand it looks like a nearly foolproof strategy. On the other hand, I can't get beyond the idea that "motivation" looks an awful lot like "manipulation," even if the end goal is a worthy one. I personally do not believe the end justifies the means. So I think my meditation on this will have to get me beyond that way of thinking. Doesn't mean I won't practice MR1 and MR2 as the opportunities arise. Just means I need to do motive checks a lot . . . am I doing this for me, or am I doing it to control another person? If answer A, not manipulation. If answer B, probably manipulation.

I do think I can figure out how my husband would react to this, based on his actions for the last 10 days or so. I have been working VERY hard at elminating LB and meeting EN in the limited UA we do have right now. I have avoided a LOT of potential trainwrecks that would have happened very easily just a month ago. And I'm really happy with myself. And he's noticed. And he is extremely suspicious. He thinks I am faking it.

I am most definitely NOT faking the actions; I'm choosing the actions I can live with long term. But in some ways he is right; my feelings are not there yet. (I haven't told him this.) I think he and I are both sort of "black and white" in our thinking. There is only intimacy and withdrawl, no middle ground. I think that is because we both avoid conflict, and neither one of us really wants to go there; we'd rather be in withdrawl! I guess for me withdrawl has become more painful than my fear of conflict, so there I am (MR3, right?)

The fact that I'm in the "conflict" state, but apparently "happy" to use his words, makes him think that I am faking it. It's what he grew up with, and what he dated . . . people who "pretended" to be happy or upset to get what they want. Anything that looks like that is a huge trigger for him. So I am gearing myself up for a rather LONG plan A, because it will take a lot of time for him to believe that I am not faking it.

But he's right on one hand. I'm not doing it for him right now. I'm doing it for me. I love the phrase "Don't do be the source of your spouse's unhappiness." I'm there 100%, but not because I am in love with him, but because being the source of my spouse's unhappiness is not acceptable behavior any more.

Great post Mark!

Good luck Thinking

Think,

It isn't manipulation. It's how you two fell in love with each other to begin with.

Your intent right now is not to fake it. But really, you are faking it till you make it since that is what you must do in order to change things that have become habits and certainly what is required in order to overcome the instinctive self serving parts.

The question isn't even if you believe you will continue but whether or not you can keep going in order to establish new habits that can replace the old ones.

So now you must deal with MR1, MR2 and maybe even MR3 in your own walk through this mess and you need to provide your own motivation to keep doing the things you are doing until you begin to get a payoff on the other end and even beyond that point so as to create new habits that will last a lifetime.

How you handle conflict will be the make or break point, I think, Think. Conflict is NOT a bad thing. Conflict is how we adjust, adapt, learn to meet our spouse's needs as they change over time. Conflict is not the problem for a couple in love. How that conflict is resolved is not even so important, it is how we attempt to go about resolving it that matters most.

Conflict resolution deals with several parts of MB at once. It requires continuing to meet his ENs even when your expectations have gone unmet. Unmet expectations cause us as much sorrow as unmet ENs, IMO. We do something expecting a certain result and when we don't get it, we feel cheated. What makes it worse is we keep doing the same things over and over again still expecting different results than we got the first time and fall into the trap explained by Einstein.

It requires a steady focus on avoiding Love Busters since the negotiating tools of our Taker are SDs, DJs and AOs followed by doing what we want to do in spite of it making our spouse unhappy (IB).

It requires complete honesty because if we withhold anything from the negotiations it lessens the likelihood of getting what will make us happy and keep us from finding the solution that makes both of us happy. Honesty to express our expectations so that input from our spouse can adjust our methodology instead of repeating the same errors time after time.

It requires that we follow POJA to the letter but also in spirit. By that I mean that we have to be certain that WE are actively seeking solutions that fulfill POJA and not just trying to outsmart our spouse or out wait him/her. POJA is not a labor of attrition where we exhaust an opponent into submission by using the stuff our Taker always has at hand.(SDs, DJs and AOs)

The one piece of POJA that must always be in the front of your mind is that still being in love at the end of the day is more important than having a new car (or dress, or shoes, or paint, or restaurant or...)

Making POJA work requires a change from both sides in the way conflict is addressed. It means coming to realize that there are many possible answers to our problem and the right one is not the one we conceived at the start but the one that makes both of us happy at the same time. It isn't your way or his way. It isn't something between your way and his either since compromise would make you both unhappy. The POJA solution is the yet not thought of way of resolving the problem that when found makes you love each other even more and avoids either of you gaining at the other's expense emotionally or otherwise.

As for continuing the choices you have made on your own, the tricky part will be to continue doing those things long enough for them to become habits and for that you will have to provide much of your own motivation. Yet you will get glimpses of MR2 when your husband responds to the new you and you will also start to find those MR1 types of things that will stimulate you to keep doing things simply because you enjoy them. The difficulty will come from having to make certain that what you are repeating out of habit is in fact something that reinforces romantic love and not something that detracts from it. Hopefully before you reach that point, your husband will be enough into the change that he will begin to provide you with the right kind of feed back to keep up the efforts.


Regarding manipulation" If you went to a car dealer to buy a car and the salesman closed the sale, would you say that your were manipulated? You got a car and that was what you went there for.

A salesman has a job to do. If his company hopes to remain in business for very long it does not entail making people unhappy with what they bought. So a car salesman has to determine what is going to make you happy based on what you tell him (once you get past the "Just looking" stage) and then find the one thing that will make you commit to the change he needs from you in order to make his living.

There are guys out there that will try to sell you the SUV instead of the econobox for commuting to work, but realize that if he is able to sell you the SUV it is because he found something in you that the SUV spoke to more strongly than the econobox. Most people leave the showroom with a new car happy about the purchase. They only begin to have questions later when maintenance issues come along. When the newness starts to wear off and we are tired of changing the oil, replacing tires, fixing the brakes, washing it and waxing it, which were all things we did when it was new, that is when we begin to feel cheated because we expected the newness to remain forever and of course, the newness wears off pretty fast and the reality of having to maintain what we purchased sets in. It is also where we have to start making our own adjustments to the quirks and shortcomings of the vehicle we purchased.

The difference is that when we get tired of dealing with our old car, no matter whether it is ten years or ten months old, we just go back to where we got it and replace it.

Manipulation would be if we went to buy a new car and ended up buying a new television instead. Of course we have to first be certain that we are at the car store and not the television store. But it is dishonesty that is manipulation not honesty. Manipulation is when we offer something that is not real. I manipulate a bass into striking at my lure so I can drag him from his home and into my boat for my own enjoyment. But when I show Care and Protection to my wife, I am not manipulating her but doing what I should have been doing all along.

Sometimes it helps to look at this from that POV, BTW. Care, Protection, Time and Honesty are what we are all about around here. All the rest are techniques for doing those things. Care, Protection, Honesty and Time are all things we promised each other when we got married and usually we gave them at first. But as the newness wore off and we found that we had to keep feeding these things to the relationship since we didn't have the coping skills to adapt to each other we began to get frustrated because our expectations went unmet.

And then we began to compare what we had to the new one we once had, or even worse, the new one someone else has...

If I sell my customers what they need, even if it means not getting what they think they want, they are ultimately happier and more likely to do business with me later. I don't have to call on my best customers. They call me to place an order without me having to dial the phone. It is because they are happy over time with what they get from me even though I will tell them when what they want is not reasonable at the time they are wanting it.

We get unhappy with the old and expect everything to remain new, but sometimes things need to be maintained in order to remain fit for use. A marriage is one of those things. In fact, a properly maintained marriage can outperform a new one almost every single time when it comes to happiness of the partners.

Mark