I don't see it that way--can you explain that a bit?



No--I would never tell anyone to "suck it up"...that would be counterproductive.

I suppose my opinion is based on what I'm used to, based on my personality and my FOO. I was brought up in a home where BOTH of my parents were never around (brought up by nannies, really)...and my Father always taught us girls that Husband's work hard to support their families. I suppose this was wrong of my Dad, BUT I did grow up thinking that a hard working spouse was a blessing....do you know what I mean?

I think I mentioned in another post that my H and I *DO* try to get the 15 hours a week in. We get up together, have breakfast together every morning and drive into work together. I pick him up from work, we always eat dinner together and we do things like yardwork together. I think one of the BEST things is that my H really values alone time in bed--even if that means we go to bed an hour earlier and just snuggle and talk. On weekends, we always spend time together, rather than with friends or doing independent activities.

I'm not saying that we get a full 15 hours every week. I can guarantee that we didn't get in 15 hours in the past 2 weeks, but that's not to say that I'm resentful-he always makes it up to me..

I've never thought of it as sacrificing one for the other--probably because I'm not adversely affected by the hours that my H works. Is it possible that some of us are just not as affected as others? Could it be like emotional needs---they are ranked in a certain order and those that are lower are less important?

I understand what you're saying, but my romantic love for my H would be greatly diminshed if he was always available to me for UA, but didn't work and didn't bring in enough of a salary to sustain our lifestyle.

Keep in mind--I'm not here for anything except preventative maintenance and so far, it has worked. If myself or my spouse had been involved in an affair, I probably would agree that the 15 hours a week was absolutely imperative. At this point in my marriage however, I feel that it would be unfair to insist on more time together just in case in begins to harm our marriage in the future. As I mentioned before--wouldn't that cause resentment on my H's part?

What Dr Harley says is that a minimum of 15 hours a week is required just to maintain romantic love and that his program doesn't work without it. That 15 hours, for example, needs to be devoted to these top 4 needs: sexual fulfillment, conversation, affection, and recreational companionship. Those are the 4 needs that create and maintain romantic love. While FS or DS might be top needs, people don't fall in love because of them. They fall in love and stay in love because of the 4 aforementioned. Here is a thread where we discussed it: here

Now, in recovery from an affair, this UA time is greatly expanded to 20-30 hours per week just to fill the love bank back up. That is the only difference.

But 15 hours is the minimum to make this program effective. Like Harley says, his program doesn't work otherwise.

In my marriage for example, we do notice a distinct difference when we get into the habit of spending less than 15 hours together and we have a great marriage. We had to start scheduling it out again to get back into the habit. If we can notice the diffference in a great marriage, then you can imagine how damaging it is to struggling marriages. Even Dr Harley claims that they spend much more than 15 hours together doing this.

Found some more stuff on it that might be helpful:

pg 85 Effective Marriage Counseling:



Undivided Attention

I've noticed this in our life as well. Every so often we'll hit a slump where we're sniping at each other and just in general more irritable and less forgiving. Whenever we step back we realize we're not spending enough time together. If we up the UA time we're right back on track. We've never formally tracked it but after finding MB I've done a little math and from my informal calculations when we hit a minimum of around 14-15 hours we're doing good - so I agree that the 15 should be a minimum, even in a good marriage.

Now sometimes a week will have to slip do to extenuating circumstances: illness, large looming deadline at work, etc. however those should be the exception, not the rule. Your marriage won't fall apart if you spend less than 15 hours a week one week but hit it every other week. It will start to fall apart if you consistently get less than 15 hours.

Agree Vibrissa. It is real easy to get out of the habit of maintaining 15 hours and that is when love slowly erodes without really being aware of it until the loss is GREAT.

What we do now is sit down on Saturday and actually schedule it out. This helps us get back into the habit.

I think a spouse's career should be open to POJA and not just for UA time. Hours spent away from home do cut into UA time, which is when the 4 IENs need to be met. If UA time suffers because of long hours then getting the IENs met suffers as a result.

But other factors also come into the mix when you consider things such as some of the other ENs as well. While I would love to have a job where I could just sit all day and play on the Internet, I can't really find a job that would pay me enough to have any chance of meeting my wife's EN of Financial Support and still be able to just lay around all day long.

But there are also things that might come along that can cause problems when true enthusiastic agreement is not reached when it comes to a career. Friends of mine are now divorced because they took on the task of taking over the pastor role at a church that was near failing because of issues related more to the leadership abilities of the previous pastor than to the spiritual condition of the congregation.

