With advice I have moved my post to this forum.

She needs to be looking for a full time job, but is not doing so, I am not sure what her plan is at this time. Talking with her about money has always been hard, but lately it is all I have been thinking about. She is working part time, but needs to find something permanent. As a result I enjoy the times that she is not home much more to when she is here. I am tense and stressed any time that I am around her. But I do not want her to know that because she would take it personally and then I would have to work to fix those emotions. I am not a good communicator, I don't know how to address this without her getting upset. I want to be able to enjoy my time, but I'm not. She also wants to have a baby, but I do not want that to happen right now. It is not a good time for that at all. So I just conitnue to find ways to avoid being intimate.

Avoiding intimacy and keeping honesty from your wife won't fix the problem. It seems she doesn't know how unhappy you are.

Here are some links you need to start through.
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3550_summary.html

You and your wife fill this out (scroll to the bottom)
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4501_enq.html

Read through this and then print off the Love Busters sheet (link located in article)
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3400_lovebust.html

Hi Tom,

You may want to take a look at this thread
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=159641&Number=2346298#Post2346298

for a MB perspective on asking your wife to work. In your case, just remember that for joint decisions, you both need to enthusiastically embrace decisions, as making babies is on the same level. My advice would be for you to wear a cover as an extra level of protection until you both enthusiastically come up in agreement on both issues. Having an oops right now will just complicate your life and make hard marriage decisions 10 times more difficult. Good luck in your search for answers.

If you want to pm me, email me at dpokerdealer@gmail.com

Hi, Tom,

Please do take the time to read all ten of the basic concepts. There are a lot of tools here to help you marriage, but you can't cherry-pick the program: each concept doesn't work by itself, but the concepts work together to make marriage everything it can be.

Why do you feel that your wife needs to be looking for a job?

I feel my wife needs to be looking for a job so that we can have financial security. I do not make enough to support the both of us. Even working part time will not make up for what she was making.
The honestly aspect is the hardest part for me. I know that I am a very guarded person. I have no desire for her to know that I am unhappy. That would be one more thing for her to get upset about, feel pressure about, and then cause her unhappiness. For now I am trying to take one for the team. Even though she thinks I am stress free enjoying my vacation (teacher).

You have been given some great reading referrals, this is a great website to help your marriage. Read, read and read...but I just wanted to add that "taking one for the team" will lead to resentment, Not good....

You need to be honest with her about this. Summer "vacation" (I'm a teacher and I hate that phrase) will just give you more time to obsess over it.

Have you read His Needs Her Needs? It might be a great thing for you to read together is she is willing.

Tom,
You need to read the articles and the book in its entirety, before trying to apply it piecemeal. Read the articles on "Love Buster: Angry Outbursts", and "Emotional Need: Financial Security".

I have some questions:

Why is your salary as a teacher insufficient to give you financial security?

Why don't you get a job for the summer?

Was your wife working when you got married?
What did she do?
Why is she not working now?
Why is she not trying to find a new job?

Why is she acting so angry towards you? What does she think you are doing to her?

To answer your questions

1. Teachers don't make enough money, they just don't. Not with the amount of debt that we have either.
2. I had a handful of projects around the house that I wanted to take care of this summer. I should not have to get a job, this is my one time for a mental break from work, and I am taking a couple classes.
3. She is a teacher as well, but did not get brought back for next year.
4. see above
5. She is working part time jobs right now, and I think in her mind that is letting her put off looking for something real.
6. I don't know that she is acting any different towards me than usual.

How does she feel about it?

Why does it feel like people are taking her side in this? I am upset at her lack of action. We will be fine again once she gets a job, I know that. I don't know when it will happen and she doesn't seem to be doing much to change that, so I am worried about a couple months from now.
I have commentted to her a few times about certain jobs to apply for, but she doesn't know if she wants to teach so she ignores the idea to apply to them. I just want to know we can pay the bills without worry. Thats what matters.

Hi Tom,

I'm sorry if it seems ppl are taking her side. Just to let you know, from an impartial observer's viewpoint, I read the replies as maybe being to-the-point, perhaps because the person didn't have a lot of time, perhaps because a lot of similarities between problems mean there are some "standard" solutions that should be tried first. Solutions we've all recommended many times, and so often repeating it to a newcomer, we may sound a bit brusk. KWIM? Nothing personal against you, just folks posting sort of quickly, doing "triage" if you will.

Triage - first things first - seriously, have you read the Basic Concepts? Before you speak to your W aout your concerns, please read about ENs and LBs (especially DJs), POJA, and Respectful Negotiating.

