In this case I simply responded "I'm sorry.
I should tell you.
I should have told you."

That seems to me to be what Prisca is doing this morning. Very silent, not answering when I try to plan with her, etc. Not a lot of snide remarks, but a lot of "looks."

It could be anything; I don't know, because she won't tell me. I commented earlier that I guessed we wouldn't be able to go where we were going at 10, and it seemed to upset her a bit, but at this point there's no way to get there on time.

My take on it is that I should probably just keep plunging ahead, trying to cheerfully do what we have planned as best as possible and hoping she'll feel better or talk to me about the problem if she needs me to do something different.

But it's painful.

Pretty good day all told since then, though.

In my opinion, there are two types of these conversations:

* "You hurt my feelings, this is how: you did such-and-such, and that offends me."
* "You hurt my feelings, this is how: you did not do such-and-such, and I need you to do that."

Dr. Harley seems to see a distinction in these two situations. They look different in light of the policy of joint agreement and in light of the types of resentment they cause. In the first one, a spouse is asking the other spouse to follow the POJA and to avoid causing a potentially permanent resentment by taking action. In the other, a spouse is requesting that a need be met, and we know that that needs to be done according to the POJA and in a way that is enjoyable to the other spouse.

As an example, there is a big difference between a husband saying "You hurt my feelings by spending $200 on that dress without asking me" and "You hurt my feelings by not having sex with me last night." The wife's spending without her husband's knowledge goes against the POJA. But in the second case the husband's request, if he forces it, goes against the POJA and is a demand.

I've seen Dr. Harley make a distinction between these two kinds of conversations several times. Here's one old example, in the last paragraph of this post:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1325968#Post1325968

And here is a case where Dr. Harley explained the concept to me:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=160882&Number=2405440#Post2405440

Prisca felt that when I tried to have a conversation like that, I was making a demand. Dr. Harley agreed. He told me that it might be true that I was hurt that Prisca had failed to do something, but that my saying so was something that I should avoid because it was a way to make Prisca feel guilty! He also said that I should recognize that if I was hurt it was because of a wrong belief on my part that if Prisca really cared about me she would grant my request.

Even when there has been an agreement to do something and Prisca has changed her mind, she has reacted very strongly to me trying to have a conversation with her where I express "You hurt me by not doing such-and-such." And Dr. Harley agrees with that, too: even when there is an agreement made, if our feelings later change, it's not following the POJA to try to force the other to stick with the original agreement:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=160882&Number=2439993#Post2439993

I have stressed and stressed trying to live out this principle so that Prisca would not feel like I am making a demand of her or trying to make her feel guilty. But she has responded negatively, very negatively (love busters), when I have asked for the same consideration from her. I feel like I am stretched to the breaking point trying to avoid this kind of demand while still being subjected to the same from her. I am falling all over myself trying to put together this puzzle: Prisca is right whenever she says I am demanding or disrespectful, but when the situation is reversed exactly I am not right in saying she is demanding or disrespectful.

If I am manipulative to try to avoid the second kind of conversation that I listed above, then -- well, Prisca also tries to avoid the same kind of conversation!

I am not whining that I do not want to pay bills or help my wife with the very heavy load of taking care of our home and six children. I just want to quit being stabbed with this kind of disrespect. I can't stand anymore to hear "Please do it anyway, because you agreed to" -- because Prisca never would carry through like that for me. I can't stand to hear "Please do it anyway, because it'll hurt me if you don't" -- because there was no such compassion when I am hurting from the same pain of unmet needs. And I can't stand to hear "Please stand still while I tell you what I think is your fault" -- because Prisca does not want to hear when I tell her what I felt was her fault.

I agree with Dr. Harley that demands, disrespect, and anger are absolutely intolerable in a marriage. I agree that "You agreed to" and "it will hurt me if you don't" are statements that should be avoided, because of how much they hurt. I want the principles to applied by both of us.

I have two immediate thoughts:

1. That you are keeping score, and I think that in itself breeds resentment.

2. Does Dr Harley (or your coach) call Prisca to task about failing to meet her agreements?

Prisca hasn't renewed contact with Dr. Harley or our coach until recently, and she sounds like she's mad at Dr. Harley today so I'm not sure how long that will continue.

It was my understanding from what Dr. Harley said to us that he didn't want either of us called to task for failing to meet agreements, but that instead we were to renegotiate if one of us sensed a problem with a previously made agreement:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=160882&Number=2439993#Post2439993

I do not want a marriage where we keep score. I want a marriage where every decision we make is win-win.

