And here is a perfect example of this from yesterday from the D/D forum. It was frustrating reading the story because the newbie was pointing blame at WH after she had A's but this was the first post that she received.

I have had to ask a certain poster more than a few times to knock this off too...as well as her beating up very distraught newly BW's who are so in the trenches they can't tell which way is up.

THIS really, really bothers me because her "advice" is completely anti-MB and I know from personal experience that a M can be saved even when it looks like the odds are completely against recovery.

I will admit I have advised this from time to time. I always try to temper it with the advice that their marriage CAN be saved should they desire it and let them know what the challenges will be and see if THEY feel it is worth it.

I don't know if that is the best way to approach situations like that or not, now. I think I need to think about this a little more.

ANY marriage can be saved if you can get both people on board, but sometimes it isn't worth it and sometimes the BS just isn't up for what recovery takes. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that.

I agree with maritalbliss ~ really? Are you on SAA enough to even be able to offer an observation like that? (that is not an insult, just an honest question...IDK that I have seen your name over here too much)

Just off the top of my head, there was a poster who was very obviously doing a lot of this type of posting up until maybe a week or two ago...so again, it really surprises me to hear you say that...

The way these sentences were laid out it appears you are saying that I said the above to you. I don't think I did and if I did, I'll address it seperately.



First off, your husband isn't here so I didn't "promote" or otherwise encourage him to IB.

Second, it's very debatable that the situation you are referring to, buying donuts and taking them to work, IS a an "independent behavior". I think it's an "annoying habit". But either way...whenever someone posts these type conflicts on the private forums (which happens a lot) Dr. Harley always comes in and tries to refocus them on working the plan and building love bank accounts and putting the conflict off for later...when they are more "in love" and thus, more receptive to criticism and sensitive to their spouses feelings.

In fact...here is part of a post he made just THIS MORNING:



I've said this before, IMO, MB is not a conflict resolution program. The MB theory is that conflict is mostly resolved when the couple falls romantically in love again using the MB program. As you work the program you PRACTICE utilizing POJA, but it's the spring training of POJA (i.e. - "you aren't there yet"). POJA is only really effective after you fall in love with your spouse. Until then...there is too often a tendency to use it as the POJA stick. To win battles and sort out resentments. It is my opinion that that is what you were doing...saying "I'm not enthusiatic about you taking donuts to work" in an effort to control/micro-manage what essentially was/is, IMO, an annoying habit.

Some of it, perhaps, was a misunderstanding. As I recall, your actual communication on the issue with your husband differed tremendously from the way it SEEMED to be portrayed here on the board. You did make a lot of disrespectful judgements about your husband's motivations to take donuts to work but it appeared later those were only written here and not communicated directly to him. The whole donut situation appeared to be the World War III of conflicts when, I think you'd admit, it was an pretty small conflict...in real life. I apologize if I inferred a bigger conflict than actually took place. I also acknowledge I was a little exasperated with you and posted somewhat aggessively under the impression that you were being way over the top about such matter in real life.

Mr. Wondering




Edit to add: Here's another private forum example:



At that time I inferred you WERE making demands, disrespectful judgements and angry outburst. I perceived YOU were love busting your husband OVER DONUTS. I wasn't the only one that thought that based upon your posts at that time. Thus, negotiations (poja) over the donuts shouldn't have been undertaken at all. Just because your husband seems somewhat easy going and was willing to accomodate your demand (he inevitably didn't take donuts to work with him) doesn't mean you didn't lovebust him. I also thought at the time, just perhaps, micro-managing him might be YOUR annoying habit???? (remember you are the one here posting getting assistance and I WANT YOU TO HAVE A GREAT MARRIAGE OF EXTRA-ORDINARY CARE AND ROMANTIC LOVE. My wife and I are on the side of your marriage and we both sometimes wish a few of the other wives around here over time had your gumption/moxie)

If you didn't say it before, you said it now. Well, the controlling part, anyway. Does it make a difference if it's labeled IB or AH? They're both LBs.

