Thanks, SMB. You really know how to hit close to home.

Yes, I'd say I find a lot of my perspective changing since my revelation. Including the vanishing of a lot of that resentment.

Yes, I did send Prisca a list of my emotional needs. I am looking at her list frequently and trying to do things from it every day.

As for complaints, for now I just want to be able to say "no" or to negotiate when she asks me to do something or has expectations for me. She asks for more and more and I quickly find myself overbooked and I don't find any understanding on her part for that.

I want to focus on conversation, but she belittles my attempts to have conversation or ignores me. I would like to talk about the things we used to enjoy talking about and the things on her list, but the only things I find her willing to talk about are her requests for me and how I am bothering her.

How's that workin' for ya?

Markos,

I am on your and Prisca's side...because it is the SAME side.

You both continue to hurt each other over and over and over and keep wondering why what you are doing isn't working.

Someone has to stop.

Someone has to decide to put their big boy/girl pants on and start operating in their intellect instead of their taker/giver mode.

I'll tell you this. If I was not in love with my husband and he wanted to bring up issues with me about what I am doing wrong, my response would be, "Who gives of f@#* what your issues are. You want MY list of issues. You're not such a prize either!" I may not SAY it, but I would certainly be thinking it.

Your complaints are not going to be heard in the way you want them heard until your wife is in love with you. THEN she will CARE that something she is doing hurts you.

Until then, it's just another love bank withdrawal you are making.

Not well at all, but saying "yes" to everything didn't work well at all, either.

I know. There isn't a route to success that I can see that doesn't involve me doing a lot of hard work on that front, first, up front.

But I feel set up to failure in that her immediate pressing concerns are always presented to me as something that I must resolve right now, at any cost. I start to work on one of those, and then something else is more important. All of them seem to get in the way of the intimate emotional needs.

I agree, and I will accept the consequences for my actions. What I did was disgusting and inexcusable. It was wrong to try to hide from it for so long.

Prisca has a right to be upset and even angry over this.

Yes.

I realized this morning that actually Prisca isn't doing anything right now for me to be resentful over. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I can keep arguing about how I felt I was right to be resentful about some things in the past, but that's beyond stupid.

Yea! Now you can move on to falling back in love with each other.

In other news:


This level of cooperation has never been observed by markos' boss in history. Lots and lots of promises to talk to upper management about letting us work from home, but very little actually done. Today he just said "yes."

I'm giddy. I'm probably dreaming.

Wow! That is great! (I am assuming you are certain Prisca will welcome this change in schedule---don't want it to be an IB)

Make the most of the schedule perk.

I took the initiative and then emailed Prisca the same clip I posted here. She about fell over dead from shock that my boss said yes, and then when she came back to life, she seemed overjoyed.

Now we've got to get our fancy bluetooth headsets working so we can hear each other in the gym. When we walk on treadmills or use the exercise bikes, we can't hear each other, which is the whole point in being there.

Prisca has corrected me. She can hear me just fine. I just can't hear her because I'm OLD!

(It's not my fault. Those crazy kids who run the gym want to play their loud music all the time. Why would anyone want loud music playing while they exercise?)

Markos,

I am so happy that you took the initiative and found a creative way to be more available to your family!!!

It is very challenging to get several young ones ready to go out the door, and sometimes it feels like it's just not worth the effort. My guess is that you have made some mega love unit deposits by making this new arrangement to your schedule.

Now the key to this is to REALLY be helpful to Prisca. And so I suggest you (POJA) HOW to get everyone ready. Like...you take care of Georgie, Jimmy, and Larry, and I'll take care of Ammie, Lisa, and Lulu.

Or....I'll get all the kids dressed and ready to walk out the door, if you could get all the bags packed.

See what I mean?

This would be a great POJA topic because you both are already enthusiastic about the end goal--going to the gym. Just work out the logistics together so that you really are helping her get ready.

And that working at home thing....you and Prisca are going to have some great POJA opportunities with that!

You done good, Markos!!! Reall good!

To drown out the accidental exercise-induced farts.

I think Pep just called me an old fart...

I can understand, though, why people would want to drown me out.

Well, today I worked at home and we got out the door headed for our UA time at the gym earlier than ever!

And then we got to the gym and all the lights were off and nobody was there. Odd. A staff member at the front let us know the gym was closed due to the weather.

Weather?

Went across the street to the Wal-Mart and it wasn't long before we got a call from Prisca's parents letting us know tornados were being sighted out to the west and we were about to be under a tornado warning.

So we popped into the Wal-Mart "real quick" to get something nice for dinner and then head home.

Long story short: Markos, Prisca, and our six children, in the back of the shut-down Wal-Mart during a tornado warning, for about an hour or more. While a tornado apparently passed overhead without touching the store. What a great night!

We're home, now. Hopefully no more significant severe weather will occur.

For what it's worth, this young girl in the news yesterday (left in the picture) looks almost exactly like her:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/The_royal_family_on_the_balcony_%28cropped%29.jpg

I never would have guessed it, but the royal wedding and history of the British royal family has become an enjoyable conversation topic for Prisca and me.

(Prisca has British ancestry, including a relative who is over there right now. She wanted me to hasten to add here that that causes more interest than she would otherwise have. There's a sense in which we don't get Americans being fascinated with the nobility of any country. And yet, here we are, reading and discussing the headlines. I guess it's our new vice.)

I just totalled up our UA time for the week, and my count comes to 13.5 hours. I don't have complete records, but I'm pretty sure we haven't hit that high of a count since last year.

Massive amounts of that are simply evening conversation, which I am enjoying immensely.

No wonder I feel fantastic.

Our mornings now start with affection and time spent together. Although some of those mornings we're a little drowsy due to staying up late because we can't STOP TALKING. Which is a very nice problem to have!

We're working through the conversation lesson. I can tell Prisca's doing outside reading on the MB site besides just the book. We're about to order updated copies of HNHN since we never got the new editions. (I still think there should've been more fanfare about that here! )

Prisca told me this week it would be okay if I canceled my next anger management phone session (three weeks from now), and just schedule another if needed down the road. When I started, Newton Hightower told me we would let me wife decide when to start spacing out appointments and when to discontinue altogether. I think I'm going to leave the session in place, though; three weeks is a long time. Not quite done reading Newton's book, either.

We continue to have conflicts. Prisca continues to get very silent at times and I am clueless as to why. And then I start thinking, and I usually discover that I've engaged in a love buster (last Sunday morning I said something that made her feel judged; a few nights before that, she said something about how we needed to solve a particular problem, and I mysteriously got up and began implementing my own solution to that problem with vigor, without consulting Prisca at all as to HOW she wanted to solve it or even if she wanted to solve it right there and then - massive Independent Behavior). And I hate doing that, because I know how it makes my wife feel, and I apologize. And she's become such a wonderful, merciful person. In fact, the other night I put myself in a bad situation and made a bad unilateral decision that had some pretty bad effects for her. I excused myself at the time by telling myself there was "no other choice" and minimizing what I thought the effect would be on her. The next morning it was obvious I'd screwed up. We talked about it briefly, and it quickly became clear she was forgiving me, even though I didn't deserve it in the slightest.

We continue to have conflicts, but it's just amazing how much smoother they are and how many fewer love busters happen on both sides.

We're discussing the problems we face in life, the challenges of raising our children, and the things we want to accomplish, and we're moving toward solutions, and it's just wonderful.

To all of you who have offered the appropriate 2x4s, the necessary advice and encouragement and reproach, thank you. From the bottom of my heart.