I'm bowing out of this. There is some manipulation (at least perceived on my part) of the MB concepts here that I can't deal with. This is too frustrating for me.

Good luck, Markos and Prisca. I truly wish you the best and am very happy that you have Dr. Harley and Kim to guide you. You are in good hands!

Thanks for all your help, MarriedForever, and your patience with me.

I feel like things are going well for us at the moment. Prisca started asking for my disrespectful judgments worksheet again this week, which is huge to me. Going forward, I'm going to go back to just recording things that I feel are demanding, disrespectful, or angry outbursts and delivering the worksheet to her each week, and I think I'm just going to stay away from saying why I feel it is demanding, disrespectful, or an angry outburst, unless she asks.

I'm not quite sure what's going on this morning, but I'm distressed. We've had UA time scheduled for every morning this week; the last couple of mornings were pretty good, but this morning Prisca didn't seem to want to pay any attention. I finally concluded she was tired and had gone back to sleep -- and then she caught me crying and asked me what was wrong. I told her I was lonely and felt like she wasn't paying any attention to me (I had been talking to her and trying to be affectionate with her, and she hadn't been responding), and she didn't say anything. Now she's not speaking at all, and I feel like she's withdrawn because I complained.

I was really disappointed to find out that she wasn't asleep, that she really had been awake for everything and just wasn't responding.

Our UA time the last two mornings actually had SF on the schedule; she woke up for that and seemed to really enjoy it. But there was nothing on the schedule this morning other than coffee and conversation. I'm in the strange place of being a man who feels like his wife won't show him attention unless he offers sex. I really do need the other intimate emotional needs.

We finally talked a little bit, later, and Prisca implied that I had done something that made her not want to talk to me. She said it wasn't the fact that I complained -- but then she was silent when I asked her what it was. So I have no chance to know what I could change that would result in her being interested, or even if I could change anything, which is really frustrating.

We had 30 hours of UA time scheduled for this week; I don't know how much we've really had, but I know that most of the time we haven't spent the full time together. It bothers me that she doesn't seem more concerned about that.

The past is coming right back into my mind -- because the present doesn't seem any different. I don't know what I can do to get my wife interested in spending time with me, she won't tell me, I don't know if she's really intending to be vigilant about doing this program or not. I can't trust her. All last year while I was posting here and talking to her and complaining "We aren't doing the program," she was punishing me for saying it, and of course it turned out that it was absolutely the truth.

Prisca just read what I was typing over my shoulder and stormed out of the room and slammed the door.

Why, if you thought she was tired and had gone back to sleep, did you get upset to the point of crying?

Exactly.

Frankly, I think Markos sounds manipulative and controlling.

I don't think that at all. I am asking for clarification because I think it is often hard to convey in writing accurately what happened. Also, it is likely that that each party to any event might have slightly, or indeed, greatly, varying perspectives on what happened and why.

markos got very upset, and I think there must be a reason for that, unrelated to the normally inoffensive, understandable act of someone being very sleepy at 6AM. I wonder whether markos's reaction was triggered by his unhappiness over the past year, which has been around the issue of UA time to some extent.

I wonder, if so, whether next time markos could tell Prisca that it was a trigger, that he knows she didn't do it deliberately, and if they cannot somehow apologise to each other and try and get the day back on a better footing. I don't know why things deteriorated so badly from something that could be explained, and that's is why I asked him about it.

Whatever the reason for being upset, having repeated angry outbursts and saying nasty things again and again hours later, are death to recovery from the event. Prisca's hurt and disgust with the childless behaviour will linger for days. I know because it is what I have experienced with my H's excessive anger over accidents and unintended slights.

Repeatedly harping on the other person's selfish, hurtful, vicious (fill in the blank) behaviour more than an hour after it happened, especially when that behaviour has been misunderstood, is death to happiness and love. Furious tempers, outrage and vile words will kill a marriage just as surely as an affair will. This must stop.

I don't see how. This comment seems to me to be adding insult to injury. Markos has been through hell in this marriage and this incident obviously hurt him, as evidenced by his crying. Do we slap someone just because their feelings are hurt to the point of tears? What kind of a person does that?

Or is it better to show compassion and try not to do the things that caused the hurt and pain in the first place? For me, I don't like it when I hurt my husband, and I do things to alleviate that, not aggravate it. So I don't see how accusing Markos of being "manipulative and controlling" helps.

Rather, this incident indicates Markos's exhaustion to me. He has been in Plan A for many months with very little payoff and this is the result.

