Wow, Dr. Harley thinks he knows how Heaven is going to work. Oh my goodness, that takes away some of his credability for me.

Let me tell you as a wife who has spent most of the last 16 years thinking she will never be enough but valiantly trying....this makes me sad. She is giving you her self, her honesty, her fidelity....but it only goes so far. This just cut right through my heart.

What cut through your heart? What do you say only goes so far?

Everyone has their opinion of heaven - but by all means, use whatever excuse you want to keep from trying to build a romantic marriage.

On the one hand he's solved problems JUST LIKE YOURS to get EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT for many other couples.

But on the other he has firm ideas of Heaven.

....yeah this program just isn't going to work for you /sarcasm

So they are saying that a "loud" fight is never good. What ever happened to make up sex that so many people say is great?

I am not saying using that as a way of saying this program wont work. I just have a hard time when people make inferences to what they say Heaven WILL be or WONT be like. We can all have our own ideas, but I don't see how anyone can say they know or don't know for sure.

As per Dr. Harley - it isn't worth it.

The deposits the sex makes aren't worth the damage the fight does to the love bank.

I can count on one hand the number of times DH and I have raised our voices to each other and still have fingers left over. We both have tempers that flare easily and have committed to not turn them on each other.

Loud fights are Angry Outbursts - they are abuse by definition.

I was just commenting. I don't believe my wife and I have ever had make up sex, but I have heard from others that have and said that it was really good. I think there is too much emotion involved with my wife for it to happen here.

I meant that DH feels loved by me....but it's not enough. What he would really like is a career woman who keeps an impeccable house.

Tom: your wife cannot possibly love you if she does not know who you are. Who you really are. She loves an idea of you. She loves the part of you that you show, not the whole.

That's probably why it doesn't fill you. Because you know you put on an act, so the love you are given feels incomplete.

It is.

So - Tom - you can have the marriage you want, in about 3 months give or take.

You feel like doing anything to get it?

I don't know that that makes a difference to me. The idea of incomplete that you mention. I honestly don't think that if I were married to someone who I was very attracted to and met all of my other EN's and loved me completely, I don't think that would "fill" me. I really don't. I don't know that there is any one "thing" that would do that for me. I honestly don't know what will. I keep searching and trying to figure that out.

Vib- whether you think so or not, I am trying, I really am. I have been trying to implement some of the things that I have learned or been told from this site. As I have said before change is not easy for me, so I don't see going full force into all of it (though I know that is recomended). I am trying.

What are you doing?

I am trying to meet her EN's better. I am trying to spend more UA time together. I am also trying to avoid LB's as best I can.

It isn't that "one thing" is enough to be fulfilled, it's that "one thing" that makes everything else fulfilling. For many, that "one thing" is a good marriage.

I think I know what you meant there RP, but I guess I don't feel like it will be the one thing that makes everything else fulfilling.

I read or hear how some people (from this site and from personal life expereince) say that their spouse is the most important person in the world to them. That other people will always take a back seat to them. I have always had a hard time with this concept. I have always viewed my really close family members and my potential (don't have any yet) kids as the most imporant people in my life. Yes, spouse is imporant. But for me, those family memebers that I love with all my heart and the kids I don't have yet, but know I will love with all my heart, there is nothing they could do that would take away that love. My love for them is unconditional. A spouse on the other hand, that is not unconditional love, that is not love that makes everything else fulfilling.
I don't know if that fit with what you were saying or not, but it is what came to mind.

What in the world does any of that have to do with his credentials and credibility as a clinical psychologist with 35 years of experience specializing in marriages?

He probably also votes for a political party that 50% of people reject. Should his experience in his speciality be dismissed for that, too?

He might even like sports teams some people don't like. Or dress in the wrong color.

I'm not sure how his religious opinions about the afterlife impact his credibility any more than any of those do.

Great! Have you read through the Basic Concepts again, lately? It usually takes a while to really start seeing how they all work together, and it takes quite a bit of education to get to the point where your intellect will start overriding your instincts and habits.

Tom, if you value those kids and really care for them, you better put their mother first.

You want that to be one of the values you share with them.