Just because you don't want to do something is no excuse for not doing it.

If it is something you need to do, and should do, then do it.
Don't wait for your spouse to make you agree to it.

In life, anyone above the level of a hobo will have DUTIES.
It is part of your job.

If you want to have a dog, you have a duty to feed, water, grown it, and take it for a walk and play with it.

If you want to have children, husband or wife, you signed up for a bunch of duties.

It's up to us to decide if we want to act like roommates, trying to push chores off on the other roommate, or like a married couple, looking for little things to do to make each other happy. If you act like a roommate, expect to be treated like one.

But that is not true when applied to things that are unproductive, negative. For example, I HATE riding on motorcycles. I tried this RC with my husband and never could overcome my dislike so I stopped doing it. Agreeing to do something you know you won't like will NOT make you like it.

This is exactly what the POJA seeks to remedy. If you do things that make you unhappy, then you won't be doing them much longer and doing it will cause lovebank withdrawals. It is a mistake to go along with something that makes you unhappy just because you thought previously it was something you wanted to do.

I disagree. Doing things you don't want to do is how incompatibility is created. It is how resentment is created and how couples fall out of love.

The policy of joint agreement says you should not do things you don't want to do. This is how couples become incompatible. For example, if I agree to go eat chinese food with my H, something I don't want to do, then pretty soon I won't be going out to eat with him at all. And I will resent the fact that he pushed me into it.

A better solution is to find a restaurant that makes us BOTH happy.

Lets consider this scenario. Lets say my H agrees to go to a mall with me. The day of the trip comes and he has rethought this and doesn't want to go. I CAN force him to go saying "you promised!!!" And then drag him along. He is miserable the entire time and I RESENT his bad attitude. We argue on the way home.

I don't want my H to be miserable and just go to the mall because he had previously agreed to it.

Did anyone win in that arrangement? I sure didn't. A better solution would be for us to RE-NEGOTIATE another activity that makes us BOTH happy. I would rather us go somewhere that makes us BOTH happy.

The whole point of the POJA is not to wrest agreements from the other spouse, but to do things that make you BOTH happy. If feelings change, then that needs to be accommodated.

The POJA is only about one part of your married life.

That's correct, regarding things your spouse wants. Negotiate them until you both enthusiastically agree on what you BOTH will do.

Beyond that, there are a whole lot of things you need to do, regardless of what your spouse wants, who your spouse is, or even if you are even not married.

You have to realize what are your duties, just by who you are or who you want to become, and separate those from things your spouse wants you to do.

When we are children, an adult has to tell us to do everything. The faster we grow up, we take responsibility for doing what we have to do in order to be somebody. Only a small percentage of people get to the point of not needing someone else to remind them, or tell them, what to do. They have to be told when to arrive at work, what to do, and when to go home. At home, they have to be told to take out the trash, cut the grass, and feed the dog.

So you have married people acting like parents to each other, telling each other what to do, instead of asking, reminding each other about their daily responsibilities. Is it any wonder most couples can't separate out the personal things they want, and negotiate those? Is it any wonder that so many women fall into talking like mothers to their husbands, and so many men resent it?

I found out long ago that if I do all the little chores before my wife gets a chance to ask me, then she can't tell me, or complain to me, or criticize me. All she has left to do is ask for what she wants, and I am going to POJA all of those until she figures out how to initiate POJA with me.

Ok, so because my H and I POJA'd that I would support us while he went to school (never mind that he was still supposed to be working PT and didn't) and then he'd go to work. Now that he's done with school, can he now realize that he doesn't like working, that he wants to continue being a FT student and go for another degree?

(The answer by the way, is NO, at least not if he wants to stay married to me.)

The motorcycle thing, in my opinion, you agreed to TRY it. You did, and you didn't like it. I don't think you could have agreed to do it forever if you'd never tried it.

But one of my HUGE issues with POJA isn't actually POJA... it's what happens when REPEATEDLY my H and I come to an agreement and then he welches on it. It builds HUGE stores of resentment for me.

