ok, let me give more detail...

we were driving my mother-in-law back to the airport in kansas city and we decided to make a weekend trip of it. we got to the hotel and decided to drive downtown and have dinner. we found an area of the city we wanted to explore and we mapped out our route to get us there.

my wife drove, my MIL sat in the passenger's seat (she has back issues) and I sat in the back with the map. I found a road that "looked" like it exited from the interstate that lead right into the area we were wanting to go...as we were heading into town, we hit construction and the city street map was at a much larger scale than I anticipated, meaning we were passing exits, before I realized we were on the map (if that makes sense)...

To make matters worse, the road I found didn't actually exit from the interstate, the road just went under the interstate...so I'm looking at the map, looking for the named exit road and trying to locate us on the map and at that scale of the map and the speed we were going...I was confused and my wife wanted answers right then!

Personally, I didn't see the big deal...we weren't lost, no one got hurt and we didn't have to meet any time obligations...my wife was the one that started bickering...I was in the US Navy before I met my wife...I was a Quartermaster and I was responsible for safely navigating our ship...so she rags on me for being incompetent in reading street maps and how she can't believe I was allowed to navigate a ship without getting lost.

She love busted me, so I could've defended myself and took the chance of love busting her and having her pull a MelodyLane on me and withdraw for a week or two...for me telling her to shut the hell up or stay calm, like I did and remind her..."it's not a big deal honey, get off at the next exit and go back and take so and so exit"...but still that wasn't good enough, she wanted to argue, b/c I still had to hear about it...so I just let her ramble on and get it out of her system..

I think you did the best you could. You weren't the driver, so stopping wasn't an option for you.

When you are love busted, the right thing to do is respond without love busters yourself. No angry outbursts, no selfish demands, no disrespectful judgments. No independent behavior. Sounds like you did pretty good.

You didn't violate POJA at all.

You can't make her follow POJA.

Mr. A,

I agree with Markos. You did the best thing. In that particular case, remaining silent after the calm answer you gave her was the best option...you were in a moving car after all . You said this was an example so I am guessing your W has a tendency towards AO. Am I right? If so, I'd like to share something with you if that's OK:

I know exactly how it feels....It's also embarrassing in front of other people. In the past AOs made me want to have an AO of my own, but I felt it was "uncivilized" behavior (DJ!) and, truthfully, I was also a little afraid to do it because I wasn't certain what the outcome would be. (I struggle with unpredictable outcomes.)

The way I handled most AOs before I found MB was the way you did in the car. I tried to be nice and then kept quiet. Sometimes I ran away. This gave my H the predicatble outcome which he & I both came to expect and served to keep the AOs firmly in place.

So again - the way you handled it in the car with your MIL watching may have been the best way under the circumstances but it isn't a long term solution. The ultimate goal is to get the AOs reduced and then completely gone. So, you'll have to figure out how to do that. This may help-->

What I do now is handle each situation on a case by case basis based upon what I think the best option is according to what I am learning here & in the MB program. I highlighted "think" because it's important. When dealing with AOs, I have discovered it's better to think than to feel because I feel like AOing my H (or worse) when I get AOed by him. So that was my first act of self change / improvement. Making sure I did not get reactive in response to AOs...making sure I could keep my wits about me and maintain my ability to THINK before responding or running away.

Here's the lynchpin thought I use:

No single conflict is more important than our relationship. How can we solve this difference in a way which will not harm our relationship?

I said that to myself in my head.

At first, I practiced mentally focusing on that lynchpin whenever my H AOed. After awhile practice was no longer be needed and I found myself using that lynchpin without much effort. Since I liked the outcome, I liked using on it. Sometimes I say it to my H when I sense an oncoming AO and it acts like CO2 on a fire.

The other part of my work was doing my part to let my H know I would no longer be accepting AO treatment. That too is situational / on a case by case basis.

These days AO comes up much less but it took work to get here.

I hope this was helpful to you.

Thankyou so much for your reply. I talked to him afterwards and I don't think it went down quite as well as I had hoped but we are back happy and loving again.

What I find so so hard to understand is that I can approach him with any complaint or request and he will now drop everything to listen and help me out and will bend over backwards to accomodate me without getting offended or upset (I think). But if I approach him to say I'm worried he's going to feel taken advantage of and I really want to make sure he's happy with our plans, or to try to work out a plan together then it goes awry..

He is such a giver, and I see him with other people give and give and then eventually get fed up and never want to do anything for them again because they don't reciprocate. I always worry this will happen to us. I absolutely love his kind nature and how he often seems to get real happiness out of helping me but I want a lifetime of love with him.

Hi ChrisInNOVA: I decided to answer your post on my thread, so we won't derail this one...

My thread

Okey doke ...headed over now

Then he's not a "true" giver. The clue is bolded above. In fact, I don't really believe in "givers" because we are all a mixture of Giver & Taker....even people who seem to be selflessly giving expect SOMETHING in return & they often get angry or resentful if that SOMETHING doesn't happen.

That's human nature.



Then you need to meet his ENs and give back to him for what he gives you. If you don't, I think you know what the outcome will be.

I give everything I can to him. I adore him, he really listens to how to meet my needs best and does his best all the time and keeps me want to love him every way I can.

I've always done a fairly good job with SF, affection, admiration. In the last two years I've worked hard on Attractive Spouse and conversation. I think he is happy with me, to have continued giving and giving to me this long when he wears out with other people in a few months, I must be doing something right but because he doesn't talk to me or tell me when I'm doing things wrong much its really hard to figure out which ones are the most important ones and what the love busters are.

I don't think anyone can stay a giver forever, I know that, but he starts every new friendship willing to give everything. Its been 11years for us and I still feel like newlyweds (better actually, since finding marriage builders, much better) but I still worry for the future because I feel like I'm in the dark about how best to meet his needs and sometimes it takes so much energy trying to do EVERYTHING.

