It seems to me your common-law husband is fine with things as they are. The other posters said it best-you work hard and pay all the bills, he gets to work lightly and play with his toys. Naturally, any attempt on your part to alter this..."arrangement" is going to meet resistance from him. And why not? Things are working for him.

I think if you push him hard enough for change, he may walk. On the other hand, if you maintain the status quo, eventually you'll get sick of it and walk.

Still, since you're not yet sick of it, the only thing I can suggest is sitting down with him for a frank heart-to-heart about your common finances. In other words, negotiate and apply the POJA (Policy of Joint Agreement). Do it in a spirit of asking him for help. Specifically, to get a better paying job to help you out. He'll probably counter by telling you to dump the horses, though. You'll just have to tell him the only way to do that is to euthanize them, and if he doesn't want that to happen he'll have to start making some more money to help you take care of them.

We sat down Wednesday night and went through some of the site and discussed buying the program - I've already ordered one of the books. We did the EN questionaire and the LB, and he's really generally unhappy with me and how I don't meet his needs. I'm unhappy with one or two things, but he's just generally unhappy. He isn't able to tell me how I could meet his needs, just that he's not satisfied now.

He flat out told me he doesn't want to change jobs. He'd said a few months back that he did, and I was thrilled. Now, he's dead set against it and won't consider it. He says we'd have less time together, and I don't need him in town every night. While our current issues do stem from having very little money, there are bigger issues lurking underneath the current issue. I'm a very chatty, talkative person who needs conversation, SF, and affection as my top three. He's very reclusive and borderline anti-social and part of it feels like we're just not ever going to be compatible.

I try to meet his needs, but he doesn't like affection, isn't a big fan of SF, doesn't do conversation, and says I drive him crazy admiring him all the time. He wants a domestic person who has his meals ready, the house clean, who looks like Barbie, and dresses like a whore at home.

Sorry for the rambling. I'm not any less frustrated and I feel like we're hanging on by a thread. We don't fight, we don't argue, we just discuss, disagree, and I do what he wants on most issues.

Hubby agreed to committ to trying MB program for 60 days last night.

I'm really glad and I believe this will turn our relationship around.