Or, when my H doesn't like my hair he says:

"I don't like your hair like that."

You're so black and white.

THANK YOU!

He does have a point here. Seriously, the difference is that you are in a recovered marriage. EC is attempting recovery with a W who might not totally "get it" yet.

If I had a spouse who was in an EA because she felt the need to get her EN of admiration filled outside of M, I would try go above and beyond to fill that need. Compliment her natural beauty (deflect the focus on the hair). Then when she wears her hair your preferred way, go nuts with the admiration. She will naturally want to wear her hair for EC. But if he demands that she wear her hair a certain way, that sets them both back.

My W had some running clothes that I thought were not too flattering. So, I bought her some new running outfits, and then made a big deal about how much better she looks in them than the old ones. Guess what - I haven't seen the old ones since Christmas. And I did it without criticizing her or demanding that she wear/not wear something.

Sorry - I just don't think you can invoke the POJA rule every time you don't get your way. Otherwise, your spouse could play the SD card.

Mel:

Look at the way he might have said:


He didn't say (in your scene) that you looked fat. And you understand the program and what he is doing. Others do not understand. I still think it is incumbent that men learn how to be honest with their wives without setting off all sorts of fireworks. For me, this means that hubby understands that he needs a different level of communication than the one he uses with his buddies.

Guy talk:

"Hey Fred, notice the new suit."

Fred:

"Yea, one leg shorter than the other one. Which Salvation Army store did you go to?"

I don't even know why I posted this?

Shut up Larry

We didn't get there by being DISHONEST. We got here by BEING RADICALLY HONEST. If her hair triggers him or he doesn't like it, then he has to tell her the truth in order to recover the marriage - otherwise it is a love bank withdrawal.

Nowhere does Dr Harley advocate dishonesty as a means to recovery, he says just the opposite. Love is created by CHANGING LOVEBUSTERS, not avoiding them,., IM. In fact, the first thing we do in the MB program is fill out lovebusters questionaires so we can take steps to avoid them.


here

Oh no, dishonesty will not result in recovery, it will IMPAIR it.

IM, the hair is a trigger for EC. No one is saying she will never, ever be able to straighten her hair again. EC has even acknowledged this. Now is not the time to argue or dismiss her BH's feelings. The triggers should lessen over time. If WW can't make this simple gesture of consideration for EC when she knows it pains him, R will be an upward battle.

When you say go nuts with admiration, that can also lead to needing too much validation from people. WW's issues are so much bigger than her hairdo and ENs.

re: POJA

The purpose of POJA is not to negotiate getting what we want.

The purpose of POJA is to prevent either one of us from doing anything that will destroy the feelings of romantic love for each other.

If you order a book from this website one of the things you get along with it is a CD(I actually got a tape the first time I ordered something, but cassettes are so yesterday...) On this CD Dr Harley describes his program in just enough detail that if you listen carefully, you really have the entire idea laid out pretty nicely. He talks about how he came up with the idea of the Love Bank and what makes it work. He speeks about Love Busters and about meeting top ENs. He talks about UA and about PORH.

The last clip on the CD is where he talks about negotiating in marriage and this is where he brings up POJA. His statement in that clip is that whenever we try to resolve any conflict in marriage our priority should always be to sustain our love for each other. He says that preserving our love is even more important than finding a solution to our problems.

POJA is NOT a way to veto what our spouse wants to do.
POJA is NOT a way for us to convince our spouse to let us do what we want to do.
POJA is NOT a score keeping method of deciding who will get his or her way now in exchange for the other person getting his or her way later.

POJA is a way to ensure that neither one of us ever gets hurt by something done by our spouse...

OR by ourselves when we agree to something simply to avoid having to deal with it.

When in a state of Intimacy, our Giver wants to run all negotiations with our spouse. We want to give no matter what else happens. We WANT our spouse to be happy above all else, but the problem arises from the fact that our Giver is willing for us to be unhappy in order for our spouse to be happy. So under this premise, POJA keeps us from just granting "permission" when we aren't really so gung-ho about what our spouse is requesting from us.

When we fall out of a state of Intimacy and into a state of Conflict, our Taker wants to run all negotiations with our spouse. Our Taker doesn't care if our spouse is happy or not. It is only concerned that WE are happy even if what we want to do makes our spouse unhappy. In this kind of situation, POJA prevents us from gaining what we want at the expense of our spouse and so at the expense of the balance in our account in his or her Love Bank, meaning, the feelings of romantic love he or she has for us.

Withdrawal becomes an even more difficult case because in Withdrawal, our Taker doesn't even want to deal with our spouse and could care less about him or her being happy and doesn't even want him or her to give us anything at all. At this juncture, both the Giver and the Taker have checked out and have left the building. Under this kind of condition negotiating becomes impossible entirely.

One of the ways we end up with a spouse in Conflict or Withdrawal is by doing things that they are not happy about and are in fact unhappy when we do them. Independent Behavior says to our spouse "I don't care about your feelings at all." It is not normally meant to say that but that is what it says since acting in a way that makes our spouse unhappy by not considering his or her feelings when we act is true thoughtlessness. We were NOT thinking about our spouse at all when we acted.