Second, I know how hard-hit teachers are, at least in the U.S. (*Very* interesting name BTW!!! Just wondering, does your name have anything to do with your location, or are you in North America?)

At least in my area, lots of very good teachers are being "let go" due to budget cuts. There are others here who are teachers or are married to teachers or principals. I work with teachers, BTW, and teach at the university level.

Re. your financial worries, do you and your W openly discuss the family's financial situation? Or is this like the elephant in the middle of the room that everyone ignores?

If you read the section on ENs, you will notice how much the FS section applies. It seems like FS is important to you. It also seems that maybe it is less important to your W. That doesn't make her wrong or anything. But it stands to reason why her not getting a job is an LB to you.

There are tools here to help you deal with exactly this sort of situation. Please read those articles I mentioned asap, they will help you know how to better discuss things with your wife.

Tom, no one is against you. Go back to my response to you and look at the links. In those links are the basic principles of marriage builders. This will give you an idea of what you're looking at with the program. Next, you and your wife sit down and fill out the emotional needs questionaire (also one of the links I gave you). The idea is that both of you start trying to meet each others top emotional needs...not that you don't try meet them all but you start at the most important. And you and she also need to fill out the love busters paper and start eliminating those things that cause irritation in the marriage.

You need to be honest with her how you feel and that this is an issue in the marriage.

Public or private? Union or no?
Do you think she is going to get a call back?

What is the realistic opportunities for her to find other work?

What are her other skillsets?

Confused, you worried me there for a moment, but I looked up your thread, and you're a guy, so it's okay to give another guy your information. Just wanted to post this in case anyone else got worried, so they don't have to look up your thread, too.

Tom, I like the advice you're getting, and I want to add, too, that it all begins with falling in love again, then everything else is easy. It'll be so easy for your wife to find full time work when she has the confidence and energy from loving life and being happy with each other. And all the rest of it. What fun things do you two have planned for fun this weekend?

Tom, please follow the advice of the others and take a global approach to resolving your marriage problems. The basic issue here isn't that she doesn't have a full time job, but that you and your wife are falling out of love and don't know how to resolve these problems in a skilled manner that protects your marriage.

The goal of MB is to create romantic love in your marriage by teaching you how to eliminate lovebusters [selfish demands, angry outbursts, dishonesty], meet each others emotional needs, and negotiate conflicts in a way that makes you both happy.

If you stick with us, we can help you get what you want in marriage, a romantic fulfilling marriage where you openly and honestly negotiate conflicts such as this.

On another note, I have a strong suspicion you have met someone you are thinking of having an affair with. I would get rid of her pronto, because that will make it impossible to repair your marriage. If you are having even an emotional affair, then your wife needs to be told.

Tom, this is what we call sacrifice around here and is one of the worst things you can do in a marriage. People who sacrifice build resentments and KEEP SCORE. I can't keep count of the people who have shown up on the Surviving an Affair forum who had affairs because they sacrificed. The narrative in their heads goes like this: "I have given and given and now it is my turn to get!! I am entitled to be happy!!" When one spouse plays the martyr and continually sacrifices, the results are usually quite ugly.



This article about how important complaints are to marriage addresses your situation perfectly: Complaining in Marriage

Mel,
I have to reiterate that I have not met someone who I am thinking about having an affair with. Yes, being a teacher, all of my friends that I interact with are women, but that isnt going to change.
As for the biggest problem being a lack of romantic love and not the financial issue. I have to disagree. When we are financially stable, I am happy, the other things dont bother me as much. I'm not a very romantic person, I give her enough to make her happy.
Jayne and KT, I did fully read through the concept summary link (still don't have all of the abbr. memorized so I will have to go back and see some of what you are talking about). I can not see myself sitting down with her filling those things out. That goes back to fear of her finding out that there is even an issue so that she doesn't get upset. When she is upset emotionally, I have to help her through it. The less often that happens, the better.
Mel,
You also mentioned something about keeping score, doesn't that happen in all relationships?

Tom, just the fact that you are in the habit of not being honest about your feelings and are over on the SAA forum asking if affairs can be justified tells me there is a serious basic problem here that stems from being out of love. Unspoken issues in a marital relationship lead to a superficiality that ruins romance. I don't believe you are in love at all.

Learning how to be honest and learning how to negotiate skillfully will alleviate that issue.


It happens in bad marriages. When couples sacrifice, they keep score. When the score is not even, couples use selfish demands and angry outbursts to settle the score. [or worse yet, settle the score by having an affair, which many do] A better alternative is to negotiate solutions that make both happy, rather than making sacrifices.