This man felt he was definitely called into the pastorate. His wife too, was certain he was meant to be a church leader. But she wasn't so sure this was the church he should take over that role in. He was able to convince her citing the idea that if he was doing this for God, he couldn't fail. They sold a really nice house, moved into what can only be called a dump and when they began to struggle financially, he got his old job back, worked there 50 hours per week and kept trying to run the church.

They burned out in about 10 months, the church failed and so did their marriage. He is now learning MB and trying to win her back.

I once worked a job where I spent 150 nights in the same motel in one year and that wasn't the only place I traveled to that year. I worked 12 hour and longer days 7 days per week. I made a boat load of money for those days (late 1970s) but was almost never around for my wife and daughter. It was a huge contributing factor in my wife's IB that later manifested itself in an affair and the resentment she felt from feeling as if she was alone for all those years contributed as well.

Mark

What vacation? We haven't taken a vacation just he and I in 7yrs or 8yrs (I 2day trip 2hrs away at a water park with our boys 6yrs ago)....I was working the MB plan on him back then....he was working away in another country....2wks there....2days home for a weekend....4days total per month together period with 3 small sons who he rarely saw. His relationship with his huntin brother buddy blew up when all the money my H kept loaning him + co-signing loans for $10,000 snowmobile for this brother went bust...the brother filed bankrupty and all the lawsuit papers started coming to our home with our name on them and his brothers....finally my H came out of his fog that he was letting his brother possibly ruin our credit! I never once agreeded to any of it and pleaded with my H to not give him money and never sign loans for him...it all fell on deaf ears and H did as he saw fit and I was told off for it. THis is how we have lived. Please rid yourself of the idea that I am insisting on lavish vacations....I was able at that time due to the blow up of his love affair with his brother to woe H to go on a vegas trip with me.....I had also come into some money from the death of my grandparents....we had to go pay off the balance of the snowmobile for his brother (which my H insisted we were gonna get the snowmobile as it was ours now...guess who has it and has always had it? his brother...I have never even seen it & don't ever want to)so we purchased this brother a snowmobile....gave him thousands of $$$'s for his failing business and mortagage payment....and he purchased to pieces of vacant land up north for them to play on.

Finally it seemed just maybe I wasn't the awful wife...I was being told what a great money saver I was...how well I managed our money at home and never ran up any debt's and so on....how he loved me & knew I would never do anything like runnin up debt on him (he has had nightmares about this from his co-workers stories of this)he was gonna look for a different job and he was so sorry he was wrong for neglecting his family and taking off up north and doing nothing with us....bla bla bla....it didn't last long...and yep I was still doing the program as best as I knew how by myself.

Now on to his job....you misunderstand....the guys that do the same job as he all work these kinds of hours and travel it is the nature of this kind of work....if you don't agree to it they won't hire you....if you don't do it...they fire you....very simple.

My H was laid off from them for a season....he found a job right away as where ever he works they wish they could clone him and have him there 24/7 if possible.....well H was miserable....not enough action on the jobs and salary...he would have most all weekends off and no travel...I was so happy thinking it was a blessing that the other place had to lay off and almost shut their doors! But they came back a while later and called him right away to come back as work/jobs/contracts had finally rolled in and he jumped all over it knowing how terrible it is for our situation....his personal happiness was all he considered and he won't even look for other work.

So it's not about him being inept at his job....he is the go to guy and they look for him to be there fixing it all...he is running between two plants right now as we speak and it won't be changing it is the nature of this line of work. The joke at this employer is that everyone ends up divorced due to the work schedules....I can tell you horror stories of the other co-workers wives having their boyfriends over while the H is gone so much and also about some men working with H bring hookers to the hotel rooms since they are gone so much....it is not a family marriage friendly employer.

Mark my H has got you beat....365days in a yr....4days per month home = 48days....H sleeps in a hotel 308days per yr....sometimes it even more as many times he would "skip" his time to come home cause work NEEDED him to much....so he came home 2days on some of the months.

These jobs to install last 18mo's to 2yrs...before he can cycle back here to a local one and work crazy hours like he is now....just doing this math makes me sick.

I should get a friggin medal for not cheating.....if I wasn't such a committed Christian I most likely would have...that has been the one and only anchoring force in my life.

aeri....it's called sacraficing your happiness for your spouses happiness....POJA lets both win and nobody sacrafices so resentment never builds up....and yes I used to think a hard working deacadited man was a wonderful thing....there is such a thing as too much of a good thing....follow me?

Geez just one last thing...it's like I have diahrrea of the keyboard today LOL!

