Are you looking for an answer on how to guarantee that your wife will meet your needs?

There is no such answer. That will always be of her free will.

This is a difficult pill to swallow, and the danger is that the way react to this may be controlling (SDs, DJs, AOs).

What we can do is maximize the chances that your wife will meet your needs. You do that by building your balance in her love bank. The plan for that is to meet her emotional needs and avoid love busters. That's the only plan that works. If you are lucky she communicates with you and gives you helpful information to make your aim as accurate as possible. Many people are not that lucky, although some of those people have still succeeded at this.

Hill, I am emphatically in your court. I encourage you not to waste your time defending yourself over ANYTHING. A discussion like that here is pretty much a complete waste of time.

Markos I was incorrect and I apologize, it was actually abetterme that decided I never tell my wife where I am. Let's proceed sir. Abetterme, you said you have compassion for my wifes situation and I believe your characterization of me is judgmental and assumptive. You apologized once for being hard on me. Let's not make it a second and third, agreed?

Hill .. I think you guys are coming along rather well ... considering the circumstances. ***edit***

MNG

What exactly are you referring to here? I haven't once gotten the impression that Markos doesn't give you the benefit of the doubt. Actually, I think you could learn a lot from what he says whether it's hard for you to hear or not. Constructive criticsm is to be considered and appreciated. You don't need to defend yourself and if you get a 2x4, it's meant to help. Just clarify if you think something is misconstrued. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the things you've said in the past where you felt the need to re-explain yourself so we could "better see you were right" didn't turn out that way. You have a lot to learn. Let down your guard and open your heart and ears.


You may not think you were a jerk in a certain instance, but we hear of hurt feelings from Grace often. And honestly, your attitude in the past, even today, comes across as kind of "jerky" and "hard-headed". I'm wondering if today you're taking out your frutration with Grace here with us instead. Better to do it here of course, but it's really not going to get you where you want to be. You have A LOT of people here that have been in your shoes and dedicate time out of there day (and have for years) to come here and walk you through a process that is PROVEN to work. If you want it to work for you, you have to STOP FIGHTING IT.


If this is what you're here to do, then start listening, following in the advice and REALLY REALLY think about whether or not your TRULY "defending yourself over nothing". We're all here trying to help you create love but so far you haven't gone more than a few days without reverting to your bad habits. You have to accept that this is a process. 2 or 3 days of "bliss" do not equal a lifetime of easy sailing. I'm concerned you expect this and get frustrated when you don't get it. It's going to be a long road. I've been doing this for over a year and am just beginning to truly experience what I've wanted to badly.

I should mention that as soon as I accepted responsibility for my own LB's and embraced what I felt were the most difficult aspects of MB, I wasn't making much progress. I think that right now, if something is really really hard for you to do, but you KNOW it's right, there is a hang-up of some kind you need to address within yourself. At least that was the case for me.

Hilltopper, I NEVER said you NEVER tell your wife where you are. I asked if were normal for you to not keep her up to date on your whereabouts. This WASN'T an accusation, this was a QUESTION. That's why it ended with a ? and not a !

This is the quote that gave me the impression you left without saying anything:


If if this was all my husband said to me when he left for the day,


I'd get the impression he was irritated with me because it came across as very cold.

Markos,

LBs are still put to bed and I know that my history shows that when I crave my needs to be met I make mistakes. I'm aware of this and us why um hear asking questions and be cautious. My wife and I just had a brief talk and all us good. Our conversation was respectful, and no one made demands or DJd. There was definitely confusion I'd say. I particularly and regularly get confused by my wife and I'm sure the opposite might be true. From my perspective she vascillates frequently which makes me feel like a three-toed sloth trying to keep up with a cheetah. All in all we both handled it great! Oops, sorry for the exclamation point.

You both vascilate frequently due to the fact neither of you feel safe with one another yet. The key to fixing this, as you already know, is avoiding LB's. No excuses, just don't do them.

Oh i forgot to mention .. make sure to show your wife all those videos .. there is more than what i posted, probably like 10 videos or so .. .. but they are a VERY good watch all of them infact. Hopefully they have an impact on you like they did to me.

MNG

Videos great! Nice to change it up I'll watch tonight thanks mng!

NP! ... they are christian oriented so I hope that would not distract you from the actualy message of each video.. but the concepts are pretty much MB .. just explained in a different light with a bit of humor.

EdiT: I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on them ...

**edit**

moderator's note: do not disrupt this thread again!

I think deciding how much rejection you're willing to accept is a personal decision and is too difficult to summarize. There are two many variables in a marriage, especially one that is longer term. And this has nothing to do with "designing marriage around the woman". Each marriage is different and that is too broad of a statement.

There is rejection and hurt on both sides in Hill's situation. Neither party is guitless. The issue I see with Hill is that his anger and hurtful words have caused Grace to go into severe withdrawal. She has, over time, learned to interact with him in the same way with AO's and DJ's. The damage they've done to the other however will affect the other person differently. I know that Hill is scared and lacking confidence, but I get the impression it is felt much deeper by Grace. It's not fair, but life (and marriage) isn't always fair.

If Hill wants his wife to love him in the way he wants to be loved, he has to get her Love Bank out of the red and create a safe place for her to meet his needs.

And cemar, this statement is just dripping with sarcasm and generalizations. It's not constructive and certainly isn't going to help Hill.

Cemar, Hilltopper AND Grace are BOTH implementing the MB plan.

Which is more than we can say for you. Please don't discourage these posters with your unwillingness to follow the program.

Hilltopper,

Something else I meant to mention yesterday and forgot. Another good help for eliminating DJs completely is to practice being respectful all the time. And I don't mean with just your wife. Make a very concerted effort to be respectful with everybody around you, even showing respect to those who don't seem to deserve it.

It's not that you're trying to fill their love bank like you are trying to fill your wife's. BUT, it's a whole lot easier to be respectful of your wife when you are in the habit of thinking and acting respectfully with everybody.

I haven't perfected it yet. But it's good practice, and does help to change the way you think.

****edit****

If you have a problem with a Mod edit - contact the moderator directly - do not discuss it here on the forum.



**edit**

Hill, I think you and your wife should repeat what you think the other person meant. Often what we say and what we mean do not come across the same to each other.

I don't have any great examples off the top of my head. My wife used to infer a lot of things when she would say things and then get frustrated because I didn't read between the lines.

So we started with the "Okay, I hear you saying that ....."

And she would say, "No, I meant that...."

Awesome! Now we're both on the same page.

This alleviates all the reading into and trying to decipher and wondering if she really meant A when she said A or if she really means B.

What I read from your wife's comment about please ask me, but I don't want expectations is:

You asking her for a hug, not demanding a hug. Do you see the difference?

Asking implies request, telling implies a demand.

In a similar situation when DH is busy with something I usually give him a kiss on the cheek and say "Hey, I'm off hun, see you this afternoon, bye!"

I hope you also starred certain items as more important, so she can get more bang for her buck.

If he's in the bathroom with the door locked (we have kids) I'll knock on the door and say the same thing.

The way I saw the list of things that you gave your wife, this is a menu of things that she can do for you. I didn't really think it was a list of things she MUST do everyday. I think that's what she means by expectations. Your best bet is to ask her what she meant by it.

Its possible text is not the best method of communication for you all. Or maybe start using more emoticons so that you can convey more meaning.

Happy, I think you hit the nail on the head with this insight.