Susie, no, I'm not on SAA much, I post mostly on MB 101, and haven't seen newbies slammed with "kick 'em to the curb" rhetoric over there. Sometimes folks make decisions for their lives that are different than the choices that make sense to me in my life, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to support folks in their goals to restore their marriage, if that's what they choose. My mom years ago wanted to convince my dad, a serial cheater, to stay, but she didn't have the support or information, like we do here, to do that. I wish she'd have had this type of support available.

cwmi, if you think this, that's cool, but since you're here, I encourage you to reread the Q&As about annoying habits. The plan for those is to pick one the top 5 for the moment, work on that one alone, and add the others to the list to be tackled later. It's something like when just 3 or so are eliminated, the rest become no longer LBs, because you're back in romatic love. You'd think it's a cute quirk, not as gaining something at your expense. You have cute quirks, that don't annoy him or make withdrawals, right?

threadjack/ (because this isn't what this thread is about!)

FTR, and not that anyone asked, I do believe this is a POJA issue ~ POJA states "do not do ANYTHING without your spouse's "enthusiastic agreement"".

CWMI's H IS doing something without her enthusiastic agreement and it's draining her LB$. Maybe it seems petty or controlling to some people but that isn't the issue ~ for whatever reason it bothers her (could be a money issue, could be a health issue, who knows) ~ and it SHOULD be POJA'ed ~ EVERYTHING should in a M.

As to whether or not they are not "there yet" in using POJA I don't know ~ Dr. H repeatedly says to use POJA on small issues first, and this seems like a fairly small issue.

My $.02 worth.

/threadjack

There is a difference between annoying habits and independent behavior.

IB - one spouse makes unilateral decisions that affects the other spouse

vs.

AH - one spouse persistently does something that bugs/annoys the other


Your husband stopping off on his way into work and buying donuts for the guys in the shop really didn't affect you. To me...it was like you complaining that he stopped off at Burger King for a sausage, egg and cheese bagel and you HATE burger king. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things. I'm not denying that it ANNOYED you that he did this and his habit of doing these small gestures for other persons is/was habitual but such annoyance doesn't compare to a true IB like having lunch at strip bars or insisting on having co-ed or weekly golf outings or even insisting it is OK to kiss and hug his female friends (which is the situation Dr. Harley was addressing with the above quoted advice)

IB's should be communicated immediately and eliminated promptly. AH's should be addressed as part of a plan to eliminate lovebusters. You should both sit down and list things out that BUG YOU and negotiate them one at a time safely and carefully. Criticism should be avoided and acknowledged as a lovebuster.

Here is how Dr. Harley thinks annoying habits are to be addressed:




Sooooo...did you handle the donut situation appropriately??? Your posts at the time didn't seem to suggest you did but I don't know...I wasn't there.

Mr. Wondering <---willing to be wrong but a tad annoyed himself that his 1000's of posts on MB are being put into question over a couple of posts about donuts.

Yes and no...If you'll note, on the private forum, Dr. Harley MANY, MANY times tells people NOT to negotiate [use POJA] YET...He advises them to spend UA time together FIRST - fill those lovebanks - and AVOID negotiations until the LB$ balance is higher...MB is NOT simply a conflict resolution program - It is a program designed to create and maintain romantic love - I understand that using POJA is a part of that, but POJA can't be effectively used if lovebanks are deep in the red...

Mrs. W

It's an interesting conundrum because personally I wouldn't want to spend UA time with DH if he is continually LBing me with an IB/AH/refusal to use POJA.

Not only would I not want to spend the time, but any UA time would be undone by these LBers. Everyone is different in how they respond to stimuli in the LB$s I suppose.

For me LB$ deposits were not made if POJA was not being used concurrently and I suspect CWMI is the same way.

I�ve been accused a few times of not giving MB advice, but I don�t think my inputs or that of others should be dismissed out of hand.

I believe that MB is the way to go if you wish to recover a marriage when infidelity is the issue BUT:

1. I don�t believe a short marriage with no kids and adultery involved is worth saving. There�s too many people in the world to put up with this kind of abuse, IMHO.

2. Marriages with kids are worth the attempt to save but not at the expense of rights as a father or parent. By this I mean that a BS needs to make sure they are protected and are ready to fight the legal fight if necessary. I followed a path of appeasement and a mistaken belief that I was in a �unique� situation and I gave away everything. It cost me dearly. I don�t want other betrayed spouses here to suffer the same fate.

3. I believe in strong legal defensive action while applying MB Plan A/B. Mortarman did this and saved his marriage, but did a great job of protecting himself from losing custody of his children. Many here criticize legal action by a BS when a WS is rolling the ball in that direction. I believe you fight fire with fire, but many say that�s not in the MB spirit. Too many men lose custody because they are under the delusion that the WW will �wake up� and that this is a phase she�s in. I was one of those. I don�t want a father to fall into that trap.