Mel, I'd like to consider another scenario--the spouse who never actually wants to do nothin'. Let's say your H agrees to go to the mall with you, then on the day of, begs off, and you accommodate that. Then you plan to go have...pizza...later in the week, and when it's time to go, he begs off on that, too. Same with the plans for your cousin's wedding, your birthday dinner, taking the kids to the movies...your life ends up a series of broken plans. Zero RC. Is that to be 'accommodated'?

Short of Plan B (which is excessive, imho, over pizza or a mall trip), it seems a better plan to me to enforce the importance of keeping commitments, if only to get the reluctant spouse to stop making those they will not keep.

Or...

(posted in a snit...more directed at son's forgetfulness...not the POJA w/ husband.)

Well, that depends on what you mean. There are many things that are my "duties" but the POJA still applies. Just because I feel it is my duty does not mean it is exempt from POJA. For example, it is my duty to work and pay bills. But even that is subject to POJA. If I was a stripper, for example, it would hurt my marriage and saying it is a "duty" to earn money will not erase the damage it does to my marriage.

How can it not be accommodated, though? Do you hold a gun to his head and force him to go? How is it helpful to MAKE a spouse to do something he doesn't want to do? A better solution is to work harder to find things you BOTH want to do.

Ok, ML...I have to ask. Let's say you went out and adopted a dog from the pound.

Two years later you decided you just didn't have it in you to be dog owner. You're tired of walking, feeding the dog and other daily duties.

Do you just dump the dog back on the pound's front steps?

That's what I was seeing in Retread's post. You have a dog, you don't enjoy some dog owner duties. Your feelings have changed. That doesn't get you out of your dog-owning duties. It's not like a piece of clothing you can toss out.

Does that have your enthusiastic agreement? Remember the goal is to find MUTUAL enthusiastic agreement.


Yes, I could have refused to do it even if I had never tried it. There are things that are so repulsive to me that I won't try them. BUT, I thought there was a chance I might like riding on the motorcycle so I decided to give it a try.

Or, what about time constraints?

I don't enjoy waking up in the middle of the night dealing with nightmares or cleaning up vomit. In the daytime, he has said we can take turns or whatever but neither of us is enthusiastic. When the time comes, I hear them cry, I instictually move...he doesn't hear. Do I wake him....now that I am already up? What if he is not enthusiastic (seriously cleaning up vomit who is?) Under normal circumstances this would be a renegotiation time but ....NO Time....

Just like OH and the Lacrosse Jersey.

Some things just need to be done....

I agree! But what does that have to do with POJA? We are talking about the POJA.

Does that have your enthusiastic agreement? Remember the goal is to find MUTUAL enthusiastic agreement.

Ok, I'll be clear. My H isn't doing this (thank goodness) but it's happened to a family member. The W supported the H through school, on the agreement that once H graduated he would then support her through school. Only once he graduated, he found he didn't actually want to work, he wanted to go for another degree, and refused to work. W had been working a horrid job just because she thought they were both working toward the same goal. She wanted her chance to fulfill her career goals and go to school then. There was no option that found mutual agreement, because the forces were completely opposed. No solution would work for him if it meant him going to work, and no solution would allow her to go to school without him going to work.

Now, both of them, obviously, were at best "renters". So is the moral of the story that if they were "buyers" they wouldn't be in the game with the attitude of "what's in it for me" and one or both of them would have been willing to bend a little? And if so, wouldn't that be sacrifice? I mean, really... there's not really an in-between there... either he'll work or he won't. And some people will NEVER be "enthusiastic" about going to work. What do you do if you discover you're married to one?

Actually, I was picking up on Retread's statement that there are things in life that are just duties and we don't like them. Ergo we have to just do the things we have to do. You sign on for them when you take on the responsibility. Such as dog ownership. He didn't mention specifics but that's what I got out of it. So that's separate from POJA for a married couple.

