Those are both good versus that you have shared CW. I may not be the most honest person, but I do love and care for my wife. I want her to have a good and happy life. I understand that it is my job to care for her and I am trying to do that.

I understand that one way to deal with Finances is to require less. Ideally I am hoping to avoid that. I would rather the situation not come to that because I would feel like I was going backwards in life. I woudl rather not take steps back every time I take a step forward. I know sometimes we need to, it makes us who we are, but it gets old.
We also want to have kids before we get much older, but I don't want to do that without better financial stability.

I do understand what you were saying about the Affection. As I said before, I try for her. I'm not the touchy cuddly time very often, I am perfectly happy with sitting on different pieces of furniture to watch TV. Sleep is the same way, opposite sides of the bed, though sometimes I have to give her a few minutes of cuddle time. I do try and make the effort with affection, its a work in progress.

Tom, what are you doing to build romantic love in your marriage?

Do you want to build romantic love in your marriage?

I no longer feel it is productive to hash out meeting ENs. Analyzing and obsessing over meeting ENs in a vacuum with out eliminating LBs, UA time and PORH is pointless.

I don't think it is a step backward, it is a step toward living within your current means.

I have a lot of student loan debt. So, in many ways I live more modestly now that I have a real world job than I did then in an effort to pay off my debt, pay my mortgage, and put money in the bank every month. The thing is, I am not any less happy doing so. In fact, I actually find it kind of fun and invigorating to see how much I can save and how little I can spend and I am proud of myself for reducing my old, more materialistic ways.

My last electric bill in May was $29 and I have a three bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a basement in a large city. I am reducing costs and being green all at once and it feels good. Meanwhile, I have colleagues earning the same salary as I am, renting a tiny, share apartment for half of my mortgage, and living pay check to pay check. They might be wearing newer designer clothes and drinking more expensive wine, but they are not any happier than me. And in the end with no debt and a house, I will have more to show for it.

My point is, coming up with ways to spend less does not make you any less of a person.

I commend you for what you are doing, that is great for you. I can say that I don't focus on a lot of materialistic things; yes I want my cable and internet. As for things like designer clothes and good wine hahaha. If the clothes are not on the clearance rack or really good sale, highly unlikley they will ever make it into my closet. Spending money, is not something I do very much of. Pay bills, pay off debt, build up savings, thats all I want to do.

The first thing to go when you have children will be your pickup truck. You might as well wean yourself off it right now.

Vib-
As I have said I try and be affectionate towards my wife. I have been trying to make more conversation with her. I have tried to spend more UA time with her this summer.

So I have been trying to work on the UA time, the RH as I have said, not so much. LB's, I try and avoid those as well, I slip up as I am guessing most people do. There are some that are harder to avoid than others, but I try.

Would I like for there to be romantic love in the marriage? Yes, that would be nice.

Actually, it was purchased with kids in mind. Four door trucks are all the rage now a days.

Might I suggest you work on DJs?

You've committed them all over this thread and just in this afternoon.

What is your plan for creating romantic love?

How am I committing DJ's if I am not even talking to my wife?

And I do not have a specific plan. I am trying to give her what she needs and avoid the things that upset her. As of now, that is all the farther the plan has gone.

DJs can be in your head too- in fact that's where most of mine occur. The're even worse when that is their location because then they color your every interaction with your spouse.

Your entire incident with the fast food was a DJ.

How bout you go read up on djs in the basic concepts, then head over to the book club discussion and find where it was discussed.

Then come back and tell me how you are DJing your wife and what you will do about it.

Then outline your plan for getting UA time.

Print out the honesty questionnaire and fill it out. You don't have to share it with your wife, just start it for now.

Action is what you need now. Action will get you results- not senseless debate.

So since you have no plan of action for building romantic love- I'll give you some ideas.

I will read up on what you said. I looked for the honesty questionairre you mentioned, not sure what that is/where that is.

Actually I could say that to my husband in frustration and he would look at me and laugh and put his arms around me. He knows I love him, I am honest with him about all the positive thoughts I have about him too and the ratio of positive to negative is so huge that we can cope with the negative thoughts when they appear.
It has taken us work to get to this point, a lot of work and learning to accept one another's negative feelings as an opportunity for improvement rather than a slap in the face but oh my goodness I wish everyone could know what its like to be able to be really honest with their love.

OK, where to start!

It is not her job to RECOGNISE when you are upset. It is your job to tell her, kindly and gently what is bothering you.

"Going off on your wife" is not radical honesty, it is an angry outburst and should not happen. Of course it wasn't pretty. It was an abusive behaviour.

You are allowed to have feelings when she expresses her displeasure with you, you are allowed (and should) respond with your own feelings about what she has said. KINDLY AND RESPECTFULLY.

If she has told you she is unhappy with something, thats when you pull out POJA and the rules for successful negotiation. Actually follow the POJA process tho, don't attempt to wing it because it is very hard to POJA unless you're practiced at it and those rules will really help you practice.

Rosy, I didn't make the "recognize" comment because I expected her to. I made it in reference to the fact that I didn't want her to.

Vib- I read through the Questionnaire. I guess I am not seeing the whole purpose of it. As I read through it I was thinking of some of the information, if the point is to share this information with my wife, she knows the majority of what it was asking about. There might be a few little things here and there, but for the most part, we have been open about the information on that 20 page form.

But why wouldn't you WANT your spouse to know your feelings?

I really don't understand why you would not want to be known inside and out for all your faults and still loved. Its the most incredible feeling, to be truly known by another person.

You are doing your wife as well as yourself a huge disservice.
I think you should take a look at the thread by Tikilover. It seems to me that if you don't rethink your ideas on honesty particularly that this is exctly where your marriage is heading.

The Questionnaire is a starting point for honesty. She may know most of it, but she doesn't know all.

It's a step to prepare you to create that level of honesty with your day to day thoughts and feelings.

The level of honesty the questionnaire requires about your past is the level of honesty you must be willing to share with your spouse about today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Have you had a chance to look into DJs?

I read through the whole of it under the basic concepts. I was not able to find any of it in the Book Club thread yet though and I looked and read through many pages.
I do understand that I do DJ quite often and can see how it would be a very hard thing to break since it can simply happen in the way that you think, especially when it is done with good intentions.