Right. Those are two other conditions Dr. Harley has stipulated. He doesn't favor nights apart, and he completely opposes spending your recreational time with people of the opposite sex.


Probably. I just want her to be able to respond to the "married couples shouldn't spend every spare moment together" strawman. In addition to my posts, I agree with those who pointed out that in a good marriage, you want to spend your time together.

I'm confused. Her husband has been betrayed (even though it was an open marriage-sigh) because she was with his best friend. Yet the advice here is to not separate. What about Plan AB? or is it different advice here because it's not the BS writing? I'm recently separated ("struggled for years" thread) and beginning to freak that it will further the chance of divorce.

Just another point of agreement: a working person typically has 50 hours left per week after all the stuff they "have to do".

15 of those hours should be spent giving undivided attention to your spouse, MINIMUM. Note the "20+ hours" thing is a forum-ism, not something Dr. Harley is usually quoted as saying. His advice is usually along the lines of 15 hours as a minimum, and those who's marriages are in trouble should be spending "much more". For reference, I work two jobs right now, and I still get this time in with my wife (though not much excess right now).

15 hours of those should be spent with your immediate family all together. This includes meals together and whatever other activities you do with your family as a whole. We eat breakfast together 6 days a week (3 hours/week), dinner together 6 days a week (4 hours/week or so), Family Night weekly (3 hours), and miscellaneous family activities on weekends that usually fill the rest of the time.

This leaves 20 hours a week for "me time" and "alone time". This is PLENTY of time for a devoted family man/woman, but usually NOT QUITE ENOUGH TIME for someone to successfully conduct an affair. Which is kind of the idea

The 20+ figure does come from Dr. Harley; I heard him giving it on an old radio broadcast sometime in the last 24 hours. It's in his writings somewhere, either book or website. I'll keep an eye out for it and try to get you a source when I see it again.

True. I think I usually hear him say "20-25 or even 30" for marriages in trouble.

I'd love it if you'd find the reference! And I'd stand corrected

I know he recommends 15 hours for currently healthy marriages, and "much more" for those in trouble, but I've not yet heard him recommend a specific number as a guideline beyond that outside of a case-by-case basis.

Here it is:

Almost every couple who has been to the MB weekend has heard him recommend 20-30+ hours per week to jumpstart it. He mentions this in several places. The quote above and also here, pg 85 Effective Marriage Counseling:

The number of hours a couple schedules together each week for undivided attention should reflect the quality of their marriage. If the marriage is satisfying to both spouses, they should schedule fifteen hours each week to be together. But if they suffer marital dis-satisfaction, they should plan more time until marital satisfaction is achieved.

I knew "dissatisfaction" was in it. I've been Googling all over this site for "dissatisfaction" and "hours" together.

Still looking for "twenty," though...

Why??? The quote I posted says 25-30, that is 20+!!

Okay so what I meant by 10 hours is the 10 hours of undivided attention. Otherwise we spend the rest of our waking non-working hours with each other. We have breakfast and dinner together. We spend like 6 hours a day away from each other because of work. (5 days a week)

We spend 2-3 hours in the morning together and then 4-6 hours at night. But whether we spend time doing something together is different. He spends a lot of time playing first person shooters or XBOX since we took a break from online gaming.


I'm putting in as much effort as I can on my part but can';t push him to do everything that has been said on the site or from the forums. As well, it seems like he likes to throw it in my face that I had sex with someone else every opportunity he gets:S I'm just a little frustrated at the moment.

LL123, the numbers that are being given to you are weekly figures. I'm a bit confused from the numbers you posted: how many hours do you spend together each day, and what are you doing during that time?

I agree you can't (and shouldn't) push your husband to do what is said on this site. However, you can persuade him of the value of recovery using this program.

So in an average work day we spend 6-8 waking hours together. On the weekends we spend about 30 waking hours together. During the time we spend together, we eat, have conversations about various things, watch downloaded movies/shows, play online games and do home workouts.

So you are saying that on average, you spend 65 hours a WEEK with your H?

Watching movies don't count towards UA. Online games, are they played together?

Are you meeting all four most intimate ENs? Tell us how.

So you are saying that on average, you spend 65 hours a WEEK with your H?
It depends on the week, on the low end we spend 52 hours together. On the high end, we spend up to 60 hours.
Watching movies don't count towards UA. Online games, are they played together? We play the online games together. I thought movies counted as RC. I had looked at MB's site where there was a RC list.

Are you meeting all four most intimate ENs? Tell us how.
For affection, we mostly cuddle during movies or while we hang out on the couch together.
For SF, we have sex just not often at the moment. This is something we are working on but will take time.
For RC,we do things as I listed in the previous post.
We have a few conversations every day about different topics from our day, to how we are doing, to life, etc.

DrH has said that movies don't count towards UA. I wish I could find that quote.

How were you able to have sex with another man and keep it from your H?

I found it. I still am learning how to search for things on here and actually come up with SOMETHING.


It can be found HERE

How were you able to have sex with another man and keep it from your H?
It was only kept for a week. I just didn't tell him because of the whole don't ask, don't tell. (obviously bad idea).

I'm just trying to work on the present. Obviously I made a mistake, and we had communication issues and expression of our feelings.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always understand UA time as time spent with your main focus on the other spouse. Like, if you're downstairs on the phone and he's upstairs playing a video game, that's not UA time. UA time isn't just being in the same house together. Going to a football game isn't UA time - your attention is focused on the game, not each other, KWIM?

I understand what you mean Martialbliss. We had our weekly discussion yesterday and we both followed the policy of negotiation. So we had a civil talk without things getting too emotional.
However, he says that certain activities just aren't doable at the moment for us because he has a hard time dealing with all of this still. He says he realized I am making a good effort and he is as well but that it's just going to take time (understandable). I guess each marriage is different... and people handle things differently. He says he wants to work things out but is still confused/hurt/sad over all of this. I guess wait and see and keep putting in the effort on both of our parts.