But when we come back to Dr Harley's most basic of all his basic ideas, the one thing the entire notion of the Love Bank is based on and the one from which all other things he has devised to teach this to us (and that is what all the rest of Marriage Builders is about, teaching us this one point), just about everything we do affects our spouse's emotions either positively or negatively. We either make our spouse happy or we make our spouse unhappy whenever we do anything at all.

Our Taker has certain tools that it uses to try to get us what we need or want. The first three are things that are instinctive. A baby demonstrates these three almost from the moment of birth. The first thing we do is to try to DEMAND what we want. (We later learn to use entitlement as the reason we give for this and that is really a big part of what leads to affairs) When demanding something doesn't get us what we want, we switch to the next tool we have in our box of tricks, Disrespectful Judgments (If you LOVED me you would do whatever I want in order for me to be happy. You would WANT me to be happy instead of unhappy.) We judge our spouse's intent to be making us unhappy.

Tool number three is the Angry Outburst. We throw a tantrum and hope that our spouse will buckle to our demands and let us have what we want. This is the same process a baby uses when he needs changing or wants to be fed or is bored or any other thing he needs at the moment. He demands our attention by fussing and whining until we figure out what he is looking for (communication skills are not at a premium in a 3 month old infant). When that doesn't get him what he wants, he shifts gears and whines pleadingly until we figure it out and if that too fails, he screams, kicks, wails, pitches a fit...

It works for babies. By the time we're 30, not so much. In fact these three almost never get what we want from our spouse.

The next thing we do is IB. We just do whatever we want working from the premise that it is easier to get forgiveness than it is permission. But what that implies is that we already KNOW that our spouse would not be happy if we did what we want to do and went ahead and did it anyway. What does that say about our consideration for his or her feelings?

NONE of this even comes close to the dynamic that came up in EC and Rizos situation. That also has to do with not just IB and failure to consider EC's feelings (which he then reciprocated in kind by his reaction, BTW) but it also speaks to other issues including what his ENs might be (honesty is always the most important thing when you find out you've been lied to, but that is a whole different thread, I think) AND in this case a trigger that is not just a trigger of hair being different but also a trigger of not thinking about his feelings in spite of knowing what he wished.

More on those points if I get time later.

Mark

I am not talking about the WAY IT IS SAID. That misses the point. The discussion is about being honest PERIOD. I have no interest in sitting here wordsmithing with overly sensitive types. Y'all can figure out the right words. The point is that the words have to be SAID.

I repeat myself: nobody is suggesting that El Camino DEMAND she wear her hair a certain way. Are you reading? Would you please go back and read my earlier post, the one where I stated that noone is advocating he make demands of her?

He's not supposed to demand that she follow the POJA. He's supposed to let her know that IF she follows it, it'll help her fill his love bank back up. Then she decides whether she wants to do that or not.


What you are missing is the difference between requests and demands.

For sure. Nobody is suggesting he be a jerk to her in telling her.

At least, I don't think so.

The POINT of this program is to create romantic love. If someone abuses an EN in a way that DRAINS the lovebank, then the purpose is defeated. this is not the need meetin' program, in other words. Meeting needs is a waste of time if you ignore lovebusters and the rest of the program.

For example, if my H's jeans are dirty I don't want to be seen with him. I could say, "oh you look so cute and handsome!!!" <valley gurl squeek> And meet his need for admiration while internally I am disgusted that he looks like a pig in public and am embarrassed.

I suddenly feel don't feel very attracted to him and instead of enjoying my time wiht him, I am thinking about those dirty jeans. How does that possibly help my marriage? How does that make him happy to PRETEND like I admire his appearance when I don't?

That does not make him happy for me to be turned off and aversive to him. It does not make me happy to go out with a guy with dirty jeans. See how dishonesty is a stupid strategy that serves no one?

A better solution would be for me to say �dear, your jeans are dirty.� [sorry, but in the MelodyLane household we are not dysfunctional cripples who walk on eggshells and wordsmith every sentence � we just say what the hell needs to be said]. So he goes in and changes clothes. I am happy and he is happy. We can go out to dinner and enjoy each other.

I think that there is gray area between POJA and SD. Here is something from Dr. Harley on SD:

This sounds a lot like what is happening here.

All this PA talk and now I'm going to have to redo my hair, throw out some clothes and probably 200 other things.

I bet you wear them to WalMart.

You're on that "people who shop at WalMart" video, aren't you? Admit it.

Again, this is not a selfish demand. It is simply being honest about his unhappiness, which is his obligation if he wants his marriage to recover.. That is how love is created. Her hair is a lovebuster and she won't know this unless he tell her.



Radical honesty is a NOT a "selfish demand." It is a requirement for recovery just as Dr Harley states

shaddup you, foreign devil!

With gray hair comes wisdom...does that work?