But let's take it there...what if the couple POJA'd having the dog, based on sharing the dog owning responsibilities and all of a sudden, the wife or husband just said 'nope, not gonna do it and I don't care if we give the dog back to the pound'.

The other spouse is stuck.

And like TAC, I do know a couple going through this right now. Like me, she thinks pet ownership is for life and that pets aren't disposable items. Her husband is fine with taking the dog back. Like it was a suit that didn't fit. Ugh.

I think you got it with the buyer/renter mentality. MB and POJA requires that we don't make sacrifices for EACH OTHER. However, there are sacrifices that have to be made for the MARRIAGE. Understanding and making THOSE sacrifices is the difference between a buyer and renter.

DH HATES his job - and to be honest I hate it too. We can't afford to have him quit though. So he goes in and does something he isn't enthusiastic about. He makes a sacrifice because, as a buyer, he IS enthusiastic about doing what is best for our family and that involves keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table. However, together we are working to find him another job that he would like.

So when you find out you've got a renter and you're a buyer - I think that's where boundaries come into play. What are your hills to die on? What will you absolutely NOT live with? How will you enforce that?

I would not accept being the sole wage earner while DH stays home and plays video games. I would not support him indefinitely while he piddles around in school. Those would be deal breakers for me. It's kind of like a wayward's cake eating - he'd want the freedom from responsibility that a single lifestyle affords while getting the benefits of a wife cleaning up after him and supporting him and the warm fuzzies of a daughter when he feels like it.

Like a wayward, I'd invite him to go live his single life elsewhere and come back when he's ready to be a buyer.

I read a mommy board with women in similar situations and they bend over backwards giving their husbands this single lifestyle - killing themselves working jobs and providing for their families, it irritates me to no end.

The point I was making is that POJA is a wonderful tool, and that it works best when both parties are using it in a good faith effort.

It works best when both parties are buyers.

Because marriage DOES require sacrifice. We must sacrifice the trappings of our single life for the trappings of married life.

Usually we POJA going into marriage (even though we don't do it consciously). Without really realizing that the marriage call to "forsake all others" means not just other lovers, but other substitutes for getting our EN met. And then when we wake up and realize what marriage REALLY means (usually after the first kid comes and starts eating into that UA time), we are no longer enthusiastic about the agreement!

So if I am no longer enthusiastic about the agreement to be married, to sacrifice the trappings of being single for the trappings of being married, does that mean I have the right to POJA myself out of marriage? (Saying this hypothetically, of course!)

Or to put it another way, if I'm a buyer, and my spouse is a renter, but I didn't find that out until AFTER we married, could I renegotiate the contract if I'm not enthusiastic about being married to a renter? Could I say, "I'm sorry, but I cannot be enthusiastic about being married to a renter, so unless you become a buyer, this marriage is over."

Or the reverse. The renter could say, "I love the concept of the POJA, I think it's a great tool that can help our relationship a lot. I cannot enthusiastically agree to give up my [insert LB habit here]."

I just see how the POJA could be abused if both parties were not buyers and were acting in good faith on behalf of their marriage. The POJA by its very nature is designed to appease our taker and protect our giver. But if the couple cannot come to enthusiastic agreement, then NO ONE is doing ANY giving, either willingly or unwillingly.

I agree with you, Think. I think it could be a deal breaker for a buyer to find out after the fact they have a renter.

I think that's why POJA can't be practiced in a vacuum. Because it easily create a situation where two people are staring at each across the line, with their arms crossed - refusing to move.

However, if it practiced in conjuction with the other principles of meeting ENs and LBs - buying into the concepts of the Love Bank and Care and Protection. Meeting UA time and using PORH - if you have ALL of that in place, then you BECOME buyers.

I also think this is why Dr. Harley recommends starting with something small for couples that are struggling and not in love - simply because it is something that is so difficult.

I also agree with the idea that POJA is a WONDERFUL thing when practiced properly. It can only really be practiced if both parties are buyers.