4. Each marriage needs to be taken by its own merits. If a person is married to a serial cheater or to someone with DEEP psychological scars, then the odds of any plan succeeding are low. If there are no kids in the equation, why stick around to rescue that kind of damaged person? Life is too short for that.

5. I love seeing a BH either stand up for himself legally and succeed there or implement exposure and Plan A/B so effectively that an affair is killed. Humbled is a great example of that and PSUBIKER did a great job protecting his legal rights. His WW is so fargone that he moved on.

6. Some of us were married to really messed up people. I was devastated to lose my marriage and my wife, but leaving me was one of the best things she ever did. I was freed from taking care of an overgrown child with deep psychological scars. Sharing this doesn�t counter MB. It simply provides a BS with a story of someone who moved on with life and was grateful that the previous marriage didn�t work because it was a life sentence had she come back. I�m glad she never did. When a BS is in the depths of despair and depression, it helps to hear stories of personal recovery and some reassurance that divorce is not the end of the world.

Again, I believe in MB as a means to recover a marriage, but the issue of infidelity is so complicated that dismissing alternative views is shortsighted. I think MB works when normal people stray. I don�t think any plan works when a person is so psychologically flawed that they get absorbed in their own little narcissistic existence which will never be changed until that person seeks help for him/herself.

My dad was a serial cheater. He has cheated on everyone he�s been with. My mom is with a good man now. Why would I want her to expose herself to being let down again if she were to ever return to my father? What do you tell a BS who has an ex return years later and they started to move on?

Even SH doesn�t advocate saving all marriages. So diverse viewpoints aren�t bad to have.

I dunno MF, I just know what I've read Dr. Harley advise over and over...The "you're not there yet" type of thing that Mr. W quoted in his post comes to mind...Avoiding obvious love busters, certainly - but the elimination of annoying habits must come later - pointing out how each of you annoy the other is an enemy of intimate conversation as Mr. W also cited - Many couples come to Dr. Harley with GIANT amounts of conflict, but I've never seen him try to tackle those things first - Instead he remains consistent in putting resolution of conflict on the back burner and pulls UA time to the front.

Mrs. W

Maybe this is where we disagree...I don't see this as merely an AH, I see it as an IB and refusal to use POJA. My DH had a big problem with IBs so anything that even resembled an IB triggered me and immediately drained my LB$.

I do agree that AHs should be dealt with later and not early on.

From Dr. H's description of AHs vs. IBs:


Picking up donuts on your way to work, because it's scheduled and requires thought to complete, falls under IBs, IMHO.

<if we wish to continue this discussion maybe we should start a new thread?>

Mrs. W, at the time we were still coaching with Steve and had been for six months. Steve never said that we were not there enough yet to POJA and spent a LOT of time coaching us on how to do just that. The whole failure to POJA and the belief that what one spouse does SHOULD NOT affect the other was at the very core of our marital problems.

For the record, it was not an annoying habit that could wait, it was a huge LB that greatly affected my respect for my H. Buying doughnuts doesn't bother me at all, but attempting to buy admiration does. Especially when done by someone as worthy of respect and admiration as my H.

I could just link you to the two threads where it was already thoroughly discussed if you'd like.

I, too, am ready to move this thread back on topic.

I don't need to read the whole threads but did anyone ever post to Dr. H to get his opinion on this? More than anything I am just curious now as to which LBer this would fall under.

THIS is the basis of everything else on MB. It is at the HEART of the whole program and is the one piece that makes everything else work.

It is the realization that in order to become compatible, to become ONE with each other we must always take each other into account whenever we doing ANYTHING at all.

EVERYTHING related to Marriage Builders flows from this single premise. The methods and actions all rest on this foundation and without it, the other stuff simply becomes a bunch of stuff to do. With this as our mindset we DO the things that are Marriage Builders. Without it, we continue to struggle to figure out what is missing and what to do next.

Not having this as our reason for doing what we do it turns into me and you, your stuff and my stuff and our stuff and never really becomes US. It is knowing that what we do affects each other that allows us to find solutions to conflicts as they arise without having to be guided in the process for every step we take. It is even at the heart of how to fight an affair and is what allows a BS to fight against the real enemy of his or her marriage and stop thinking of the relationship as having become a confrontation that needs to be won over all opposition.

NOTHING in MB is more important than this fact.

Whatever we do, it affects our spouse.

Mark