Why will he not communicate with you? I don't get it.

I am going to look @ your thread & see what's what.

In the past I didn't make him feel safe to disagree with me, and definitely not to complain about me in any way. I didn't listen when he asked me to do more housework (our major issue) and I just got cross. I took no care of my appearance and tried to make him feel bad if he ever hinted that it would be nice if I did.

So now I can try to remember that Domestic Support and Attractive Spouse are important needs for him, and do what I can. Neither of them comes that easily to me although I have put an enormous amount of effort into Attractive Spouse I'm not very good at DS still. I hate it. It makes me cross when I'm doing it and then I don't want to do nice things with him afterwards. Hmm. Maybe I should start a thread about this.

Since your husband is away (flying?) a lot, do the domestic chores while he is away, so it won't matter if it makes you ill-tempered for a while; you'll get over it. There are some thread here already on how to zip through housework in short time.

Then, relax, and be fixed up and dressed up when he gets home. Two of his top two ENs met when he opens the door, and he didn't have to see the secret process of how it was done.

He doesn't do overnights, thankfully so he's always home eventually in the evening (midnight if he works lates and around 4.30pm if he works earlies) and I try to meet him dressed in something sexy. Unfortunately most housework can only be done with two people around, one to watch the kids and one to do it. It can't be done in the evenings (at least most of it can't) because we have a tiny apartment with tiled floors and bare walls and windows and the girls sleep in a bedroom directly off the living room/kitchen area. I can't run the washing machine, dishwasher or vacuum cleaner. I can't clank plates around or move furniture or put clothes away (since they sleep in the rooms I'd need to put them away in).

I do often use this evening time to make muffins or something nice to surprise him.

If I feel really angry when I have to do the dishes ( really really hate this) and the dusting would that not be an enthusiastic agreement thing, like I'll meet your need in the best ways I can without causing me resentment towards you and since I can't even remotely enthusiastically do those things I shouldn't do them?

Would you be willing or able to outsource some of the housework by hiring a cleaning service?

Rosycheeks,

this is certainly just my experience and opinion, so take it for what it's worth... I just picked up on your statement that much of the cleaning cannot be done in the evenings because the children are asleep.

I was given some excellent advice when I was pregnant with my daughter, to not try to give her a silent environment for sleeping, to carry on (pretty much) the normal routines of the house when she went down for naps... keep cleaning, playing music, tv, whatever, in the other rooms. Children who are given that very quiet environment to sleep learn to ONLY sleep when the conditions are "just right". I followed that advice, and my daughter slept anywhere when it was time to sleep... drum jams, vacuuming, parks, at my parents' with loud family members... whatever.

I would suggest that you consider starting to ramp up the noise level for the kids to learn to deal with as they sleep, it will probably take some time if they've not had that. Vacuuming outside their door might just be too much, but IMHO it shouldn't have to be so quiet you can't run laundry.

Rosey,

TAC brought up a good point.

If you are keeping things quiet when the liitle ones are asleep, you're creating "light sleepers"...Later they'll be adults who have trouble staying asleep if there is any noise....or who wake up when their house makes "settling" noises or a car goes by at night.

Well the washing machine is old and VERY LOUD and clanks against the floor and wall on spin cycles and its right on the wall next to their bedroom.
Neither of them need complete quiet, which is good, but they only sleep through the noises that are fairly gentle. They don't sleep through sudden ones. My older child is brilliant, she will sleep thro whatever now, but my little one will wake up and then be awake for 3 hours before she will go back to sleep. Its totally not worth it to risk that. She's just at that lovely but frustrating toddler stage of thinking that midnight is the BEST time to get up and play so I try to keep the difference between day and night very obvious, dark and quiet at night.

My older one was like this at the same age, and by 3 was much much better, I'm not worried long term about it. Its far easier to go with what works right now.

We don't have any extra money for cleaning or anything and its so tricky living here anyway, trying to find someone and find out about paying their taxes or anything because I don't speak the language and everything in france requires an absolute ton of red tape.

Ditto.

My kids could sleep through an atomic bomb blast and it's because we didn't insist on total quiet when they were babies. I have friends who would turn of the phone and put a sign on the door asking people not to ring the bell, etc., during nap times and their kids turned out to be horrible sleepers.

Believe me, we don't have total quiet. We watch tv when they're asleep and thats really loud in their bedrooms, you can hear every word. We regularly spend nights in hotel rooms all sleeping in the same room and we've always been able to talk while they were asleep or watch tv in the room. But sudden loud noises (like when I'm clumsy and drop dishes or pans) and the spin cycle of the washer, or the vacuum etc are just far too much in this little apartment.
I can't wait until I can get back to the UK and have a sensible sized house for our family!

Do you let your children help? My kids are similar in age to your kids. The older one helps vacuum, put dishes away, clears the table, cleans parts of the bathroom and dusts. Granted for not a long time, but, it's enough to get something done. The younger child gets silverware out and dirty clothes away and helps with toy pick ups.

They also know, if we need to spend a half hour on chores, they need to find a way to play together and stay out of trouble so we can get our stuff done.

They definitely help with some things, laundry in particular they love to help with. I can get my older one to put all her clothes away except the ones that need hanging up because she can't reach.
My older one was a much more sensible toddler, I could do most things when she was 2 because she would stay out of my way or sit quietly and watch me if I asked her to. My little one tho.. oh my goodness, she's a completely different kettle of fish. I can't take my eyes off her for a second or she's climbing the bookshelves, trying to leap out of the window, pulling chairs over to the kitchen and climbing onto the worktops. I never knew how lucky I was with my first who only ever had to be told not to do something once PMSL.