This is why Markos is exhausted to the point of tears:


He is worn out. I wonder if we should slap the hell out of him for that?

I will defer to your view. I suppose his AOs are reminding me of the AOs I endured in my last marriage. I probably can't be unbiased with a situation such as this.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{SmilingWoman}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I have to tell you that I am sooo happy for your new life with your new, wonderful husband. You deserve the very best and I am glad you are getting it, friend.

Hey, MarriedForever, I hope you are still reading. I wanted to let you know I appreciated your recent post on cemar's thread, the one where you said "Hope this helps someone." I felt like it helped me.

We're back after a week long vacation. We had some really good times, although obviously we had a miserable time on a day in the middle.

The rest of the day that I posted didn't go very well. Prisca cornered me in our room and I had an angry outburst. I should have gone out the other way. We tried to spend time together with our children on the beach, but I had an angry outburst there, as well.

What am I going to be doing differently to try to stop these angry outbursts? Dr. Harley says I need to be practicing relaxing in response to frustration, and thinking about such problems while I am relaxed EVERY DAY. I'm not doing that; I'm only doing it when I have a few spare minutes to think about it. I don't have a lot of spare minutes, so I am going to start scheduling this to make sure it happens and make sure it becomes my habit.

I am really sad that Prisca sometimes gets my hopes up and then doesn't follow through with what she agreed to do, but none of that justifies abusing her with an angry outburst, and I have no hope of having a good marriage until angry outbursts are gone. SmilingWoman's perspective is pretty valuable to me here; I do NOT want to be the abusive husband that I have become.

As for the question of why was I crying, I was crying because it is still extremely common for Prisca to disappoint me by backing out of POUA. Less common than it used to be, and I know she is making an effort, but it is still a recent occurrence. I would like her to show her commitment by treating the Marriage Builders program with the same enthusiasm that she started with last year, when she eagerly tracked our UA time, looked to our coach for help if it seemed like we weren't making it, etc.

There is more background to my crying. Last year when we started Marriage Builders, we had some great mornings together, but over time her enthusiasm waned and she went from hopping up with me when the alarm clock sounded to lying in bed while I tried to embrace her and beg her to pay attention to me. Finally one morning when I didn't wake her up for scheduled time, she blew up at me over it. We didn't have any time together in the mornings after that for months, until her renewed commitment this year. But it hurts to go back into a situation where I am trying to greet her in the morning and she is not responding.

Our first attempts to schedule time together in the mornings this year were pretty bad. We scheduled "conversation," but I would wake up and say good morning and try to talk to her and she would say nothing. I would embrace her and try to be physically affectionate with her, and she would not respond. Finally I found out that she was wanting and expecting SF and was clamming up because I wasn't doing it. She asked why I wasn't being sexual, and I responded that I didn't know that was what she wanted, and that I was trying to be affectionate and make conversation and that I assumed that if she wasn't interested in those she definitely wasn't interested in SF.

I have been really frustrated for a long time that our days don't start with some affection and conversation. I usually get up an hour or two before Prisca to get ready for work (until we started scheduling morning UA time together again) and come in to kiss her on my way out. She has gotten angry with me before for not kissing her, but she usually does not kiss me back or respond. Often the first thing I hear from her is an hour or two later at work when she will instant message me to let me know about something she wishes I had taken care of for her.

So since I knew Prisca was wanting SF in the mornings, I suggested we schedule four mornings of it on our trip. She was thrilled! We had two delightful mornings, and then the third morning SF was not scheduled and I was figuring we'd have a nice morning enjoying coffee together before the children woke up, but that was the morning she did not respond to me. We had scheduled eight hours of sleep. Prisca slept those eight hours; I only slept six because I was taking care of the baby and he had a difficult night. That's not terribly common, but I am the one who usually does most of the childcare at night. I am resentful that Prisca long ago agreed to take care of that job one night a week to give me the chance to catch up on my sleep and did not keep the agreement; I know I need to be radically honest with her about that. (But this is a bit of a struggle as I want to be requesting help, not guilting her into helping.)

So I was pretty tired, quite emotional, very lonely, thought I was alone, and I was crying.

Markos, is she proactively stopping behavior that triggers your angry outbursts? It doesn't sound like it here. While you and I both know you are 100% responsible for your AO's, she needs to stop doing things that trigger them. That will help you learn faster how to stop them. For example, my IB triggered my H's AO's. Once I stopped doing that, he relaxed and the AO's ceased. It made it much easier for him to learn to re-channel when he wasn't being daily triggered. I am amazed at the difference.

Did you go to Galveston?