Wow, You sound much more positive and proactive today. I have no doubts you will succeed.

Markos,

I am nowhere near through reading this thread. But I have to tell you that locking yourself in the room may actually be MORE frustrating than you leaving.

Imagine: Help is right behind that door. But it is immoveable, unreachable, unaccessible, and UNWILLING to come to your rescue.

(Telly shudders).

If you leave, at least she can just buck up and deal with it and not think that you are right there, KNOWING how hard she is working, and doing NOTHING TO HELP HER.

You have to do the right thing, no matter WHAT Prisca is doing, and I think that was the point of our postings to you in the beginning of your threads, just as it is the point of our postings now.

Also, notice how when you logged your wife out of your joint account (and changed the password), you had a justification for it. But when she did it, it is counted agasint her.

You are in full-fledged, raving TAKER mode right now. Justifications, minimizations, and rationalizations abound for every action of yours, while hers are escalated to the level of unforgivable.

You have to quit looking at the past, thinking about where you SHOULD be, and what Prisca has done to prevent you from being there... That's where you were when you first got here.

Instead, pick yourself off, dust yourself off, and start over again.

Fix what you can, be the BEST Markos you can be, and get back on your marriage-rescue horse.

She loves you, Markos. SHe is angry and hurting (probably in taker mode, too). Do your part of the MB plan.

You can do this. You've done it before, and it can be done again!

Oh and read those text messages again when you are happy with her. They have manipulation written all over them. . .

Are you implementing LH's plan to come in anf take every thing over? (you said it was a great plan).

Or maybe you guys could work something out where you spend some pre-dinner time doing household chores?

You guys have to talk together (AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER) about what you both need right now.

Another thing our coach urged me to do yesterday was make more use of the private forum and posting to Dr. Harley directly.

I already felt like I was doing that quite a bit. But I'm going to try to be quicker to ask things directly.

Well, if I had access to Dr. H personally, that is what I would do!

I know you can both turn this around, Markos!!!

I gotcha! This makes much more sense; I was concerned to say the least when I thought you were including TV time in your UA time. My DH and I do the same thing when we go to a movie. We don't count the movie in our actual UA time.

good!!

Washer's fixed.

Onward and upward, sir.

FWW and I have a few shows which skirt out because we engage each other in conversation while we watch them.

One is the biggest loser, the other is UFC fights.

We often have to wind fights back, because we get so focused chatting about them, we miss the knockout blows and submissions.

I know that we are being cited sometimes here as a Marriage Builders success story, and this has been bugging me for awhile and I'm starting to feel like I'm deceiving folks by omission. I probably won't be seeking help here on this thread again, but I do want to set the record straight.

Prisca and I do not have a good marriage right now. I am still having angry outbursts. My last one was a week ago, the last one before that was two weeks before that, and the last one before that was a month. I am working with an anger management therapist and I accept that no matter what Prisca does these outbursts are my choice and under my control, and I am going to eliminate them. I did quite well with this for awhile last year, but as frustrations mounted, I relapsed.

I don't believe I have been physically violent to Prisca in three years, and then only two episodes when I put my hands on her.

There's more, but I'm just here to tell my part in it.

Do you understand the program?

Are you at work, every day, at working to follow the guidelines of the program?

You own your mistakes, Markos, and even that is a success in itself.

Beating yourself up will only lead you to self defeat. Own your choices and implement the changes to move away from poor choices and towards good choices.


Success doesn't have an endpoint, brother. Success is a constant work in progress.

Hey Markos, nobody gets from 0 to 100 overnight. But at least you are actively working the program with a goal in sight. My H and I about killed each other the first year we REALLY implemented this program but after we got it all down, our marriage was awesome.

Thanks Hold, and ML. I am not posting here to beat myself up, I am just posting here to alleviate my own feeling that people may have a wrong impression. I don't want to deceive anyone.

Yes, Hold, I am working on the program every day, every minute.

I don't know why, but I absolutely believe you.

I had a few issues with that nasty POJA!!

You, Mel? Uh! I can't believe that! Like you would ever argue... the thought of it... I'm shocked!

markos, if you ever want help with the AOs here, there are a lot of us who have BTDT and kicked them.

markos, my H and I were discussing AOs just last week. He still has them. I used to have them MIGHTY BAD, but have changed my ways, going on two years now. Anyway, after a particularly ugly bout of his AO, he clearly felt bad. He asked me, "How did you stop? I know I still make you mad sometimes, so how, HOW did you go from being a psycho with your head spinning [hehe...I knew what he meant, no offense taken] to just...calm?"

I told him, "I just decided that I didn't want to be that person anymore."

He hasn't had an AO since then, so I tell you the same:

You CAN decide to just simply not be that person anymore.