The reason I feel a sense of urgency is quite simple....this job is local at least meaning no travel away but that's only for a time period and will revert back to well see my earlier posts with the math in it...so this is our chance or my chance to do something about all this...if I let him go on like this and say nothing and stop bringing up to his attention this short window of time will be gone and he will have to travel with this job to do the install of it for 18mo's or so...he's been home almost 9mo's w/o any progress.....that means at best I may have 9mo's or less to try and get him on board if he can slow down on the hours that is. He always tells me there will be plenty of time in the future for us...but that never happens.

Just called to say he will be working late....not sure if that means later than 8pm...but most likely so.

((gem)) I know this has got to be rough. I applaud you for trying as hard as you have been and putting up with all of this.



He needs to be careful, because the way he keeps going, whenever he's ready for that 'future for us' you may not be there anymore. How sad that day will be for him.
__________________

On the POJA front. Listening to the Radio Show right now and they're talking about jealousy. If one spouse has a friendship that makes the other uncomfortable then the friendly spouse should stop the relationship because they do not have their spouse's enthusiastic agreement. I'm sure there would be conflict if the friendly spouse is not enthusiastic about losing their friend. They may wind up having to 'sacrifice' that friendship for the sake of the marriage, maybe?

Ideally, I guess, they would be in love with their spouse and have the marriage as their top priority so that if something bothers and threatens their spouse - it is immediately dropped.

They went on to talk about what if the jealous spouse is almost paranoid? What if their jealousy is not founded? Dr. H's response is that if you want to save your marriage you have to live up to those standards, because there is no therapy that works on people with paranoid delusions. I guess if you can't live up to those standards and it's a deal breaker to you then you can leave the marriage?

It is a very interesting segment, especially from a POJA standpoint. Did anyone else listen to it? Still trying to process it.

That would be marriage at all costs, and I get the sense that Harley is NOT in favor of that attitude.

He seems to be "discernment of marriage at all costs" though. Meaning, if applied correctly MB is a tool that can help us truly learn whether our spouse is a partner or just a freeloader. He never tlls us at what point we should cut loose. Only goes into the reasons WHY people cut loose at various stages of marriage.

Thats why I was confused. It seemed that that was what he was recommending but then again he only said if you want the marriage to succeed in that case then you HAVE to meet those standards as it's the only way it will work.

Now I guess it's up to the person if they are willing to stay in a marriage under those circumstances. He didn't make a judgement as to whether one should stay in that marriage or not. I guess that is up to each person, as far as what issues they will not POJA on.

That's one of the things I like and at the same time dislike about Harley. He doesn't make a judgement about whether one should stay or not, or at what point they are "justified" in leaving. He's VERY careful about that.

Because ultimately, it is not him responsible. We can choose to save our marriage, or not. If we choose to save our marriage, he has the tools to make it happen, guaranteed. There is a way to save every and any marriage, if they follow the program. But they have to choose to follow the program. And success is conditional on BOTH people ultimately following the program without cherry picking.

How many people in real life would willingly do that? At least half don't, and I'd be willing to say that only about half of the rest would, and that's being generous. Most people will just stay and suffer a life of resentment. How sad.

He does not believe in marriage at all costs, for sure. He believes in divorce in the case of abuse, adultery, etc. But being a jealous spouse does not fall into either of those categories. What he typically advises in the case of a jealous spouse is to not do anything to arouse jealousy. More often than not, jealousy is aroused when there is a threat to the marriage.

We don't misunderstand??? We understand perfectly. Been there. Worked for those kinds of employers and clients. Watched them grind up their employees and contractors. There are a lot better jobs, where if you can slave like that, they will be glad to hire you to work half the hours, pay you just as much, and ask you to take time off to be with your family.

Not in his line of work....he works in the auto plants and is contracted by another company to do the work....this is what they do...sure he could find something like those other jobs I mentioned with less hours and no travel but he hates them and won't apply for them....he won't even consider it as a option.....and right now if I say anything about this too much he is gonna pull back so fast.

WOW, I missed out on those good companies. Too late for me, I went to part time self employment but what I earn still isn�t the best, just OK.

Lou

Hey, I missed out on a bunch of them, too. But I had been lucky a few times and worked for great companies in their heyday: HP, Union Carbide, DuPont, etc. So I had a yardstick. But in my desire to please, and get ahead, I slaved for goons for years. I made lots of money, but the managers hated that, and the only satisfaction they had was in letting us consultants go. Didn't bother me.

Then I heard my wife complaining about not being around. So I decided to set some limits. Just like you set a boundary in marriage that you will not get SF outside marriage, I set some criteria for my travel, work hours, etc, based on what my wife said she wanted. My income went down, then I figured how to move it up higher than it ever was. That's what I am telling Mr. Gemstone: don't be open to being used. Don't be a wh--e for money. Figure out how to get paid what you are worth.